page_title: Literacy
section_title: Cultural and westernized literacy for Native Americans in the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Literacy / By continent / North America / United States / Cultural and westernized literacy for Native Americans in the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Pupils at en:Carlisle Indian Industrial School, en:Pennsylvania (c. 1900). Source: Frontier Forts
context_page_description: Literacy is popularly understood as an ability to read, write and use numeracy in at least one method of writing, an understanding reflected by mainstream dictionary and handbook definitions. Starting in the 1980s, however, literacy researchers have maintained that defining literacy as an ability apart from any actual event of reading and writing ignores the complex ways reading and writing always happen in a specific context and in tandem with the values associated with that context. The view that literacy always involves social and cultural elements is reflected in UNESCO's stipulation that literacy is an "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts." Modern attention to literacy as a "context-dependent assemblage of social practices" reflects the understanding that individuals' reading and writing practices develop and change over the lifespan as their cultural, political, and historical contexts change.
context_section_description: Before colonization, oral storytelling and communication composed most if not all Native American literacy. Native people communicated and retained their histories verbally—it was not until the beginning of American Indian boarding schools that reading and writing forms of literacy were forced onto Native Americans. While literacy rates of English increased, forced assimilation exposed Native children to physical and sexual abuse, unsanitary living conditions, and even death. Many students ran away in an attempt to hold on to their cultural identity and literary traditions that were relevant to their community. While these formalized forms of literacy prepared Native youth to exist in the changing society, they destroyed all traces of their cultural literacy. Native children would return to their families unable to communicate with them due to the loss of their indigenous language. In the 20th and 21st century, there is still a struggle to learn and maintain cultural language. But education initiatives and programs have increased overall—according to the 2010 census, 86 percent of the overall population of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have high school diplomas, and 28 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher.
caption: Native youth in front of Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania c. 1900
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