Comment by liontwist
4 days ago
150 years ago people could absolutely read.
> schooling fixed all that
Not globalization, industrialization, and urbanization?
4 days ago
150 years ago people could absolutely read.
> schooling fixed all that
Not globalization, industrialization, and urbanization?
I can not talk for the US, but in Sweden it was schooling. I think Sweden has better literacy rates earlier than the US, but I guess I really should compare this on a state level considering how the US works. I am pretty sure that it is a political goal not an economic one, this is obvious considering US black literacy levels took until 1979 to be comparable to whites. I would like to point out that the Danish nobility discussed but decided against keeping poor and oppressed farmers illiterate in the 18th century, so it is not really an issue of globalization.
>I am pretty sure that it is a political goal not an economic one, this is obvious considering US black literacy levels took until 1979 to be comparable to whites.
I don't follow. 1979 would have been a high point in closing the black/white economic gap in America (partly because of the falling economic prospects of white Americans at the time).
Over here education came first economics later, that will color my conclusions. I am pretty sure giving black people as little education as possible was a political goal in the US.
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