Choosing the problems

Not unlike the anthropology student Rabinow so aptly describes, our research team sought not only the experience of doing the work and an appropriate methodology of inquiry but also the objective data that could answer the “important questions” about literacy in Morocco. We felt that there were four major questions to address: What are the functions of literacy in a society like Morocco? How do Moroccan children and adolescents acquire and retain literacy, taking into account the many within country factors such as family background, native language, gender, and preschooling? What international policy issues could be addressed from such a project on literacy in a developing country? What kinds of methods – old and new – could be developed or adapted for use in a study of literacy in Morocco? Let us consider briefly what was involved in each of these questions.

The first question followed on interest in understanding the cultural nature of literacy learning. More than a century of work exists on the cognitive and pedagogical aspects of successful and not so successful reading acquisition in Western countries and in Western (Indo-European) languages.