Our work began with a primary emphasis on understanding the acquisition and retention of literacy in cultural context. Scholarly interests followed in the intellectual tradition of trying to be sensitive to differences and specificities within a culture – the emic perspective – while at the same time attempting to achieve a more general and generalizable understanding of literacy across settings and cultures – the etic perspective. As work progressed we observed that numerous educational, social and economic policy questions began to take shape, all depending in one way or another on solid data about literacy. Thus, it became clear early on that we had an unusual opportunity to chart new ground in the interface between literacy research and literacy policy. We can now review some of the policy questions that are often raised about literacy and development and that may be addressed by the data collected in Morocco.

Literacy definitions and data collection

There are many possible definitions of literacy, as well as ways to categorize the skills that are present or absent in children and adults. In Morocco, we sought to utilize broad domains of literacy (such as reading and writing), but to base all classifications and quantitative analyses on the direct measurement of a variety of observed, surveyed, or tested skills. For example, we avoided labeling unschooled or religiously schooled individuals as illiterate, even though they may possess few of the literacy skills required for “economic productivity.”