The promotion and the development of adolescents’ literacy in five European countries

Abstract

Over the past years, European countries have taken several reforms, aiming at promoting literacy among adolescents and improving countries’ position in the PISA ranking. The ‘problematic’ results in the PISA substantiated the feeling of a literacy crisis in Europe spread by ‘literacy sponsors’, such as UNESCO, OECD and European Union. In this sense, the High Level Group of Experts on literacy (HLG, 2012), with the EU support, defined 3 key intervention policy areas for member states to address the literacy needs of all citizens: literate environment, quality of teaching and participation and inclusion. Under this analytical framework, this text seeks at characterizing 127 adolescents’ literacy initiatives, programs and policy measures from Portugal, Spain, Greece, Romania and Ireland. The documents collected regarding this cases were analysed according to six categories: goals, contexts, actors, activities, and resources. The content analysis allows us to discuss the extent to which literacy policies and practices are meeting the recommendations of the HLG. Ultimately, it allows the discussion of what might be the main effects of such initiatives on the adolescents’ school lives.