Literacy in the United States
Cultural Literacy in relation to Crime and Race
Cultural Literacy is included in the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime (1), beginning with: E. D. Hirsch, Jr., published the national bestseller Cultural Literacy in 1987, thereby sparking a lively debate about the value and desirability of a national educational canon. This debate was based, in part, on an incomplete understanding of Hirsch’s proposition; nevertheless, many concluded that the foundation of his argument was rooted in a privileging of the educational worldview of the White, Protestant, and male. A few years later, Terence Thornberry and then Larry Siegel and Marvin Zalman published separate articles on cultural literacy within the study of criminology and criminal justice, respectively. Their arguments were similarly met with criticism for the perceived overreliance on the works of White male scholars in their respective fields. This section defines cultural literacy in the general sense, discusses the nature of the criticism against it, then turns to the specific cultural literacies of criminology and criminal justice, along with the criticism against them.
Finding the law: Literacy in the U.S. Code
A collection of general and permanent laws relating to literacy, passed by the United States Congress, are organized by subject matter arrangements in the United States Code (U.S.C.; this label examines literacy topics), to make them easy to use (usually, organized by legal areas into Titles, Chapters and Sections). The platform provides introductory material to the U.S. Code, and cross references to case law. View the U.S. Code’s table of contents here.
Resources
Notes and References
- Entry about Cultural Literacy in the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime