IDENTIFIERS '-Empowerment

'Defining literacy is a compelling challenge to-dOcatert. They generally use three models: instrumental, functional, and empowerment. The latter two Approaches,.-which were increasingly evident in the 1980s, identify literacy by the-social functiOns required in a.-given context or by the-qualitiet needed for illiterate people to take control of their lives. A functional definition of litetacy is partidularly suited, to adult-education in the United States--for the following reasons: v1). a functional. approach is capable of encompassing all of the various roles adult education-encompasses; (2) selfimprovementas an end-in-Itself pervades adult education; 43)- development. of _the;.Individual is integral to a-democratic society; and (4) adult education is a creation of the middle-classeS, which-ate most likely to embrace a-vision of education as a means to upward- The argument for literacy as a means of social and d-poiitical empowerment reflects the tendency o