There was a period of time, from the late 1980s until the early/mid-2000s, when interest in adult literacy in Canada was strong among the public, in the media, and with policymakers, and a policy window opened for the mainstreaming of literacy. Against this background, it is surprising that the Canadian literacy infrastructure was subsequently largely dismantled. Drawing on theories of policy formation, and recent and previous research, including interviews with key stakeholders, we argue that mainstreaming literacy has failed and explore the reasons for this failure. The paper is structured in three sections. First, we report on the construction of an adult literacy infrastructure in Canada over two phases: i) the period from the 1970s up until the launch of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in 1994; ii) the story of IALS and changes occurring up until around 2005. Second, we examine the reasons for the failure of the mainstreaming of literacy in Canada. We conclude with further reflections on the present situation in which adult literacy has been largely reduced to employability skills which are under-supported.

中文翻译：

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成人扫盲的兴衰：加拿大的政策教训

从1980年代末到2000年代初/中期，有一段时间，公众，媒体和决策者对加拿大成人扫盲的兴趣浓厚，为扫盲主流化打开了政策窗口。在这种背景下，令人惊讶的是，加拿大的扫盲基础设施随后被大量拆除。基于政策形成的理论以及最近和以前的研究，包括与主要利益相关者的访谈，我们认为将扫盲纳入主流已经失败，并探讨了导致失败的原因。本文分为三个部分。首先，我们分两个阶段报告加拿大的成人扫盲基础设施建设情况：i）从1970年代到1994年国际成人扫盲调查（IALS）开展的时期；ii）IALS的故事以及直到2005年左右发生的变化。其次，我们研究了加拿大扫盲主流化失败的原因。我们对目前的状况作进一步的思考，在这种情况下，成人识字率已大大降低为缺乏支持的就业技能。