Drawing on more than twenty-five years of his teaching and administering of literacy programs, and also on his experience forming literacy policy and conducting research, Quigley reveals some unrecognized truths about who illiterate people are and what they need and want in the way of educational opportunities. Advocating a refocus of attention on the learner, Quigley also points to the practitioners currently working in the field as the key to improving the effectiveness of literacy education. This guide gives those adult educators and trainers concrete suggestions and alternatives for their work, and provides them with historical and evolutionary frameworks that they can use to shape a new philosophy of adult literacy and improve their practice.

1998 Winner of the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult EducationIn this thought-provoking book, Quigley offers a new view of illiteracy that starts with the learner and takes into account a broad array of work, family, and cultural considerations. This guide gives adult educators and trainers working in the field concrete suggestions and alternatives for their work that they can use to shape a new philosophy of adult literacy and improve their practice.

Review
?This book is challenging, useful, insightful, authoritative, and hopeful—one that every adult literacy education policy and program leader, researcher and practitioner should read. With this work, Allan Quigley has made a first-rate contribution to our field.? (Jean H. Lowe, director, GED Testing Service)

?Quigley's perspective on adult literacy is fresh and provocative. Rethinking Literacy Education impels adult literacy professionals to reconsider what they are doing and why.? (Hal Beder, professor, department of educational theory, policy, and administration, Rutgers)

?Valuable in encouraging literacy practitioners to be more proactive in challenging misguided public policy and damaging literacy rhetoric.? (Elisabeth Hayes, associate professor, department of continuing and vocational education, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

B. ALLAN QUIGLEY is associate professor and regional director of adult education at the Pennsylvania State University Center for Continuing and Graduate Education, Monroeville, Pennsylvania.