A Study on Public Attitudes toward Community Contribution in the Implementation and Development of Adult Literacy

Illiteracy and low education level are problems in developing countries including Iran. Although access to higher education has almost become pervasive in big cities and provincial capitals, illiteracy and low education level are yet a chronic problem in other layers of the society. The purpose of the current study is to assess and to compare the public attitudes toward community contribution in the adult literacy. The research design was descriptive in which two groups of subjects were selected based on convenience sampling from ordinary and elite Shiraz residents. All participants filled out the Lack of Public Participation Questionnaire (LPPQ) which was developed by the author. The results showed that the subjects in both groups have a neutral idea about the necessity of community contribution in the adult literacy. In other words, they had not systematically thought about this subject. Also, the results showed that women and the elite group see the public participation in adult literacy more necessary in comparison to men and the ordinary group, respectively. This study demonstrated that people explained their lack of participation in literacy by using some dysfunctional thoughts such as “Society needs to illiterate persons to do dirty jobs”. It seems that such dysfunctional thoughts are influenced by the existence of unemployed higher-educated graduates in the society.