 Weak foundations in Arabic literacy: Drivers of learning poverty in JordanLama Nusair and Robert Palmer International Journal of Educational Development, 2023, vol. 99, issue C Abstract: In 2019, the World Bank introduced the concept of “learning poverty” to draw attention to the proportion of children aged 10 that could not read with comprehension. This paper addresses the drivers of learning poverty in Jordan, estimated to be over 60%, examining the literacy pathway a child takes through both the home and school learning environments. We conducted a qualitative comparative policy analysis drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with twelve Jordanian primary school teachers and quantitative data from Jordan’s 2018 National Teacher Survey (re-analysed for this study). We find that these drivers include: parental engagement with their children’s literacy learning (often affected by parents’ own low literacy levels and a weak culture of reading); the profile of early grade teachers; the automatic grade progression policy that allows struggling readers to progress to higher grade levels; and, schooling infrastructure (principally overcrowded classrooms and inadequately resourced libraries). Keywords: Arabic; Literacy; Learning Poverty; Jordan; SDG4 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:injoed:v:99:y:2023:i:c:s0738059323000500 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2023.102774 Access Statistics for this article International Journal of Educational Development is currently edited by Stephen P Heyneman More articles in International Journal of Educational Development from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.