The Spread of Literacy in a Latin American Peasant Society: Oaxaca, Mexico, 1890 to 1980

In colonial times Latin American societies restricted literacy to a small elite but in the nineteenth century this restriction began to ease. Today, about three-fourths of the people in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, can at least read and write. This article explores how the change from illiteracy to literacy came about and contributes a Latin American case to general comparative historical research on the causes of the literacy aspect of modernization. Because literacy in 1991 is by no means widespread in rural and urban settings around the world or in the United States, explanations of the phenomena have implications for contemporary understanding and policy.