Not being able to read also doesn’t auromatically equate dumb though. It just highlights a systemic failure of the educations system. And arguably a country experiencing a language divide to this degree is a systemic failure of some kind as well.
Comment on New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
JDubbleu@programming.dev 8 months agoThis is basically a map of how many Mexican immigrants each state has. I agree the English bias is not great because not speaking English doesn’t make you dumb.
kraftpudding@lemmy.world 8 months ago
darq@kbin.social 8 months ago
Many countries have myriad languages in them, often because they contain myriad cultures. That's not a failing at any level, it's just diversity.
kraftpudding@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah, but I’d argue those countries either have people being decebtly fluent in multiple languages (which is not what this graphit implies) or they have evolved their institutions and society in a way where meaningful societal and political participation is possible regardless of what language you speak. I don’t think the US is at that level, and I think.kt not being that way if this is lived reality for a lot of Americans IS a systemic failure.
The failure is not necessarily having multiple languages spoken, but the institutions not reflecting this reality. So you can either invest in people being fluent in a common language in addition to whatever languages they may speak OR redesign institutions and reshape society. Not doing any of the two is a systemic failure imo.
darq@kbin.social 8 months ago
It would be interesting to see the same data, restricted to participants whose first language is English.