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The Cuban Literacy Campaign (Spanish: ''Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización en Cuba'') was a year-long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution.〔Perez, Louis A. Cuba Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Print.〕 It began on January 1 and ended on December 22, 1961, becoming the world's most ambitious and organized literacy campaign.〔Uriarte, Miren. Cuba: Social Policy at the Crossroads: Maintaining Priorities, Transforming Practice. An Oxfam America Report. 2002, pp. 6-12. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60-76%, largely because of lack of educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors.〔Kellner 1989, p. 61.〕 As a result, the Cuban government of Fidel Castro at Che Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education", and sent "literacy brigades" out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate ''Guajiros'' (peasants) to read and write. The campaign was "a remarkable success", and by the completion of the campaign, 707,212 adults were taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.〔 In 2011, producer and director Catherine Murphy released the 33-minute documentary MAESTRA about the Cuban Literacy Campaign. The film includes interviews with volunteers who taught during the campaign and archival footage from 1961. ==Background== The dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by an armed guerrilla movement known as the 26th of July Movement (''Movimiento 26, de Julio'') on January 1, 1959.〔"Cuban Revolution." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 11 March 2010 http://www.encyclopedia.com.〕 The new revolutionary government, led by Fidel Castro, immediately began a series of social and economic reforms. Among these were agrarian reform, health-care reform, and educational reform, all of which dramatically improved the quality of life among the lowest sectors of Cuban society.〔Serra, Ana. The "New Man" in Cuba Culture and Identity in the Revolution (Contemporary Cuba). New York: University of Florida, 2007. Print.〕 During the turmoil of the first several years of the revolution, the flight of many skilled workers caused what is known as a “brain drain.” This loss of human capital sparked a renovation of the Cuban educational system that was needed in order to accommodate the instruction of new workers, who would take the place of those who had emigrated from the country.〔Klein, Deborah. "Education as Social Revolution." Independent School 63.3 (2004): 38-47.EBSCO. Web. 20 February 2010.〕 In addition to the renewal of Cuba’s infrastructure, there were also strong ideological reasons for educational reform. In pre-Revolutionary Cuba, there was a dichotomy between urban citizens and rural citizens (who were often agricultural workers). The Cuban Revolution was driven by the need for equality, particularly among these classes. Before the Campaign, the rate of illiteracy among city dwellers was 11%, compared to 41.7% in the countryside.〔Jeffries, C. Illiteracy: A World Problem. London: Pall Mall Press. 1967. Print.〕 The Literacy Campaign was designed to force contact between sectors of society that would not usually interact. As Fidel Castro put it in 1961 while addressing literacy teachers, “You will teach, and you will learn.”〔 Volunteers from the city were often ignorant of the poor conditions of rural citizens until their experiences during the literacy campaign. Besides literacy, the campaign aimed to create a collective identity of “unity, () attitude of combat, courage, intelligence, and a sense of history.” Politicized educational materials were used to further these ideals.〔Chomsky, Aviva, Barry Carr, and Pamela M. Smorkaloff, eds. The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2003. Print.〕 The effort was labeled a movement of “the people”, and gave citizens a common goal to work towards, increasing solidarity.〔Supko, Ruth A. Perspectives on the Cuban National Literacy Campaign. Latin American Studies Association. 26 September 1998. Web. 20 February 2010. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cuban Literacy Campaign」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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