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Historical dataset showing U.K. literacy rate by year from N/A to N/A.
In the past five decades, the global literacy rate among adults has grown from 67 percent in 1976 to 87.36 percent in 2023. In 1976, males had a literacy rate of 76 percent, compared to a rate of 58 percent among females. This difference of over 17 percent in 1976 has fallen to just seven percent in 2020. Although gaps in literacy rates have fallen across all regions in recent decades, significant disparities remain across much of South Asia and Africa, while the difference is below one percent in Europe and the Americas. Reasons for these differences are rooted in economic and cultural differences across the globe. In poorer societies, families with limited means are often more likely to invest in their sons' education, while their daughters take up a more domestic role. Varieties do exist on national levels, however, and female literacy levels can sometimes exceed the male rate even in impoverished nations, such as Lesotho (where the difference was over 17 percent in 2014); nonetheless, these are exceptions to the norm.
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study is an international survey of the educational achievement of the equivalent of year 5 pupils across the world organised by the IEA. A total of 49 countries participated in PIRLS 2011. The survey included an assessment of pupils' reading ability, a survey of pupils' background characteristics and attitudes towards school and learning, and a survey of their teachers including their qualifications, instructional time dedicated to various topics, and the school environment for teaching and learning. The Department owns the data collected from students in England in the most recent study 2011 and will also hold matched data files of the PIRLS data with pupils' NPD records once the contract with the national survey administrators expires.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The Adult Literacy Survey, carried out in Great Britain in 1996, was part of an international programme of surveys known as the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). The aim was to profile the literacy skills of adults aged 16-65 using an internationally agreed measure. The objectives were to provide data for international comparison; to provide a profile of adult literacy in Great Britain; to provide a self-assessment of literacy skills by respondents; to collect background information to examine the link between literacy and socio-economic factors such as education, employment and income. Main Topics: Distribution of literacy by socio-demographic characteristics; literacy skills and work; occupational demand for literacy; literacy in everyday life; literacy practices and literacy skills; self-assessment of literacy skills for work and everyday life; adult education and training. Standard Measures Three measures of literacy (prose, document and quantitative) were calculated using Item Response Theory (IRT) by Educational Testing Services (ETS) of Princeton, New Jersey. Multi-stage stratified random sample The sampling frame was the Postcode Address File (PAF). Postcode sectors are the primary sampling unit. Sectors were stratified by region and indicators from the 1981 Census (SEG and proportion of households with no car available). There was oversampling in Scotland and Wales. One person per household was selected by the interviewer at random using Kish grid. Face-to-face interview CAPI
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This dataset is about books. It has 47 rows and is filtered where the book subjects is Literacy-Great Britain. It features 9 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
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The proportion of foundation stage children (five year olds) achieving early learning goals in communication, language and literacy based on four measures: language for communication and thinking, linking sounds and letters, reading, writing Source: Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) Publisher: Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) Geographies: County/Unitary Authority, Government Office Region (GOR), National Geographic coverage: England Time coverage: 2006 to 2009 Type of data: Administrative data
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United States - Literacy Rate, Adult Total for Other Small States was 86.25975 % of People Ages 15 and Above in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Literacy Rate, Adult Total for Other Small States reached a record high of 86.25975 in January of 2023 and a record low of 71.82288 in January of 1983. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Literacy Rate, Adult Total for Other Small States - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on October of 2025.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The aim of the Scottish Survey of Adult Literacies, 2009 (SSAL2009) was to update existing data on working age (16-65 year old) adults’ literacies skills, and to provide a new baseline estimate of the general population’s levels of literacies skills in Scotland. This included an assessment of skills on three literacies scales; prose, document and quantitative literacy. The aim of the survey also included exploring patterns of literacies skills and analysing these skills in relation to respondents’ social backgrounds. The sampling strategy ensures a high degree of representativeness and allows in-depth discussion of issues such as gender, social class, urbanisation and work. SSAL2009 is based on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) carried out in 1996 as part of an international programme of surveys. The Great British part of this survey is available from the UK Data Archive under SN 3791 - Adult Literacy in Britain, 1996. Main Topics: The dataset contains a wide variety of social background data, including gender, age, languages spoken, educational background, highest qualification, employment status, length of unemployment, type of jobs/sectors people are employed in, training people have undertaken the last year, health/disability, benefits, income levels, regions where people live (urban/rural), and level of deprivation (using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)). The dataset also contains the results from the literacies assessment in prose, document and quantitative literacy using Item Response Theory (ITR) modelling and plausible values. In terms of plausible values these are estimates of a potential value for each individual’s ability. There are 5 of them. The plausible values give proficiency estimates on a scale between 0 and 500, and are included in the data set. These are essential in understanding and analysing the literacies levels of adults in Scotland. The plausible values relate to IALS levels as follows: Level 1: 0 to 225 Level 2: 226 to 275 Level 3: 276 to 325 Level 4: 326 to 375 Level 5: 376 to 500. One-stage stratified or systematic random sample Face-to-face interview Self-completion 2009 ABILITY EVALUATION ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT ADULTS AGE APTITUDE TESTS ARITHMETIC ARTICLES BOOK READERSHIP BOOKS CARE OF DEPENDANTS CHILDREN COMPUTERS CONCERT GOING CORRESPONDENCE CULTURAL PARTICIPATION DIAGRAMS DICTIONARIES DISABILITIES ECONOMIC ACTIVITY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND EDUCATIONAL CERTIFI... EDUCATIONAL GRANTS EDUCATIONAL INSTITU... EMPLOYEES EMPLOYER SPONSORED ... EMPLOYERS EMPLOYMENT EMPLOYMENT HISTORY EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES ENCYCLOPAEDIAS ENGLISH LANGUAGE ETHNIC GROUPS Education FATHER S EDUCATIONA... FATHERS FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT GENDER HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD HEARING IMPAIRMENTS HOURS OF WORK HOUSEHOLDS ILLITERACY IMMIGRANTS IMMIGRATION INCOME INDUSTRIES INFORMATION MATERIALS INFORMATION USE INTEREST FINANCE INTERPERSONAL INFLU... LANGUAGE SKILLS LANGUAGES LANGUAGES USED AT HOME LANGUAGES USED AT WORK LEARNING DISABILITIES LIBRARY USERS LISTENING LITERACY MARITAL STATUS MASS MEDIA USE MATHEMATICS MOTHER S EDUCATIONA... MOTHER TONGUE MOTHERS NATIONALITY NEWSPAPER READERSHIP NEWSPAPERS NUMERACY OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING OCCUPATIONS PARENT TEACHER RELA... PARENTS PART TIME EMPLOYMENT PERIODICALS PERIODICALS READERSHIP PLACE OF BIRTH PRE PRIMARY EDUCATION PREDOMINANT LANGUAGES PRIMARY DOCUMENTS PRIMARY EDUCATION PUBLIC LIBRARIES QUALIFICATIONS RADIO LISTENING READING ACTIVITY READING SKILLS READING TESTS REPORTS RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY SECOND LANGUAGES SOCIAL SECURITY BEN... SOCIO ECONOMIC STATUS SPEECH IMPAIRMENTS SPORT SPECTATORSHIP Scotland TELEVISION VIEWING TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT TRAINING TRAINING COURSES VISION IMPAIRMENTS WAGES WRITING COMPOSITION WRITING SKILLS
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This dataset is about books. It has 3 rows and is filtered where the book subjects is Computer literacy-Great Britain. It features 9 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
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Adult skills need estimates for literacy, numeracy, information communication and technology and ESOL across England Source: Department for Education and Skills (DfES): Read Write Plus Skills for Life Publisher: Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) Geographies: Ward, Local Authority District (LAD), Government Office Region (GOR), National, Learnings and Skills Council (LSC) Geographic coverage: England Time coverage: 2002/03 Type of data: Modelled data Notes: The SfL Survey was in two parts. The first was based around a 20-minute background interview and two skills assessments one for literacy and one for numeracy. On this basis respondents were assigned to one of 5 skill levels for both literacy and numeracy (Entry level 1 or below, Entry level 2, Entry level 3, Level 1, and Level 2 and above). The survey was clustered by wards within Government Office Regions and there were 8,730 interviews with adults in households aged 16-65, representing a 59% response rate of selected households. Non-response weights have been calculated for region, age and sex.
https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/pdmhttps://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/pdm
The National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) is administered by the Division of Adult Education and Literacy in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Aggregated data, data from individual US states and territories, and narrative reports, all covering program years 2000-2022, were downloaded from https://nrs.ed.gov/ between 2025-02-06 and 2025-02-09. Aggregated reports were uploaded to Data Lumos as both regular files and a zipped folder; state data tables were only uploaded as a zipped folder, due to the high number of individual files. Total, there are 11,206 files and 628 folders in the entire dataset, due to the way it was structured on the original website.
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The dataset of global Skills-in-Literacy Adjusted Mean Years of Schooling (SLAMYS) provides the indicator for 185 countries, by gender and three broad age groups (20-64; 20-39; 40-64) presented in five-year steps from 1970 to 2025. This dataset is an extention and update of Lutz et al. (2021) which included estimates until 2020 and for working age population (age 20-64) only. This new dataset allows for more nuanced analyses of gender-specific trends and generational shifts in skill formation, with particular attention to younger adult populations. The dataset is based on more up to date survey data, including the most recent OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Cycle 2 data (PIAAC, 2023), most recent the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). It also uses more recent mean years of schooling (MYS) which are sourced from the most recent Wittgenstein Centre Human Capital Data Explorer, version 3 (K. C. et al., 2024; , https://dataexplorer.wittgensteincentre.org/wcde-v3). Estimates for 2020 and 2025 correspond to the medium scenario (SSP2) of the 2023 update (v15) of the Wittgenstein Centre’s Human Capital Projections (K.C. et al 2024). MYS values for the period 1970–2015 are based on a historical reconstruction (KC et al. 2025) that is fully consistent with the SSP2 scenario. Additionally, estimates of educational attainment distributions by sex and age for all 185 countries—used as covariates in the prediction models—are drawn from the same sources and are fully aligned with the MYS values. See the attached technical documentation for more details.
The dataset contains output data files including technical variables (MYS, SAFs) and a technical documentation. The documentation describes calculation steps, data structures, and includes illustrative examples to guide the interpretation of the main output variables.
This dataset consists of the following files:
Dataset: SLAMYS_2025_v1.csv
The csv file includes the following variables:
country_code (3-numeric ISO code, UN standard)
country_name
year (year in five year steps, 1970-2025)
age_group (20-64, 20-39, 40-64)
gender (Female, Male, Both)
mys (mean years of schooling)
saf (skill adjustment factor)
slamys (skills-in-literacy adjusted mean years of schooling)
calculation (predicted values == 1, empirical values == 0)
source (survey name for empirical values, NA for predicted values)
Data sources: SLAMYS_data-source-documentation_v1.csv
Documentation and methodology: L4S_deliverable D2.4 Skills adjusted global human capital dataset_2025-08-22_final.pdf
R codes: https://github.com/clreiter/Skills-in-Literacy-Adjusted-Human-Capital-Dataset
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. This is a mixed methods data collection. Many United Kingdom households, especially those with children, now have access to the internet although, importantly, some do not. The growing significance of the internet in our lives raises many questions for social scientists, policy makers and the public - about access and inequalities, the nature and quality of use, the implications for education, family life and social relationships and the balance between online risks and opportunities. The research project United Kingdom Children Go Online (UKCGO) conducted a thorough investigation of 9-19 year olds' use of the internet between 2003 and 2005. Work was conducted with girls and boys of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds across the UK in order to ask how the internet may be transforming, or may itself be shaped by, family life, peer networks and education. The research combined qualitative focus group and paired interviews and observations in schools and households with a national, in-home, Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) face-to-face survey of 1,511 children 9-19 years old, together with a self-completion questionnaire to 906 parents of the 9-17 years olds, exploring the nature and meaning of children’s internet use and mapping emerging patterns of attitudes and practices across diverse contexts and social groups. UKCGO balances an assessment of online risks and opportunities in order to contribute to developing academic debates and policy frameworks for children and young people's internet use by asking, amongst other things: how children and young people are accessing and using the internet; how families differ in their responses to the internet; what the internet means to them; and, most importantly whether some light can be shed on the consequences of widespread internet use. The research design included three phases:Phase 1: 14 focus groups conducted with 9-19 year olds around the UK, together with eight family visits and a children's online advisory panelPhase 2: A national, in-home, 40-minute face-to-face survey of 1,511 9-19 year olds, together with a self-completion questionnaire to 906 parents of the 9-17 year oldsPhase 3: 13 focus group/paired-depth interviews, together with children's online panel Further information and reports relating to the project can be found at the UKCGO web site United Kingdom Children Go Online Related study European Union Kids Online: Enhancing Knowledge Regarding European Children's Use, Risk and Safety Online, 2010 is also held at the UK Data Archive under study number 6885. The project aimed to enhance the knowledge base regarding children’s and parents’ experiences and practices of risk and safety in their use of the internet and new online technologies in Europe covering 25 EU countries. Main Topics: Specific topics focused on were: access, inequalities and the digital divide; undesirable forms of content and contact; education, informal learning and literacy; communication, identity and participation; parental regulation of media use, literacy risks, and opportunities of internet use. Multi-stage stratified random sample Face-to-face interview Self-completion Observation Focus group
http://reference.data.gov.uk/id/open-government-licencehttp://reference.data.gov.uk/id/open-government-licence
These data are modelled estimates of literacy , numeracy and ICT skills in lower-level geographies in England. Small Area Estimation modelling methods have been applied to the 2011 Skills for Life survey data in order to generate local level area estimates of: the number and proportion of adults (aged 16-64 years old) in England living in households with defined skill levels in: literacy, numeracy and ICT, including emailing, word processing, spreadsheet use and a multiple-choice assessment of ICT awareness. The number and proportion of adults in households who do not speak English as a first language are also included. Two sets of Small Area Estimates are provided for seven geographies: Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs), Standard Table Wards, 2005 Statistical Wards, 2011 Council Wards, 2011 Parliamentary Constituencies, Local Authorities, and Local Enterprise Partnership areas. Regional estimates have also been provided, however, unlike the other geographies, these estimates are based on direct survey.
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An anonymised data set of pre/post test results of a paired reading/peer tutoring trial in the north east of England.
Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. To collect social, demographic, electoral and linguistic data for each of 118 British and Irish counties in the period 1851 - 1966, in order to study national development in the UK and Ireland. Main Topics: Variables County. Population: growth, proportion aged 65 and over, sex ratio, density, marriage rate, per capita income, proportion in agriculture/manufacturing/middle class/civil service, proportion who were female domestics. Proportion urban, city size, index of ethnic diversity, vote residual and income residual. Proportion voting Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Nationalist Party. Proportion Celtic speakers. Religiosity, literacy. Proportion of Church of England, non-conformists, Roman Catholics. Proportion English born, Welsh born, Scottish, Irish and French. Voting turnout, birth rate, infant mortality rate. See Hechter (AJS 79 2 Sept 1973). Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research. No information recorded Compilation or synthesis of existing material
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This dataset is about book subjects. It has 1 row and is filtered where the books is Student achievement in England : results in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy among 15-year-olds from OECD PISA 2000 study. It features 10 columns including number of authors, number of books, earliest publication date, and latest publication date.
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This dataset is about books. It has 34 rows and is filtered where the book subjects is Literacy-Social aspects-United States. It features 9 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.
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This dataset is about books. It has 4 rows and is filtered where the book publisher is University of London Press for the United Kingdom Reading Association. It features 7 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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In the Sheffield MakEY project, pop-up makerspaces were organised in two nurseries and two primary school settings. The first setting was a nursery school that caters for 90 children aged 3-4. The nursery serves diverse racial and ethnic communities, and many children speak English as an Additional Language. The second setting was a nursery unit with 45 children aged 3-4, that is part of a primary school in a primarily White, working class area of the city that is one of the most socially deprived nationally. The third setting was a Year 2 class in an inner-city Church of England (faith) primary school, with 28 children aged 6-7, the majority of whom were White. There was some diversity in the class with regard to socio-economic status, but many of the children came from middle-class families. The fourth setting consisted of two parallel Year 3 classes in a primary school, with 60 children aged 7-8 in total. The school was ethnically diverse, and located in an area of the city that has indicators of social deprivation. Makerspaces took place over a period of 4-5 days in each setting.Data collected included fieldnotes, video recordings made by adult researchers in addition to still images and children wore Go-Pro cameras. Permission was not granted to share images and videos of children, but anonymised data are shared.
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Historical dataset showing U.K. literacy rate by year from N/A to N/A.