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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
One of the first-ever studies of adult literacy and numeracy difficulties in Scotland estimated that 800,000 adults had poor literacy and numeracy skills, with just 15,000 or 2% attending courses to help them improve 2. These findings influenced the Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland strategy, but still left large gaps in our knowledge of the lives of adults with low levels of literacy and numeracy.
The research summarised here fills some of those gaps. Commissioned by Learning Connections, it analyses Scottish data from the 1970 British Cohort Study ( BCS70). This study has been collecting information at regular intervals on more than 16,500 individuals born in England, Scotland and Wales in one week in April 1970.
The latest BCS70 survey, carried out in 2004, provided a snapshot of the lives of 9,665 cohort members at the age of 34, focusing particularly on their literacy and numeracy skills. The initial report on this survey, New Light on Literacy and Numeracy3 showed that those with poor skills experienced much higher levels of social and economic disadvantage than other adults. On the following pages we consider how far this was the case for the 891 survey participants living in Scotland in 2004.
Our analysis of the relationship between individuals' literacy and numeracy skills and other aspects of their lives contains important messages for a wide range of areas, notably education, employment, housing, regeneration, health and social inclusion.
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