This research has as its central question the problem of literacy, especially its implications for
school education. It starts from the assumption that the conceptual broadening and the
indiscriminate expansion of the application of the concept produced a diffuse and
instrumental perception ofschool education and training. The thesis sustained by this research,
which, everything leads one to believe is confirmed by the data gathered, is that literacy was
incorporated and disseminated in the Brazilian academic and pedagogical universe
disregarding the criticism and questioning of primitive terms, in function of an
epistemological oscillation of the human sciences. What has been called literacy is based in
diversified formation and learning conceptions that add a range of meanings that make
literacy a fluid concept, flooded by dualities and nuances linked to functional conceptions that
seek to develop abilities and competences. To pursue the goal established, it was first
developed a critically considering of the founding axes of the concept as they came to be
established in Brazil from the 1980s onwards and carrying out a survey of occurrences of
literacy accompanied by specifiers, verifying its theoretical insertion and its field. The
analysis demonstrates that, as it appears, broadly and confusingly, the concept of literacy
disputes negatively with the very concept of education, emptying it. And, although it presents
itself as a novelty and progressive character, in fact, it reproduces non-critical models of
education, sometimes reinforcing the instrumental-pragmatic perspective, sometimes
reverberating idealist liberal theses. It is concluded that the vulgarization of literacy and its
application in school and non-school contexts (many ofwhich want to deny the importance of
school education) does not contribute to Brazilian education.
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