"The Ethnography of Literacy"

What is literacy and what does it really mean? After reading "The Ethnography of Literacy" by author John F. Szwen, I found it interesting that Szwen believes there is no specific meaning to what literacy is nor what it means. He gives many details and understanding in his article that each person inherits literary in their own different cultural and social ways. Meaning as we learn to read and write there are many ways we inherit literacy skills. He states, "A boy, otherwise labeled as retarded and unable to read assigned texts, may have considerable skills at reading and interpreting baseball record books" (pg. 423). I thought this quote was interesting since it bought up a kind of perspective I never really thought of before. As I would think of the word literacy, I would think of reading and writing at higher education/college level . As the term may be define: the ability to read and write, there is actual no right or wrong answer as to how we interpret the meaning.