Chapter One - Introduction

The purpose of this study was to look at a unique literacy education program for adults, using a sociocultural view of learning, in order to uncover the elements of the program that could contribute to both the development of a social practice theory of literacy learning and the application of a social practice approach in adult literacy programs. The study's focus—an employment preparation program for adults with low literacy skills—provided a rare opportunity to examine literacy learning and other forms of learning (such as learning about employment) in a dynamic environment comprising three distinct learning settings: a traditional classroom, a coffee shop, and a job placement in the community. The dynamic nature of the program and its non–traditional approach to adult literacy education (which included experiential learning, self–reflection, collaboration and modeling) aligned itself with sociocultural ideas of learning. The three different settings helped to shape students' understanding of learning and literacy, the values they assigned to various activities, and their changing views of themselves.

Despite numerous calls (Imel, 1996; Kazemek, 1988; Quigley, 1997; Zieghan, 1992) for adult literacy education to disentangle itself from a skills– and task–based view of literacy, programs continue to emulate a traditional schooling model of literacy program delivery (Beder & Medina, 2001). For the most part, the "…dominant view of literacy as a 'neutral', technical skill" (Street, 1995, p.1), remain entrenched in the field, and programs have not made significant inroads towards "the conceptualization of literacy instead as an ideological practice, implicated in power relations and embedded in specific cultural meanings and practices" (ibid.). Learning in the vast majority of programs continues to be "decontextual" (in which content is not related to the learners' daily lives), and "monologic" (in which the teacher is in control of decision–making) (Purcell–Gates, Degener & Jacobson,1998). In only a minority of programs, the same researchers found that learning was both "dialogic" (which indicated shared decision–making amongst students and teachers) and "contextualized" (in which materials and activities were directly related to the lives of the learners). Both of these constructs are elements of participatory education—which has long been an impetus for creating change in adult literacy education—but continue to sit on the sidelines of program development.