RESEARCH APPLICATIONS

It is my hope that the study's findings can be used by adult literacy educators to gain an understanding of the sociocultural nature of literacy and learning in an adult literacy program. In addition, the findings raise important issues regarding literacy education and employment with regard to adults who have low literacy skills (and fall within the lowest IALS level). Gaining an understanding of the social nature of literacy and learning will help to better serve the needs of the adults who attend programs and the adults who may not feel that the current format of many programs, with their emphasis on literacy skills development only, are able to meet their needs. The study also reveals some of the tensions involved in making a shift away from an exclusively skills– and task–based view of literacy towards a sociocultural view, and provides some suggestions to support this shift. Although the study will be useful to the field, it will also contribute to the development of a socioculturally–based theory of adult literacy learning. I also feel it is my role as both a researcher and literacy practitioner to help bridge the divide between theory and practice in this area of inquiry. I will use my experience as a teacher and my field–based motivations to clearly state the needs of the field so that the development of a sociocultural theory of adult literacy learning can be informed by a field–based perspective.