INTENTIONS AND RESULTS

There is a significant disconnect between the intention of literacy education (to increase skills in order to help make more productive citizens) and the actual results (very little increase in skills but improved levels of confidence and changed identities). Similarly, the original intention of the employment preparation program was to help students find employment by enhancing their literacy skills. It was thought that their literacy skills would improve if they were engaged in specific work settings. In a way, the coffee shop was designed to support the development of literacy skills related to employment. This thinking was informed partly by the ideas of functional context education (Sticht, 1997) in which literacy is developed in relation to specific contexts. Then, as the program evolved, the development of literacy skills began to slip into the background, and the development of cultural and personal knowledge related to employment came to the fore. This shift occurred for a variety of reasons: the kinds of jobs that students could get without recognized credentials did not have many literacy demands; students without work experiences needed to learn more about work culture and expectations than literacy; students expressed confusion in relation to work culture more often than literacy; and students talked more about their growing confidence, sense of belonging, and new perceptions of themselves than the gains they had made in specific literacy skills.

The impacts that were realized in the employment preparation program had more to do with their view of themselves—their place in the world and their connection to the world (Stein, 1995; Fingeret & Drennon, 1997; Bingman, Ebert & Smith, 1999) —than their improved socio–economic status or education credentials. For the most part, they did not fall victim to the false promise that participation in literacy education would lead to a better job (Malicky & Norman, 1994). They, unlike policy–makers, influenced by researchers such as Kapsalis (1998) who have drawn a direct connection between literacy skill development and job opportunities, have come to realize instead that participation in a literacy program will lead to increased confidence, greater–self–esteem, a feeling of belonging, and a sense of pride; not a secure job or independence from social assistance. Adult students don't make a distinction between literacy for life and literacy for the workplace or for citizenship. While the specific tasks, roles and responsibilities vary from context to context, the fundamental purposes remain the same. Adults seek to develop literacy skills in order to change what they can do, how they are perceived, and how they perceive themselves in specific social and cultural contexts (Stein, 1995, p. 10). Moreover, these purposes of education—what adults need literacy for—drive the acquisition of skills and knowledge both within and across contexts.