GENERAL ADULT BASIC EDUCATION STUDIES

Studies such as those conducted by Hunter and Harman (1979), Mezirow et al (1975), and Thomas (1976, 1983) have all noted the low levels of participation in adult basic education programs in relation to the apparent statistical need. This phenomenon may be partially explained either by the lack of programs, or the lack of awareness, but there are many other contributing factors. Mezirow et al paint a graphic picture of a potential ABE student by asking the readers to put themselves in the student's shoes -

You are a forty-five year old black man, eking out a living at an unstable succession of menial and arduous jobs, poor, haunted by failure, numbed with self-doubt, without study skills and unable to read. Furthermore, going back to school seems an endless uphill struggle. Just learning the three R's means years of weary plugging, night after night, month after month. And then what? What will an eighth grade education get you? Into the ninth grade is about all. So you resign yourself to still more long months and maybe win a high school diploma. What is the big payoff when you have finally made it? (p. 37)

In the same study, only 13 percent of the ABE Directors surveyed strongly agreed with the statement that "ABE has had substantial success in reaching the chronically unemployed or underemployed males commonly labelled 'hard-core'." ABE typically serves those that it is best able to serve - the already motivated and those most likely to succeed.

Hunter and Harman (1979) quote the work of the Appalachian Adult Education Center which identified four groups of people in need of adult basic education. Each group, however, had special needs and required different approaches and different services. This differentiation of needs and services within ABE is becoming a theme in the literature.

SPECIFIC ADULT BASIC EDUCATION STUDIES

Several writers have suggested or have developed typologies of low-literate adults (e.g. Beder and Valentine, 1990; Fingeret, 1983; Hayes and Darkenwald, 1988 as cited in Hayes, 1988; Hayes and Valentine, 1989; Martin, 1984, 1987). These studies are useful to practitioners in that they have implications for recruitment, program design and instructional strategies. Some writers (Sisco, 1983; Smyth, 1986) have used the learning projects work of Tough (1979) to show that adults with low levels of formal education do engage in self-planned learning projects. Quigley (1987, 1990) uses resistance theory to explain nonparticipation in ABE.