The number of people included in the sample for analysis was 61. Table 4 shows a breakdown of the sample by sex and level of education. The latter refers to the last completed grade at school, and does not take into account any educational improvements through attendance in ABE programs.

From this sample, it can be seen that the mean grade level for the males is lower than for the females. Grade levels were particularly low in the older male nonparticipant group. The group mean as a whole is higher than the mean level of education for the male withdrawal group, because of the presence of two younger men who have modified Grade 12 certificates but actually have very low literacy skills.

In the female sample the mean grade level was particularly low in the female withdrawal group. This group included members of the older generation of Doukhobors: some had never been to school, while others had had only limited schooling. The younger members in this cohort were women who had left school prematurely because of pregnancy.

Of the 61 persons in the total sample, eight of the men and four of the women were Natives. Two of the sample, one man and one woman, were from ESL/immigrant backgrounds, but both had lived in Canada for a long time. Everyone else was either born in Canada or was an Anglophone.

As Table 5 shows, most of the sample were in the 18 to 60 years age bracket. There was one young adult - a 17 year old male. Nobody was over 60 years of age.

Definitions

The terms nonparticipants (NPs), withdrawals (WDs) and participants (Ps) should be defined. The nonparticipants are people who have never enrolled in an ABE program in their lives. They may have been involved in some other kind of learning project or short course, but they have never gone to an ABE or literacy program. The withdrawals are people who at some time in their lives attended an ABE program or several ABE programs. Nine males in this group and three females had just enrolled in or were about to participate in an institutional ABE or community-based literacy program. As they had a history of withdrawals they were classified in this group rather than in the participant group. The participants were people who had never before enrolled in any kind of ABE program, but had just started. Their memories of the experience leading up to becoming a participant were thus quite fresh in their minds.