Summary

This group had had tough lives. Circumstances forced some of them to drop out of school when they were young to go to work. Some went to special schools or classes and dropped out early. Others had put in time at school and got a Grade 10 or Grade 12 education but knew they were being pushed through. They all had had to make it on their own. Some were successful. They were a talented group taken altogether, and had a sense of community responsibility. The ones with past histories of jail or substance abuse were married or in relationships and had been going straight for some time. They had overcome or were working on their problems. Collectively, the group's work histories were varied and broken with spells of unemployment because of the seasonality of the jobs, or layoffs because of changes in technology.

Specific reasons for not participating in programs were - lack of transportation, day-care problems, program scheduling, fatigue after working all day, lack of time associated with the knowledge that returning to learn would require much effort and be a long haul, but by far the biggest barrier appeared to be attitudinal. The men saw no use in schooling. Many of them were able to read for their own needs, and had people who helped them when they were in difficulties especially with their writing and spelling. Some of them felt that improving their literacy skills would help them in their roles as parents and community members. The younger men could see a relationship between more education and improved job opportunities, but they wanted literacy to be related to job training. Literacy for them had to have an economic purpose. Non-traditional ABE programs seemed to be most appealing, that is, one-to-one tutoring, and drop-in learning centres where flexibility of arrangements and hours are assured. Two of the men in more isolated town, suggested toll-free telephone tutoring might work. (They were both in the higher educational group - Grades 9 - 12).

These men are probably closest to Beder and Quigley's (1990) resisters. Unless attitudes and perceptions of the relevance of ABE are changed there may be little hope for recruiting older male nonparticipants into traditional ABE programs. Some of them, however, maybe lured into alternative kinds of literacy programming.