THE POPULATION AND TYPOLOGIES

Among the participants (Ps) and withdrawals (WDs) interviewed for this project, the six types as delineated by Beder and Valentine (1990) could all be recognized. That is not to say, however, that all people belonged to one of those six types. The Doukhobor women, for instance, exhibit many characteristics of "Mainstream Women", but are in fact part of a cultural minority with little or no education and probably have lower incomes than Beder and Valentine's group.

As Martin's typology (1987) was primarily based on financial means, several of his groups could also be recognized. The entrepreneurs in the present project, however, did not make the same level of income as in Martin's group. The other categories were all represented. What are we to make of this? Part of the difficulty is that in research "what is put in, is what comes out." Researchers have worked with different aspects of the problem and focussed on different variables.

The work on typologies with the adult undereducated population, however, is useful in acknowledging the heterogeneity of that population and shattering any myths about "sameness." There is a tendency, for instance to view all women in ABE as poor, single parents on income assistance beset by many difficulties and problems. While such women do exist, this project has shown that there are other women in the nonparticipant population who could be called resisters and among participants there are mainstream women. Hayes and Darkenwald's work (Hayes, 1988) is useful in emphasizing the differences between groups of women for recruitment purposes.

Among the nonparticipants, one may find many of the usually quoted barriers to participation, but the attitudes towards and the perceptions of ABE among this group may, it seems, be more important. We need to know more about the resisters. It is interesting to note, that when the ABE professionals were asked to give their reasons for nonparticipation of low-literate adults in programs, that only one or two mentioned low perceived need. (See Tables 6 and 7) Their answers, like those of many practitioners are most likely shaped by their experiences with the population that enters programs. This population, by virtue of their entry, has perceived a need for training.