A second limitation of the study is that it primarily focuses on Canada. Although I have profited from examining materials and examples pertaining to illiteracy in the United States, I feel that there are sufficient differences in context between the two countries to make such a limitation advisable. By clearly establishing the unique features of the Canadian scene first, we are in a better position to undertake what could be an interesting comparative education study of illiteracy, and responses to it, in the two nations.

Method of Research

If we consider methods of research as referring to something more basic than just techniques of data gathering--that is, as the logic of inquiry and the philosophical assumptions which underly it--we may identify three principal methods in use in Canadian adult education research. These include the positivist (neo-positivist, critical rationalist, etc.), which is presently the dominant method; the phenomenological (heuristic, existential, qualitative, humanistic, etc.), a method which has recently grown in stature in the field; and the dialectical matdrialist (or more commonly, Marxist), which as yet, exercises a relatively minor influence as a method of research.28 The present study is based on the Marxist method.

Like researchers in the positivist tradition, Marxists make use of scientific procedures--often formal ones like the formulation of empirically falsifiable hypotheses, the gathering of empirical data to test them, etc. 29 However, unlike positivists, they consider this empirical data (e.g. economic trends, population distributions, individual attitudes) as the surface effects ("appearances") of a more basic social reality. This deeper level consists of a totality of structures--including modes of production (capitalist, communist, feudal, etc.), classes (bourgeoisie, - or capitalist class, working class, etc.), the State, ideologies, etc.--in which economic phenomena are the main (but not only) determinant factors. 30

Like phenomenologists, Marxists pay careful attention to subjective states, i.e. to consciousness. However, unlike phenomenologists, Marxists do not take consciousness as their starting point. 31 In their view, the political economic structures of society--particularly class--have causal primacy, limiting and shaping subjective states in ways that are open to scientific study. However, they believe that in turn, when particular subjective states influence large numbers of people, they (as ideologies) become a structural force in their own right, able to initiate, retard or accelerate change in other structures, including political economic ones. 32