Critical Perspective

It has been argued here that the critical perspective offers the best way forward for adult basic educators. It guides them away from the present strategy of seeking to ally with economic and political elites on behalf of, but in isolation from, illiterate adults as political subjects. It points the way to a strategic alliance of adult basic educators with progressive organizations and movements based in-the working class, particularly that stratum of the working class which is most exploited and disproportionately suffers from illiteracy--the surplus population. The objective would be to integrate the struggle for adequate adult literacy and basic education opportunities with a larger democratic struggle to transform the structure of class inequality that produces and sustains poverty.

In the present crisis, this would necessarily include a strategy of defense against the conservative "politics of austerityn in Canada. It would mean exposing the class nature of the attempt of conservative political and economic elites to shift the burden of the failure of capitalist economic institutions onto the backs of the most exploited members of the working class, and mounting a fight back against policies which erode existing literacy and basic education opportunities and deny the establishment of new ones.

At the program and classroom level, the critical perspective requires that a coherence, or congruence, be developed between these larger political goals and the methods and content of adult literacy and basic education practice. Of primary importance here is the recognition that while illiterate and impoverished adults need literacy and employment skills, their need for critical understanding of their place in the world is just as great.

Implications for Further Research

It is with enormous difficulty that we shift our attention from the victims of illiteracy to the socio-economic context in which illiteracy plays a part. For example, there are many studies which attempt to ascertain with accuracy the number of illiterate adults in Canada, but few that study the precise social, economic and political forces that produce illiteracy. We can find many examples of studies detailing the personal characteristics and life-styles of illiterate adults, including their poverty, their lack of "life skills", etc., but it is difficult to find comparably penetrating inquiries into the characteristics and actions of the rich and powerful whose business and industries depend on the cheap labour of ill-educated and otherwise 'excluded' adults, or into the nature and functioning of the capitalist state as it protects and advances their interests. The present study has dealt with some of these neglected questions, but a great deal of work could be done from a critical standpoint at this, the larger political economic level.

Of high priority is a class analysis of illiterate adults, involving a survey of their membership in the different fractions of the surplus population. This would necessarily, include their racial, ethnic and gender makeup, their location by region and community, their pattern of concentration in particular industrial sectors and occupations. In turn, this information would allow us to study their associated consciousness and their potential role in cultural, economic and political struggles, and in particular the role that a movement for literacy opportunities could play in relation to them.