Pivotal Research Inc. partnered with the Centre for Family Literacy to research family literacy in the workplace. The purposes of the research were to identify current family literacy practices and the implications for Alberta’s next generation and to understand the human stories behind literacy statistical data. The objectives of the research were to measure the importance and requirements of literacy in various occupations, to learn more about family attitudes toward literacy and to understand the effect of parents’ expectations and behavior on their children.
The International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS) research conducted by Statistics Canada in 2003 provided the foundation for the current study. The research included measurements of engagement in literacy activities at home and at work by analyzing the relationship between parents’ education and skills level by comparing socioeconomic gradients of several cohorts of adults. However, there were no comparisons among generations, by occupation or discussion of literacy expectations. Data reported were quantitative only, reporting results numerically.
The current study measured family literacy in two ways. First, the requirements of literacy in a range of occupations were determined using the four skill assessment domains as described in the IALSS. Second, case studies were developed for a sample of occupations to measure family literacy expectations when the respondent was growing up, the education, training and professional development the respondent has pursued and how the respondents communicate family literacy values to their children.
The current research developed cumulative case studies that included retrospective, current and prospective data about the importance of literacy by occupation categories and by family literacy experiences, achievements and expectations. The case study approach will assist in understanding how family literacy in Alberta has evolved over generations and will add to knowledge generated from other research. The results will also help to guide the development of strategies to address this social concern.
Note that this exploratory research involved a small sample size; the results that follow are not generalizable to the larger population.