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Year One
The purpose of this two year
project which is funded by the National Literacy Secretariat, is to document
the literacy practices of IALS Level 1 and Level 2 learners from five selected
communities across Canada. These sites will represent different geographical
locations that offer a mix of community-based, workplace and family literacy
programs. Once these sites have been identified, five practitioners will be
selected and trained in ethnographic techniques to collect data on the
different literacy practices of adults with low literacy skills that are
involved or have been involved in a literacy program. Each field researcher
will collect information from two learners. This first objective focuses on
documenting the types of literacy practices and, in particular, their informal
learning activities that they engage in as a result of their various roles at
work, at home and in the community.
The training workshop for
practitioners will centre on the use of ethnographic research methods.
Ethnography is a qualitative approach that identifies understandings of the
participants lives’ from their own perspectives. Data will be collected
over an extended period using various techniques as participant observations,
interviews, questionnaires, artifact collections and learner and researcher
journals. The Project Director will supervise each of the five field
researchers during this phase of the project. The first year of the project
will focus on site identification, field researcher training, selection of the
literacy learners, development of the tools and an intensive data collection
period.
Year Two
A second objective of the project
in year two is to examine how these documented literacy practices compare with
the media stereotypes found in the contextual stories of Canadian newspapers
and weekly magazines. An on-line media service will be used to gather the media
coverage on literacy for a prescribed period of time. The Access 2000 data base
will be used for classification and analysis of the contextual
stories.
Both of these objectives will
result in two large data sets. The focus of the second year of the project will
be on the compilation and analysis of these two data sets along with the
development and writing of the products. Once the preliminary analysis has been
conducted, a field researcher will be selected to participate in a resident
fellowship. This one week intensive study in Ottawa with the Project Director
will provide an opportunity for the resident fellow to learn the final stages
of data analysis and write-up of the ethnographic information and the media
information. Final data analysis will be influenced by the two organizing
frameworks of situated learning and informal learning.
Four products are expected from
the project: a curriculum guide that illustrates how to use ethnographic
methods as a way of developing a literacy curriculum; a case study report of
the profiles of the Level 1 and Level 2 learners; a literacy symposium within
the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education Annual conference and
a policy implications document.
Maurice Taylor, Project
Director, Partnerships in Learning |