In this study, the students who attended the student group and/or student association meetings differed in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, ability, and religion. The findings indicated that the literacy workers and students varied in terms of acknowledgment of these differences and their willingness to work across these differences. Furthermore, the findings suggested that, in one program, the acknowledgment of differences was a contributing factor towards the development of a sense of community within the student group. In this study, Barb, the program director of ALFA, was the only literacy worker who verbally acknowledged differences among students at student meetings. In turn, the students within the ALFA student group appeared to share a strong sense of comradery and fellowship.

At the beginning of the study, Barb informed me that she was afraid of starting a student group because of the diversity among the students. In terms of diversity, Barb was primarily referring to abilities, rather than race, class, or gender. For instance, some of the students who attended the group were mentally handicapped and others were not very fluent in spoken English. As well, Donna, the secretary was hearing impaired. Barb stated that "I decided that this forming a student group was a good idea, but I was afraid of it because there's such a diversity of students within [ALFA] and I couldn't visualize in many ways putting them all together." For Barb, one of the biggest challenges in forming the student group was "learn[ing] to work across the differences." She tried to find "common ground" as well as to "make sure that we try to do things that are of interest to all of the group at least once in a while." Rather than denying diversity among the students and treating everybody as the same, Barb wanted a student group that met and supported the specific interests and stated needs of students with different abilities and backgrounds.

Towards the end of the study, Barb named the differences within the group at a student meeting. Rather than pretending that differences did not exist, she thought that an acknowledgment of differences would ultimately lead to an understanding and acceptance of each other and a realization that students had specific needs, based on their differences. The ALFA students also acknowledged and appreciated the group's diversity and this came through during the production of the photostory. In fact, the photostory's first sentence about the student group highlighted the differences and read "our student group is made of people who have different needs." This naming and acknowledgment of differences seemed to unite the group, and I observed a strong sense of comradery and fellowship among the ALFA student group. Peggy, the President of the student group, described the student group as a place where students could "cooperate, I don't know what you call it, but be able to speak together, working together with other people, helping other people." Peggy was describing a community of fellowship -- a place where people come together to speak, to work, to cooperate and to help others.