Ever since Mary’s death, I have wondered how violence influences the lives of the women who come to Project HOPE’s Adult Learner Program. I saw how Mary’s learning was blocked because she felt the overwhelming pressure from her son’s threats. In this research study, I wanted to establish a sufficient working definition of violence, one that encompasses all of the complexities of violence that affect low-income women (Chapter 2). I hoped to identify the impacts of violence on the women in our literacy program (Chapter 3). Using this knowledge I wanted to influence the design of a comfortable learning environment that facilitates a lifelong desire for learning (Chapter 4). Finally, I looked to making our experience known beyond our program (Chapter 5).

In 2000, shortly after Mary’s death, the Adult Learner Program received a three-year grant (called the Women, Violence, and Adult Education project [WVAE]) sponsored by the Women’s Educational Equity Act (under the U.S. Department of Education) to study the impact of violence on women in adult education programs. World Education, a nonprofit organization in Boston, Massachusetts who coordinated the grant, chose the ALP as one of six sites in the New England area to participate in the research project. I was one of the two coordinators of this grant for the ALP. Char Caver, the other coordinator from the ALP, and I participated in several workshops (coordinated by World Education) with the other grantees and Jenny Horsman (author of Too Scared to Learn: Women, Violence, and Education). In these workshops, we discussed the meaning of violence, identified how violence affects the women in our literacy programs, applied and shared new pedagogical methods based on our acquired learning, and produced a Source Book entitled, Taking on the Challenge, for other adult literacy practitioners. My knowledge of the impact of violence on women’s learning began and grew immensely during these workshops. My opinions and views presented in this study have been heavily influenced by the discussions in those workshops and informal conversations with the other practitioners involved with the project. While the actual grant has ended, this issue has become part of our everyday considerations for the structure and curriculum of the ALP.