Women enjoyed the opportunity a group gave them to make friends and realize that they are not alone with their problems. As Maxine said:

I've made friends here. I'm pleased and I'm happy. I'm happier than I ever was.

They felt more confident working with others who shared the same problems and were in similar circumstances. Two women spoke of why they would like to work in a group:

You'd do it sort of like together. Learning from each other. You're not the only one with this problem. There's other ones with the same problem. When you're in with [the tutor ] alone you feel like you' re the only one with a problem.

Supportive relationships developed in the groups and these helped the women to learn. Jane had been afraid that in a group she would look stupid. Instead, she said: "we turned out like one big family." Pat also developed friendships and enjoyed the personal way that the teachers related:

One teacher... who was at that school, God love us, she was sweet. She would say [Pat] if you need help give us a call. They met you on a personal level. Even through the study of the English we got talking and she had health problems. She was getting fed up and she was going to Halifax. We were able to share part of that frustration. They weren't just there to teach you your English, they were there to be supportive of what you were going through in society.

This personal relationship gave her confidence and made it easier to ask for help when she needed it. as Pat said: "You felt comfortable... because they were so open."

In contrast, many literacy workers felt the women in groups were not "serious" students. They thought these women were there solely for a social event, to have a good time, and not to learn. When literacy is offered within a social context it can be a process that challenges the isolation of women's lives. It can provide the space for women to discuss their problems and identify what they have in common.

When program workers realize that women's circumstances often make it difficult for them to get out of the house, they often offer women individual tutoring at home. However, women often want to get out of the house and meet other women.

Programs need to find ways to inter-weave a social dimension into the learning they offer. Perhaps tutoring pairs can meet two or three other pairs once a month. Perhaps a small group can rotate, meeting at a different women's home each week. Perhaps a learners' group can be formed and a variety of support, such as transportation and childcare, offered to enable women to attend. Program workers need to listen to women and find ways to provide programs which respond to their needs. The social dimensions which women say they want may help women to find ways to change their lives. Programming, rather than reinforcing women's circumstances, needs to provide women with the opportunity for social contact and critical discussion which can challenge the social organization of their lives.

When programs seek to enhance the social aspects of the program, and strengthen and expand the possibilities for meaningful interaction between students, they help to create a space for discourse which include women's shared realities. If programs integrate "work" and "social" time in the program, they help to create a discourse that contests the individuality of learning. This makes it possible to see education itself as social. If programs encourage sharing between women that not only allows them to talk about their problems, but also to look critically at the location of these problems, they will create a space for discourses of resistance with the potential to lead to social change.

¹The interviews were carried out as part of doctoral research. I interviewed twenty women in literacy and other training programs and ten workers in those programs. The full study is described in my thesis, (1988).

²Laubach is a Canada-wide literacy organization which makes use of volunteers to tutor adult literacy students using a structured set of reading materials.

References

Roberts, J. (1976) "Pictures of Powerlessness: A Personal Synthesis." In J. Roberts (ed.), Beyond Intellectual Sexism (New York: David McKay, 1976), pp.14-60.