1-3 The research process during the first phase-the ways in which it was organized

As the researcher for this first, exploratory of phase, I want to provide the context in which the work took place. The mandate of CCLOW, outlined in Appendix 5-1, provided the guiding principles. The advisory committee members, described in 5-2, contributed and their interpretations of these principles and their own perspectives during the process. My experience as researcher, also outlined in 5-2, greatly influenced what words were said and where there were silences, what words were heard and how the silences were observed, how the words and the silences were on built into a narrative and how that narrative is presented.

In this section, I will set out the chronological structure of what happened during the research process. In section 1-4 are the "facts" about the communities I visited and the people I spoke with. In the next section are four snapshots of the communities, are structured around the questions that guided the experiential learning process of the in research. After that, I have included the questions I formulated at the beginning of the research, immediately after visiting each community, midway through the research and at the end of the research. These are connected to the themes that emerged from the conversations at the same time that they and provide a framework. By providing this sense of the process, I hope we begin to understand how the "data" and the analysis developed.

I started in early May 1990 by setting up an administrative framework and travel schedule. I did some re-reading in research and in women and literacy to immerse myself in the project. At the same time, I had several intense conversations with women about the ethics of feminist research, particularly research with women who are participating in literacy and upgrading programs. I studied CCLOW research documents, minutes and mission statements to develop a sense of the organization's mandate and current direction. (The bibliography is available in Appendix 5-3.)

1-4 The "facts" concerning the visits to the communities

I visited four very different communities: one on the west coast, one on the east coast, one in central Canada and one in the north. They have populations of 1,200 people, 4,225 people, 96,216 people and 606,000 people.

I spent four days in the west coast community. I talked formally with 24 people, all of them involved with the same community college campus. Twenty-two are women and two are men. Two work as administrators, two are volunteer tutors, two are support staff, two are counsellors, five are instructors, two are community education workers and nine are students.

I spent four days in the east coast community, talking with 17 people. All of them are women. One is a community activist with a history of adult education and literacy work with women. Three women work at a community-based program, one is a student in that program. I met with a community college instructor, three women who work at a bridging program for women and three women who work at a transition house for women who have been battered by men. I met with four tutors and a staff member of a volunteer one-to-one program.

I spent five days in a central Canadian community and met with 10 people, nine women and one man. One teaches English as a second language in a union-based program, five are literacy workers in community-based programs, one is a volunteer tutor and board member, one is a student and two are researchers. I also met with CCLOW staff.

I spent five days in a northern community. I met with 10 people, nine women and one man. Three are instructors, two are administrators, one is a bureaucrat and four are students. All but one are associated with the community college campus.

In all, I met with 61 people, more or less formally, in interview or group discussions. Thirty-four participate at some level in community college programs. Twenty are involved in community-based programs. Three sit somewhere in between. Three are re-searchers and one is a bureaucrat, involved in literacy and upgrading.

Fifty-seven are women, four are men. I have made some assumptions around race: that 48 are white and 13 are Black, East Indian, Native or Inuit. Fifteen were adult upgrading students at the time I talked with them. Others indicated they had been adult upgrading students in the recent past. I don't know everyone's age, but I will guess that eight might be under 30, 45 between 30-45 and eight over 45.

While the numbers may give you one small part of the picture, they can really tell you almost nothing. For example, a fact may be that 34 people work within the context of three different community college programs. A truth is that each campus was completely different from the other and perhaps none of them fit anyone's stereotype of "a community college." This is true not only because some of the "institutions" were smaller in size than some of the "community programs," but also because some of the women in the community programs are working in more isolation from other women, particularly from feminist women, than some of the women within the "institutions."


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