Other issues identified by this group included under funding for literacy programs, women's concerns about their children, the ethics of doing the research, and the effects of labelling.

5-2 The significant issues identified in the second interview

During the second interview we asked women to name three issues that seem more, or most, significant because of their participation in this project. Despite their different experiences, the responses to the question overlapped and often seemed to build on each other. They reflected some of the most intense discussions at the second workshop and indicated a distinct move from reflection and discussion about their own activities to an interpretation and analysis of the project as a whole.

• Violence against women

One after another, women involved in this research talked about the ways in which their work is affected by both the reality and the threat of men's violence against women. They talked about the pervasiveness and magnitude of violence in women's lives - the lives of students and the lives of staff. They also discovered and rediscovered the ways in which the threat or the reality of men's violence stops women from participating in adult literacy and basic education programs.

Women mentioned the experience of women who had been sexually harassed and abused in the public school system and how that affected their learning then and their learning now. Others emphasized the importance of distinguishing child sexual assault and sexual harassment from other forms of violence.

Three women had classes in which every woman present had been sexually abused as a child. One woman suggested that program workers have a particular responsibility to seek healing from their own experiences of abuse.

Because, if we're going to deal with it with [students], we're going to have to deal with it ourselves, in our own lives. We can't separate it. You just can't separate it out, how terribly sad and emotional it is. (Karen Bergman-Illnik, Arctic College)

One woman talked about the many dimensions of violence against women that she must respond to as a teacher. Both women students and other staff are often dealing with current or past abuse or the threat of abuse. Some of the men students are known to be abusers.

This last is a big issue for me... Right now I have a man in my class with whom I have been working for several months on reading and writing.