At the end of this exploratory phase, three research questions emerged for phase two:

• What happens within programs where woman-positive activities take place with the knowledge of administration or management, staff, volunteers, and students? How do the programs change?

• What can we learn about "learner-centred" and "woman-positive" approaches by carrying out research around the activities outlined above? How are these approaches different in theory and in practice?

• What is the experience of women who participate in woman-positive activities within literacy programs? What is the experience of those who do not participate?

To fulfil one of the objectives for the exploratory stage of the research, I developed a funding proposal for a national program-based action research project. This proposal outlined a two-year research project involving two contact women from each of ten adult literacy or basic upgrading programs. These programs would be selected to represent a variety of geographic locations, program approaches, and community sizes.

The women in each program would plan, implement, document, and evaluate a woman-positive activity - however they might define that within the context of their community and program. They would ensure that the activity was visible in the program and would reflect upon and document its impact. They would give the women who participated in the activity an opportunity to take part in its documentation and evaluation.

We anticipated that the woman-positive activities might range from reviewing literacy materials of interest to women, to organizing a women-only class or group that would meet regularly to work on literacy skills.

CCLOW would pay the contact women from each program for a total of one-half day each week during which the women might think about, talk about, or write about what was happening because of the woman-positive activity in their program. A coordinating researcher would provide ongoing support for the contact women, including visits to each site. She would also bring all the contact women together in three national workshops to give them opportunities to develop research methods, and to decide how they might plan, implement, document, and analyze their woman-positive activities.

During the first national workshop, women would be introduced to the action research process, including reflective writing, and we would explore the range of possibilities for woman-positive activities within their programs. In the second workshop we would talk about the issues arising in each program and how women might document these issues. In the third workshop, we would develop an analysis and recommendations.