At the same time, funding should not be so narrowly defined that only social assistance recipients or adults receiving unemployment insurance can participate. Current policies that restricts participation to preselected groups have worked to the detriment of women.

• Evaluation

Adult literacy and basic education programs must be evaluated qualitatively, from the perspective of what the women want to learn, rather than quantitatively, from the perspective of predetermined numerical counts of what women are able to accomplish following their participation.

Recommendation: CCLOW

CCLOW should take the lead in advocating for adult literacy and basic education policies that are woman-positive. The recommendations from this research, together with the recommendations from other CCLOW-sponsored research, should be integrated into CCLOW's mandate. This may mean determining whether women's experience of literacy education is a priority for the organization. CCLOW should take measures to ensure that the organization becomes accessible to all literacy workers, including increased representation of women from multilingual, multiracial programs.

Women who are not comfortable with the label "feminist" should be included in CCLOW's work, although the organization should maintain its current feminist identification.

Students in programs should be encouraged to participate in CCLOW and, therefore, the organization needs to consistently use clear language and non-print means of community outreach.

CCLOW should advocate for the funding of qualitative, program-based, and participatory action research in the field of adult literacy and basic education. In particular, it should study the relationships between the under funding of programs, the use of volunteers, conditions of work, lack of status, and low salaries in the field of adult literacy and basic education. The findings should be used to promote improved standards for our work.

CCLOW should continue to publish about women and literacy. An issue of Women's Education des femmes should be devoted to woman-positive literacy practice. The organization should also find a way to acknowledge programs that have developed woman-positive activities and structural changes. It should continue and, if possible, increase the number of its scholarships for women involved in literacy and basic education. It should provide continued support for the Feminist Literacy Workers' Network (FLWN).