6-1    Who we are

It is well known, though nowhere documented, that the majority of adult literacy workers are women. Through the course of this research many of us questioned the connections between this reality and the reality that many programs, especially community-based programs, experience unstable, inadequate funding and poor working conditions. We became more and more convinced that a profile of adult literacy workers in Canada might answer some of our questions and raise others. At the final workshop we strongly recommended that quantitative and qualitative research of this kind be undertaken soon.

Without this profile, we cannot compare ourselves to literacy workers as a whole. Nevertheless, we are able to look at similarities and differences among us. As the twenty-seven women who worked in this project as program and coordinating researchers, we worked with others to define "woman-positive" within our own contexts. At the third workshop we collectively analyzed our experiences and we made recommendations about how the things we learned could be applied to literacy work across Canada. We recognized that readers of this book would want to know something about who we are.

The coordinating researchers developed a data sheet after discussion with women in the project about the personal, professional, and political information they felt was relevant. For example, when we first included only basic demographic details, several women indicated that they would be interested in women's educational philosophy and political beliefs. Others wanted information about working conditions, such as salaries and hours of work each week. Still others wanted to somehow indicate women's level of attachment to the communities in which they work.

All the women involved in the research following the second workshop worked with the form although some chose not to answer all the questions. Most women completed the form during the coordinating researchers' second site visit. A few phoned in their responses and several mailed in information.

• Personal histories

We range in age from 23 to 56 years old. Our average age is 38 with clusters of women at 31, 36, and 43. Nineteen of us are mothers with a total of 41 children ranging in age from under 1 year to 35. Seven women have one child, four have two children, six have three, and two have four.

Twenty-one of us identify as heterosexual. Of these, thirteen are married, five in common-law relationships, three dating, and one celibate. Three women identify as lesbian and all are in relationships. Three women did not respond to the question about sexual orientation.