There is a distinct and different context for each program in this research. They provide services in large urban centres and in the urban rural mix of prairie and northern towns and cities. They are on the east and west coasts, on the Hudson Bay, and Lake Ontario. Four programs are located in community colleges, a fifth is based in a federation of labour, a sixth in a prison. The remaining six community-based programs operate in a range of locations: on the street, in store-fronts, in public housing, in a Native friendship centre, and in a community centre.

These programs have a variety of mandates and organizational structures. Some of the programs included women-only groups. Others had never before considered working with women as a particular student group. The students in these programs ranged from those involved in basic literacy to those preparing to write their high school equivalency exams. Their involvement in the decision-making processes of their programs varied widely.

The women who acted as researchers also varied. With two early exceptions, they all worked as staff or volunteers in their programs. Several had been learners in those or other programs before becoming staff. They ranged in age from 23 to 56, in academic background from less than grade 12 to postgraduate degrees, and in experience from one to twenty years.

These women spent twelve months initiating, observing, and documenting the impact of the woman-positive activity chosen for their program. During that year, they were visited twice by Betty-Ann or Frances. During these visits, they took part in two in-depth interviews designed to encourage interpretation and analysis of what was happening with themselves, with other staff, and with students.

The contact women from each program also attended two additional workshops. At the second workshop, held in Mississauga in April 1992, the women raised many of the issues that had arisen in their programs over the last six months and discussed different ways of documenting their activity. The final workshop took place in November 1992 in Ottawa. At this workshop women developed a collaborative analysis of their experiences and put together recommendations for programs, policy-makers, and funders. The recommendations form a vision of a woman-positive future in adult literacy.

This research did not set out to prove any hypothesis. The women involved did not initiate their activities to prove a particular point. They simply wanted to do something that they thought would be positive for some of the women in their programs. They wanted to use this research opportunity to improve the programs in which they worked. They also wanted to share their experience with others by analyzing what happened on several levels. They explored the personal, professional, political, and structural consequences of their activities. They participated in research that was ground-breaking in a variety of ways.