Yet, communicate we did, using a heavy agenda to guide conversations during the one to three day visits in each location. We reviewed the research design and questions to ensure that the program descriptions focused on "what actually happens when some women in an adult literacy program decide to do something they consider woman-positive." This piece of the documentation was meant to satisfy those readers who wanted the facts: who, what, where, when, how, why. Should we run into funding difficulties for the final segment of the research, these descriptions could constitute our research report. We wanted to make sure that the poster photographs and statements from each program would help other students and staff begin a discussion about what it means to do something woman-positive in their own programs. We discussed the program products as something that would allow women to express their own experience in a way that did not have to conform to any kind of standard format. We tried to get a sense of how different women approached their writing, how they felt about editing, ownership. How much input from us did they expect or would they appreciate?
Either during the visit or later, over the phone, we collected personal, professional, and political data from each woman. Based on our experiences of reading research we expected others to want to know who we were, where we were coming from. We asked the women involved what they would want to know about anyone doing research in their field and what they thought others might want to know. We developed a data form that was modified after women provided feedback. It gave us room to record women's experience in their programs and their communities. We talked about education and work histories, philosophies and politics, and personal background. If women did not feel comfortable with any of the questions, they didn't have to answer them. The responses are outlined in Chapter Six of this book. |
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