1. Introductions

Background to the Research

This report is a brief introduction to the findings of a research project sponsored by The Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women (CCLOW) and funded by the National Literacy Secretariat. Begun in October 1996, the research examined the impacts of abuse on women's literacy learning ² and explored approaches to literacy programming in the light of these impacts.

Many years of research and practice in literacy, led me to a belief in the crucial need for research that would lead to more awareness and more talk about women's experience of violence and its impact on their literacy learning as adults. I argued in my proposal for funding:

If the impacts of violence are not adequately addressed in literacy programs there is a cost for learners, as they face barriers to successful learning; a cost to literacy workers, as they are frustrated by lack of knowledge about how best to support survivors in overcoming barriers to learning; and a cost to programs as a whole, as learners struggle to participate effectively as leaders sharing in running their programs.

As I talked to learners and workers, the frustration of learners who feel their failure to learn proves they are stupid, and of workers who feel incompetent and question what they could do better, confirmed the need for this study, and for changes to literacy work.

The Research Process

I interviewed literacy workers, learners, counselors and therapists who were interested in reflecting on their concerns and experiences in relation to issues of violence and adult literacy learning. My main questions for interviewee's were:

1. What impacts of abuse do you see in your literacy program/your work?
2. How can/should literacy programs address these impacts of violence?

I identified key contacts in five regions (B.C., Prairies, Central Canada, Atlantic, and North) who identified women interested in talking to me. Over several months, I interviewed a wide variety of literacy workers, literacy learners, therapists, counselors and staff in various organizations in focus group sessions, individual interviews and through computer networks. Overall, I talked to approximately one hundred and fifty people, mostly women ³.

As I talked to group after group of workers and learners, I was able to check out ideas from earlier interviews with the next group. I brought information from my sessions with counselors and therapists to sessions with literacy workers, in order to explore whether the discourses of literacy work might obscure some impacts of violence, and whether therapeutic discourses might help reveal impacts that had previously gone unnoticed. The information gradually became more “layered”, as women agreed and disagreed with each other, and responded to the analysis I began to make of what I was hearing.

2 This study focused on women's experience of violence. Further studies are needed to explore the particularities of men's experience. However, many of the implications for literacy programming for women emerging from this research would also strengthen men's literacy learning.

3 The depth and length of “talk” varied widely, from as little as one interaction on a computer conference to as much as a weekend retreat, but most contacts were a single two to three hour meeting. Overall I interviewed nine groups of literacy workers (some groups also included counselors and people from other organizations) and met with some workers individually or in twos or threes from one program. I also interviewed five groups of literacy learners. I interviewed ten counselors and therapists individually, but a few more participated in groups with literacy workers.