Evaluation of programs must be qualitative, focusing on what women want to learn, rather than quantitative, using numerical counts of what women accomplish following participation to define "success."

  • Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women

CCLOW should take the lead in advocating for woman-positive adult literacy and basic education policies. The organization should incorporate these recommendations into its mandate and make women's experience of literacy education apriority. The organization must be accessible to all literacy workers and increase the representation of women from multilingual, multiracial programs. Students in programs should be encouraged to participate in CCLOW. 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. The organization needs to consistently use clear language and non- print means of community outreach.

CCLOW should increase its advocacy and support for funding, publishing, networking, and researching in the area of women and literacy.

Betty-Ann Lloyd

Frances Ennis

Tannis Atkinson

Halifax, NS

St. John's, NF

Whitehorse, YK

References

Bamsley, Jan & Ellis, Diana. (1992). Research for change: Participatory action research for community groups Vancouver: Women's Research Centre.

Hunt, David. (1987):Beginning with ourselves: In practice, theory, and human affairs. Cambridge, MA: Brookline.

Kirby, Sandra & McKenna, Kate. (1989). Experience Research Social change: Methods from the margin. Toronto: Garamond Press.

Kolb, David A. (1984). Experiential learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Lather, Patti. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and Pedagogy with/in the postmodern. New York: Routledge.

Lloyd, Betty-Ann. (1991). Discovering the strength of our voices: Women and Literacy programs. Toronto: Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women.

Maguire, Patricia. (1987). Doing participatory research: A feminist approach.Amherst, MA: The Center for International Education, School of Education, University of Massachusetts.

McNiff, Jean. (1988). Action research: Principles and practice. London: MacMillan Education.


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