Adult Literacy Learners Research Articles

Contrasting Adult Literacy Learners With and Without Specific Learning Disabilities

Contrasting adult literacy learners with and without specific learning disabilities This study of 311 adult education (AE) learners found 29% self-reported having a specific learning disability (SLD). Significant differences in demographic, academic, and life experience variables between the adult learners with and without SLD included: prior participation in special education, having both an SLD diagnosis and a high school diploma, low reading scores, middle age, and negative perceptions about limitations due to reading abilities. A post-hoc regression analysis found SLD status significantly contributes to variance in reading level when controlling for age and IQ. From these findings we conclude that SLD status should be considered an educationally relevant variable in adult education that warrants a diagnostic or clinical teaching approach.

Adult learning and literacy learning for livelihoods: some international perspectives

Reflecting contemporary interest in developing new adult literacy learning programmes based on ‘literacy for livelihoods’, this article examines some case studies from New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Egypt, illustrating literacy being used in livelihoods, and relates these to the kind of literacy being taught in many adult literacy programmes today. It argues that people often change their livelihoods, and that each livelihood has literacy practices embedded within it. The authors suggest that the use of these literacy practices embedded within the livelihood activities might be a better starting point for adult literacy learning than a school-based textbook.

What Are They Doing in There? Case Studies of Volunteer Tutors and Adult Literacy Learners

Through case studies of adult literacy learners and the volunteer tutors who instructed them, this article illustrates the strengths and challenges faced by these kinds of instructional pairs. The descriptions help to reveal critical issues that can inform researchers' and practitioners' thinking and practice with regard to tutor training and ongoing support of instructional pairs. These issues are meant to serve as a starting point for rethinking commonly accepted tutor training practices. Findings indicate the importance of providing tutors with ongoing, situated assistance based on the particular needs of tutors and their students.

Critical Consumer Education: Empowering the Low-Literate Consumer

Consumer education programs assume that consumers have the right to full product information, and well-informed consumers will be able to get their needs met in the marketplace. Adults with limited literacy abilities, however, enter the marketplace without the literacy resources of other consumers and are potentially more vulnerable. Many adult literacy programs assume adult literacy students lack both literacy and consumer skills. The results from an interpretative study suggest adult literacy learners combine a range of social skills and resources and an ability to manage the shame of the low-literacy stigma to get their needs met in the marketplace. Four consumer literacy profiles are discussed, and an alternative form of consumer education tailored to each profile is proposed. We discuss the role of a more critical consumer educational approach in literacy assistance programs and its impact on adult learners’ feelings of self-esteem, empowerment, and agency.

The Information Needs of Female Adult Literacy Learners in Accra

Reports on a study to identify the information needs, information sources, information seeking behaviour and barriers to access to information of 122 female adult literacy learners in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The main information need identified was information to solve day-to-day problems followed by the need to acquire basic conversational skills in English, to communicate with customers they meet in their trades and professions. The information needs of the subjects demand a new concept of service and practice. Literacy agents must team up with librarians to take care of the special needs of women enrolled in literacy classes.

Shopping [for] Power: How Adult Literacy Learners Negotiate the Marketplace

Little empirical evidence exists on how adult literacy learners act as consumers. Yet, adult literacy programs often employ a “functional” approach to consumer education and assume that adult learners are deficient in consumer skills. Data from a qualitative study of the consumer behaviors of adult literacy learners are used to explore how adult learners negotiate the marketplace. The findings challenge the validity of a functional model and support the conceptualization of consumer literacy as a social practice, which includes reading and writing skills, personal and social skills, and the ability to manage the stigma of low literacy.

Can Adult Low-Skilled Literacy Learners Assess and Discuss Their Own Spelling Knowledge?

This qualitative study investigates the ability of adult low-skilled readers to talk about the thought processes and phonetic strategies they use to make decisions about their spelling. Four adult learners, all exhibiting word knowledge at a second-grade level or below, participated in individual 45-minute audiotaped interviews. Selected portions of these interviews are included in the article to give examples of specific spelling strategies used by the four participants, such as sounding out, transferring information through use of rhyme, “looks right,” and guessing. The accuracy of the participants' analysis of their own spelling needs was assessed by comparison with their actual spellings as well as with the instructor's perception of their spelling problems prior to the interviews. A high level of agreement was found. Perhaps the most important finding was that all the participants, in spite of very low reading skills, were able to “think about thinking,” a metacognitive skill, and enter into relevant conversation on the subject of their spelling. The study indicates that these adults, including those with very limited reading skills, are able to talk about their thinking processes and can benefit from collaborative classrooms where they share in planning their own instruction and identifying their own needs.

Post-literacy and Second-Stage Adult Learning in India

This paper surveys the work done in post-literacy in India as part of the National Literacy Mission. Created as a second stage of activity after the initial Total Literacy Campaign, the tensions between the radical and the bureaucratic elements within the Total Literacy Campaign are replicated and indeed amplified in the postliteracy stage. The main issue is the aim of post-literacy--whether it is for the further development of literacy skills or the preparation for some future activity--and if the latter, what that activity should be (self-help group, income generation, continuing education, independent learning etc.). This uncertainty means that post-literacy has become an arena of struggle between individual and group goals, between literacy learning and development goals, between instruction and independent learning; and it is therefore less effective than it could be. Based on an extensive review of the literature and on many interviews and discussions during a series of visits to India between 1993 and 2001 (two of which, in 1993 and 1998, were specifically to explore the field of post-literacy in preparation for two research reports), the paper outlines some of the concerns being voiced in India about this aspect of adult literacy learning. The quotations come from interviews and field notes, mostly made in 1998. Interviews were conducted by myself with a researcher or practitioner from India in attendance; most were in English but some were in local languages and used translation. In many cases, we agreed that a generalised description of the interview would be provided rather than individual names.

The Politics of Consumer Education Materials Used in Adult Literacy Classrooms

This study examined the consumer education texts used in adult literacy programs to determine how they portray adult literacy learners as consumers and how they depict the consumer market in which learners operate. It was concluded that the hidden curriculum of the texts promotes several ideologies that are disrespectful of adult learners and that work to maintain or reproduce current class inequalities through placing blame for financial failure on learners and ignoring larger social, political, and economic contexts.

EMPOWERING ADULT EDUCATION IN NAMIBIA AND SOUTH AFRICA DURING AND AFTER APARTHEID

After more than 40 years of education for Apartheid, the development of empowering adult education with the formerly disadvantaged population groups is one of the major challenges for the democratically elected governments in South Africa and Namibia. One of the strongest forces that sustained Apartheid in Namibia until 1990, and in South Africa until 1994, was an education system with different schools and resources for the different population groups. Despite the strict implementation of the Bantu Education System by the white government, some groups of people could still organise alternative education projects aiming at participants' gaining more control over their own lifes. Groups of women in the Western Cape initiated autonomous pre-school projects and took part in in-service training for pre-school teachers in the 1980s. A similar process took place with adult literacy learners in the National Literacy Programme in Namibia.

A Study of the Spelling Development of Adult Literacy Learners Compared with That of Classroom Children

This study compared the spelling development of 195 child and 124 adult literacy learners through a comparison of spelling errors. These errors occurred across 24 word features, which included examples of phonetic patterns, visual patterns, and word relationships ranging from beginning consonant sound (dig) to root constancy matches such as the vowel in accented and unaccented syllables (compete/competition). The order of mastery of the 24 spelling features examined was assessed through the Guttman scale analysis. This analysis indicated a similar developmental pattern occurring in both child and adult spellers especially at the early spelling levels. The differences that occurred in the two groups showed the adults better at identifying visual patterns and understanding some word concepts. They fell behind the children in their correct representation of certain phonetic features because of a tendency to depart from the phonics of the word in their spellings. However, because the adults showed no tendency to skip or shortcut the developmental pattern, it lends support to the theory that adult spelling acquisition, like that of children, needs careful assessment as an essential part of the instructional process.

Taking Care of Literacy One Feminist's Critique

This article shows how gender assumptions and inequalities provide the structure for our definition of the literacy problem, the ways we think about and value the teaching of literacy skills, and our perceptions of the relationships between adult literacy learners and teachers. The article draws on a variety of sources to describe and critique the gendered cornerstones of literacy education, particularly how women 's literacy activities (as teachers and learners) get devalued and depoliticized.

Answering the World

In this article, the four authors reflect back on their work as writing teachers in a neighborhood adult literacy center, in order to understand better the potential “violence” of literacy learning, to reassess assumptions of expressivist pedagogy, and to turn to Bakhtin and Foucault as interpretive frames for theorizing adult literacy learning. The authors propose “co-authoring” as the concept that emerged as central to the writing classes they designed and taught. In this essay they explore co-authoring as process, principle, and theoretical problem.

Kenyan women adult literacy learners: why their motivation is difficult to sustain.

Women comprise more than seventy per cent of those enrolled in the Kenya literacy programme. The reasons for this include: the limited formal educational opportunities available to females; the demands of a changing economy which have forced women to acquire extra responsibilities outside the home; the socializing opportunity made possible by literacy class attendance; flexible work schedules; and cultural beliefs which in some Kenyan communities discourage men from enrolling in the same literacy classes as women.

The social construct of adult literacy learners’ needs: A case study

Abstract This paper reports a theory‐driven, critical case study of the stated needs for literacy of 11 adult literacy learners. The literacy ‘needs’ of adult learners are argued to be social constructions. These stated literacy needs of adult learners are influenced by the external environment of the workplace and the particular workplace literacy requirements, and societal demands. However, these needs are also influenced by the adult learners’ reconstructions and memories of schooling, and the views of significant others whose discourses on literacy affect the adult learners’ perceptions of their ‘reading failure’. The hypothesis generated by this case study, then, is that notions about literacy acquired in the context of acquisition of that literacy will be represented in the subsequent requests of the adult learners for these literacy needs.

Adults and Reading Disability: A New Field of Inquiry

This paper first describes the development of adult literacy pedagogy and philosophy in Australia, then reports and discusses two studies of research into reading disability for adults. The first study uses a quantitative approach with a sample of 102 asthma patients and has important implications for the assessment of adults' reading. The second study is a theory‐driven, critical case study of the stated needs for literacy of 11 adult literacy learners. These stated literacy needs are argued to be socially constructed, influenced by the external environment of more general socio‐political contexts as well as particular civic, personal and workplace literacy requirements. These needs are also influenced by the adult learners' reconstructions and memories of schooling and the views about literacy of significant others, all of which affect the adult learners' perceptions of their ‘reading failure.’ The perspectives offered by the two different studies provide understandings and insights into this new field ...

Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty

Illiteracy should not be equated with ignorance nor should literacy be seen as determining the acquisition of personal power or the attainment of national development. Yet, the ability to write and read in an increasingly technological society is a fundamental need. For those groups that find themselves missing out in the benefits of both modernization and democratization-particularly rural populations, ethnic minorities, and women-literacy constitutes an essential tool in their efforts to gain legal and socioeconomic rights. The proportion of illiterates in the world population, be they men or women, is steadily decreasing, and each new generation has more education than the preceding one. With today's large population, however, the absolute numbers of illiterates are overwhelming. Unesco projects that by the year 2000-a mere 10 years from now-there will be one billion illiterates. While there are differences in the national definitions of literacy and the degree of accuracy measuring it, there is agreement that the statistics underestimate actual illiteracy conditions. Except for a few countries (particularly Jamaica and Lesotho), women have lower levels of literacy than men; in developing countries this disparity averages a 21 percent difference.' Moreover, according to Unesco reports, the proportion of illiterate women is increasing. In 1960, 58 percent of the adult illiterates were women, by 1970 this proportion had increased to 60 percent, and by 1985 it reached 63 percent. In 43 of the 85 developing countries, 50 percent or more of the female adults are illiterate. Illiterate women are numerous in India, China, and sub-Saharan Africa. Female illiteracy in 1985 was 19 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 47 percent in Asia, and 65 percent in Africa.2 The comparison of literacy statistics from 1960 to 1985 reveals that, of the 154 million new illiterates during that period, 133 million were women. The greatest numerical increase was in Asia, where the population of illiterates grew by 109 million. In Africa the absolute increase was smaller due to its smaller population, but the rate of increase was the largest as the number of illiterate women rose by 44 percent, from 68 to

Necessary Changes: Professional Involvement in Adult Literacy Programs

Adult literacy programs have achieved recent prominence as studies documenting huge numbers of illiterates in the United States provoke national anxiety. In this article, Francis Kazemek first critiques demeaning attitudes toward adult literacy learners implicit in the practices of major literacy programs, and then examines underlying assumptions about the nature of literacy in the light of recent sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studies on actual literacy practices. He argues that among the challenges facing adult literacy professionals is the responsibility to confront political and institutional barriers to effective literacy education. In conclusion, he offers an alternative, holistic methodology based on dialogic and socially oriented instructional strategies, and which responds to gender-based and cultural differences in ways of learning.

Horatio Alger and the GED (General Education Development) Diploma: Narratives of success in adult literacy education

This article presents a qualitative analysis of stories of successful students told in adult literacy education. These stories follow a similar narrative, beginning with a protagonist who must overcome life obstacles, makes a conscious decision to change her life, rejects dependency, is of high moral character, remains optimistic despite challenges, and who ultimately succeeds through determination, perseverance, and hard work. After presenting these stories I argue that they are the latest manifestation of a genre of stories told for centuries in the United States and that comprise what many have called the ‘American Myth of Success’. This myth, which has its roots in seventeenth-century Puritanism, states that every person, as a result of hard work and effort, can create the life they want for themselves. While these myths might provide hope for some adult literacy learners and teachers, I conclude that unquestioningly telling these success stories help to perpetuate the assumptions of this myth of success, and results in blaming adult learners for their own failure while ignoring social and structural factors that impede success.