Reproduced from 1990 Conference Proceedings, pp. 84-92 ã SCUTREA 1997

Jane Mace, Goldsmiths College

Abstract

International Literacy Year is an opportunity to question assumptions. In this paper I explore the idea that literacy work is (far from being something which goes on ‘out there’) very much part of academic work. I examine three issues arising from adult literacy practice which I suggest are live Issues for higher education.

The tension between individual and collective learning; the relationship between personal, autobiographical reflection and researched, impersonal data in student writing; and the question of authorship and status in designing research questions in the field.

To illustrate these themes, I offer examples of teaching methods and of movements in British adult literacy work in the last two decades; and from this experience, I argue that research into and about adult literacy is best pursued via a collaboration between academic and community educators, and in present political and economic conditions must always have a relationship with action.

Challenge?

Literature on adult education seems to be peppered with phrases in which something, or somebody, is being ‘challenged’ - so I owe an explanation, to begin with, as to why I have chosen to suggest that adult literacy work should be seen as adding to the list of ‘challenges’ facing higher education.

1990 has been proclaimed as International Literacy Year by the United Nations General Assembly, with the aim of ‘setting in motion a worldwide movement for literacy as part of a ten-year Plan of Action extending to the year 2000¹. Conferences on the subject are being held all over the world; reports and anthologies are being published; international networks and working groups are being established. It is an exciting time; and one which invites us to question a wide range of assumptions. In this paper I want to try and suggest how literacy work is part of academic work, and that, just as basic education in this country is learning to make academic knowledge accessible for purposes of ‘mutual improvement’, so higher education may do well to learn from the methods used in adult literacy work to give respect and recognition to those people who become its students.

My own sense of feeling ‘challenged’ comes from the apparent conflict of interest between my original work in adult literacy and my present position in the hierarchy of an academic institution, still with a responsibility for literacy provision From a job called ‘literacy organiser’, I have, through various stages in the last twenty years, arrived at a job called ‘university lecturer’. An interesting feature of this change, as far as my work with adult literacy and community education is concerned, is the change in justifications needed to attract funding for it. From having to justify the work to one set of funders as ‘action’ to which they should allocate grant, I am now in a position of having to justify it to another set of funders in terms of ‘research’. There are deep divisions of ideology and tradition behind these two positions.

Yet increasingly, perhaps as a means to reconcile this conflict in my own head, I have become aware of issues of concern to higher education with which I have been familiar for a long time in adult-literacy and community education. Meanwhile, a growing number of literacy workers are choosing to take up the business of conducting and publishing research on their own terms, in partnership with their students and with academic researchers from several disciplines. Since 1984, some of this stimulating activity has been coming together as a national network of research-and-practice².

There are three related issues that I want to explore as examples of the potential community of interest. First, the tension between individual and collective learning. This has long been a live issue in adult literacy work, it is also, in terms of teaching students to write, an issue of potential interest to higher education. Secondly, and related to this, the question of how personal experience may be validated as part of a curriculum of study as well as objective analysis. Literacy teaching gives emphasis to the former, academic study to the latter: in what ways can the balance be usefully changed, in both areas of education? The third issue is that of research, and the question of authorship and status in designing research questions, which in adult literacy work in this country has emerged as a key theme for activity in the last five years.

Individual and collective

Of all the contradictions in adult literacy practice, the one which most persistently recurs is that between the preoccupation with individual ‘need’ and a collective ‘interest’. Most literacy students in this country come to classes for 2-4 hours a week, in time squeezed from other pressures and commitments. If half of that time is spent on discussion and study on a topic that seems of no interest or use to their immediate reading vocabulary and practical circumstances, there is a serious risk that the student may be discouraged from that or any other learning opportunity. The stress in literacy training on as ‘negotiating the curriculum’ in teaching methods starts from this simple reality; the problems of achieving a balance between assessed progress and a genuinely changed consciousness have always had to take account of this context.

So the risks, in literacy groupwork, are considerable; there are also, however, clear advantages to group learning. The change in the last two decades from a mainly one-to-one home-based structure of provision to one which offers a programme of classes in education buildings is a change made for deliberate educational reasons³. People learn better in a group. Or, at least, they learn a new sense of their own abilities and strengths better in a group. One student who had had both personal tuition and class teaching experience reported his view of the difference:

Working in a group is better than being Just on your own. Working in a group gives you a bit more confidence, because everyone is in the same position as you and is willing to help each other. Before I came to the group I was a bit nervous of my spelling, but now I feel more confident. There doesn’t seem to be so much pressure as there was working with just one person. I just couldn’t seem to take it in somehow, with Just one person telling me things, but with other people around it seems easier.⁴

The writer’s feeling that, in a group, ‘everyone is in the same position as you and is willing to help each other, has to do with a specific feature of what has been called the ‘ideological’ model of adult literacy work⁵: the intention, in teaching people in a group setting, to create a sense of their own confidence. The curriculum, in this model of literacy education, is neither the pre-planned syllabus of more formal study, nor the individualised programme of a skills-based course. The key to it is the constant interaction between individual experience and social/political context: the medium of expression is talk - but it is also writing.

Personal and impersonal

Undergraduates, graduates and lecturers in academic institutions n grapple all the time with a variety of fears when they face the task of writing essays, dissertations, articles and books. (There is, beside every final draft, such as this one, another unwritten text: the story of its writing). Such fears, at first sight, are very different from those expressed by Carol Belsey (in a text which by now is well known in the literature of adult literacy in this country):

Fear. What is it? To me it is someone handing me a form and saying ‘Fill this in’. It is hard to put into words just what happens to me. Every part of my body stiffens. I go hot all over ...⁶

Much of the writing about literacy in Britain in the mid-1970s stressed fear and anxiety such as this, experienced by people who could not read and write. Less common was any analysis of the power relations at work in a situation such as Carole Belsey describes. Having to fill in a form means having to write for an unseen reader who has resources and power which the writer does not have, but wants (job, money, position, for example). It is a hierarchical relationship. Useful work has now been done in analysing the language of ‘organisational literacy’ which effectively denies many people the capacity to use the literacy they have⁷. There is no doubt that we need such analysis, and as I shall suggest later, that the ‘we’ for whom it would be interesting should include new literates as much as academics.

However, the important issue about Carole Belsey’s text is that it was among a series of pieces which, in the mid-1970s signalled the maJor move forward in literacy work: the publication of writing at firsthand by authors with personal experiences of illiteracy. This publishing - by now a widespread practice in the UK and elsewhere⁸ - starts from an important classroom practice: namely, the deliberate encouragement of students to show writing to each other, and to offer each other encouraging critical responses. This practice of peer-reading of course work is in direct contrast to the traditions of higher education. Undergraduate students are required to produce individual essays to be read and responded to by tutors, not (at least not in the classroom) by other students. Yet the fears of ‘getting it wrong’ or not knowing ‘the proper way’ to write, common to both academic and new literates, are often rooted in the same feeling: what I would call ‘the writer’s disbelief in her reader’.

In the case of essay-writing, it has occurred to other educators in literacy and ‘access’ work as well as me⁹ to suggest that the hesitations and doubt expressed by academic students are part of the hesitations and the doubt they feel about their relationship with the person who will read it. Literacy teaching offers an environment in which new writers have readers in the same room - who are all working at the same difficulties of drafting and editing that they are themselves. Students read each other’s drafts.

In literacy and ‘return to study’ classes this practice frequently means that students free each other, not only to find ways of improving their writing, but also, crucially, to gain conviction that what they are saying on paper is of interest to someone else. When a potential reader is sitting across the table, offering prompts, questions and suggestions to a first draft, the writer’s block of ‘I don’t know what I want to say’ (sometimes expressed as: ‘I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it’) is given a mighty shove. The reader-writer relationship is alive and visible; the writer can believe she has a reader, and can take this belief to the second, third, and final draft eventually to be read, if published elsewhere, by someone she has never met.

Research and authorship

Literacy work with aspirations to ‘liberate’ is committed to making historical writing, academic research, and theoretical study accessible to a popular readership. Literacy teachers, when we tackle the task of interpreting and translating specialist and theoretical language, have had to learn to renew our own writing language into accessible rhythms and vocabulary. There are fine examples of this work in the field of linguistics¹⁰, black history¹¹ and sociology¹², and I am aware from my own current work on television studies¹³ what a discipline such research and writing entails. A group of literacy workers in London regularly wrote and produced a broadsheet for some years on issues in the news for reading and discussion; and there is probably much other such work informally published and locally distributed¹⁴.

Many adult educators who have moved from teaching literacy to developing ‘fresh start’ courses have encouraged their students to combine the autobiographical writing of literacy work with documentary and interview research into issues of their personal history¹⁵. It should be no surprise that this commitment to integrating the personal and the social/political is common to both literacy and feminist teachers and writers¹⁶.

The idea of research activity into the meanings and uses of literacy itself would appear to be attracting considerable attention and interest this year. There are those who see it as something to which universities and higher education institutions can contribute a particular expertise. Partnerships between academic and community educators are still, however, relatively rare in this country, although an apparently routine feature of work in North America and possibly elsewhere¹⁷. The key question, among so many raised by literacy programmes here and in other countries is that of authorship: who should be the authors of the research questions that need to be asked?

Some new work in bringing literacy students, teachers and academics together to work on this has resulted in three national conferences and reports since 1987 in which new literates have been vocal in identifying questions which academics alone would never have conceived of¹⁸.

Ultimately, the important and complicated work of teaching and learning literacy is itself a research practice. And much of the research interest has focused on teaching methods and curriculum ideas. However, research is also badly needed on the structures within which literacy education attempts to function. Jane Lawrence’s is one of the few reports available which offers some analysis of different institutional structures in this way¹⁹. Two examples of research work which remain an important tool for campaign work are still, for me, the example of the full-time ‘preparatory courses’ funded by the Manpower Services Commission in the ten years 1975-1985²⁰, and the example of paid educational leave (PEL) in this country and others²¹. Information is still needed on the ways in which community and labour organisations have in the past, and are now, successfully organising literacy education; and more evidence like that of Mary Hamilton’s²² is needed to argue the case for increased attention and funding for adults to have better opportunities to develop their literacy than the present conditions.

For in this country, and advanced capitalist society with an economic crisis and rising unemployment, finance for what is essentially working-class education is brutally squeezed. Large numbers of women and men are stuck in poverty traps that do not allow them the luxury of pursuing their own research project: namely, how to find the education opportunities they want, at a time and a price they can afford - even if such things still exist in their area. Fees for adult education are being raised, classes cut, and the employment of people to carry out outreach programmes is becoming a thing of the past. It is ironic, in International Literacy Year, that the provision of adult literacy in Britain may be more precariously founded than the year of its first ‘Right to Read’ campaign, in 1975. These are times, it seems, when the ‘developed’ countries of the North cannot afford to look comfortably at the high illiteracy rates of the South. In reviewing adult literacy work in this country, research and action will have to keep together for some time to come.

Endnotes

1. From: News feature, ‘1990 - International literacy year’, UNESCO, Paris
2. Research and Practice in Adult Literacy (RaPAL) a national network of literacy teachers and researchers established in 1985, publishes a quarterly bulletin featuring articles, reports and reviews on research activity in adult literacy. RaPAL, Bolton Boyd Centre, Manningham Lane, Bradford BD8 7BB
3. Of the 110,626 adults and young people receiving tuition in November 1988, 4% were receiving home tuition, 13% were being taught individually often by volunteers in centres and the remaining 83% were learning in small groups. Annual Report, 88/89, Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit.
4. From: Tuesday Night Talk, Cambridge House Literacy Scheme, March 1977
5. See: Street, Brian (1984) Literacy in theory and practice Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
6. From: Carole Belsey, Fear. In Christine McMullen and Caroline Pillay (eds) (1975), Father’s cap and other stories by students of Cambridge House Literacy Scheme Cambridge House Literacy Scheme
7. See Richard Darville, The language of experience and the literacy of power. In Maurice Taylor, James Draper (eds) (1989) Adult literacy perspectives, Culture Concepts
8. The Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers, established in 1976, has 35 member-groups; publications list from FWWCP, c/o Queenspark Books, 68 Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 2JY. Gatehouse Project, a member-group, has been publishing writing by literacy students since 1978; publications list from St. Luke’s, Sawley Road, Miles Platting, Manchester M10 8DB. Back copies of Write First Time, the national newspaper publishing writing by literacy students 1975-1985 are available from Avanti Books, 1 Wellington Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire. SG2 9HR. See also notes 10, 11, 15 and 16.
9. See Anne Carvalho, The Induction Programme: B.Ed Access course, Hackney College. In Ceri Williams and Sue Adler (eds) (1990), Supporting adults learning, ILEA, from Ceri Williams, Tower Hamlets College, Poplar High Street, London E14 OAF and Wendy Moss (1987), Breaking the barriers: eight case studies of women returning to learning in North London, ALFA Ltd. North London Open College Network, The Marlborough Building, 383 Holloway Road, London N7 ORN, 1987). Frank Smith (1982), Writing and the writer, Heinemann
10. Sue Shrapnel Gardener’s (1985) ‘You do English every day’ in her Conversations with strangers ALBSU/Write First Time, includes an admirable summary of linguistic theory in addressing issues of language diversity, and the whole pack remains essential reading for anyone interested in writing development in literacy work.
11. Frank Forde, Lesnah Hall, Virginia McLean and Ray Uter (eds) (1989), ‘Four Women’, ‘The Real McCoy’ and ‘Not just singin’ and dancin’’, from a three-part series Black Makers of History (published as part of a Special Development Project sponsored by ALBSU by The Bookplace, 13 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5EB
12. Among other publications, the series Miriam Sampson (ed) (1984-85), A Matter of Opinion, John Murray (5 titles) aims to raise discussion in adult education groups on ‘some of the topics in the news these days’.
13. Jane Lawrence and I are carrying out a research project with colleagues and literacy groups into the curriculum interest of television viewing experience; the National Extension College has expressed the intention to publish the resulting handbook in 1990/91
14. Making News, a duplicated newsletter, was published and circulated by literacy workers in the London area to my knowledge from 1976-80
15. Sue Challis, Jane Mace, Wendy Moss, Carole Snee (eds) (1983), Creating our past, by the New Horizons group at the Lee Centre, offers an example of the work of one group of 14 women researching their own histories and transitions via personal reflection, interview and documentary research. Published by The Lee Community Education Centre, 1 Aislibie Road, Lee, London SE12 8QH
16. An important publication this year of international literacy in this respect is The literacy issue - feminist perspectives on reading and writing, Jan/Feb 1990, vol 4 no 1, from Women’s Programme, 394 Euclid Avenue, Suite 308, Toronto, Canada, M6G 289
17. The work of Elsa Auerbach and colleagues with the English Family Literacy Project at the University of Massachusetts is an important example of this (details from: BILINGUAL/ESL Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts/Boston, Harbor Campus, Boston MA 02125-3393) The Department of Linguistics and the Institute of Research in Post-compulsory Education, Education Department at Lancaster University have been working for some years on ensuring similar partnerships between academic and community research.
18. Jane Mace and Wendy Moss (eds) (1988), How do people decide to join a literacy class? The report of a research study by adult literacy students, The Lee Community Education Centre/National Federation of Voluntary Literacy Schemes, address as in 15 above. RaPAL Bulletin: special issue - report of the Lee Community Education Centre/ ; RaPAL study weekend, Doing research, RaPAL, Summer 1989, address as in 12 above. For report of the spring 1990 ‘Doing Research’ weekend in Bradford, see Adults Learning, issue No 10, NIACE, June 1990
19. Jane Lawrence (1984), It used to be cheating: working together in literacy groups, National Extension College, Cambridge
20. See Annabel Hemstedt and Ursula Howard (1987), Literacy and the economy of litter, Viewpoints No 6 ALBSU
21. PEL in this country and Italy is discussed in Jane Mace and Martin Yarnit (eds) (1987), Time off to learn: paid educational leave and low paid workers, Methuen
22. Mary Hamilton (1987), Literacy, numeracy and adults: evidence from the National Child Development Study, ALBSU