Special
points of interest:
· Guaranteed
employment should not be an outcome of a literacy
program.
· Literacy
practitioners rarely have an opportunity to converse
with their peers.
· Qualitative
research has different methods and therefore
different assumptions than qualitative research.
· Funding
mechanisms often weigh the success of a program
on attendance or academic achievement.
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Community of Inquiry
Revisiting
literacy and employment:
a research
study
by Pat Campbell
“I finished
my course… I couldn’t
find a job you
know… Like at this
moment like, I can’t
say anything, I’m so
disappointed.” (female participant).
To what
extent do literacy programs have a positive impact
on employment? Does
participation in literacy programs
lead to increased economic
well being? A decade
ago, Dr. Grace Malicky and
Dr. Charles Norman explored
the relationship between participation
in literacy programs
and employment status a
decade ago. Their findings
are worth revisiting.
A total
of 94 adults enrolled in urban literacy programs participated in this
three-year
study. Forty participants were
Canadian-born; and 54 were
immigrants, primarily Asian.
The majority of participants
were attending formal literacy
programs on a full-time
basis. All the literacy programs
either explicitly stated
or implied vocational goals in
their program agendas.
Formal
testing was used to assess reading achievement;
and interviews were used to
gather information on employment
history, vocational
goals, and reasons for entering
the program. Follow-up
interviews were conducted
at six-month intervals across
a 3-year period. The purpose
of the interviews was to
monitor any changes in the
vocational goals and employment status of participants
both during participation and
after leaving their literacy
programs.
The study
found that before starting literacy programs,
most participants were employed
in the service sector,
making low wages and often
living below the poverty line. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Job
as outcome disappoints learners...
The majority
of learners believed
that participation in
literacy programs would lead
to more and better job opportunities,
and they cited
this factor among their list of
reasons for enrolling in the
program. However, during
the course of their programs,
the participants’ optimism began to wane. They reduced
their expectations
about job prospects, and frequently
became frustrated
and discouraged. After completing
programs, many realized
their doubts were wellfounded.
At the
end of their program, most participants returned to the same type of
jobs they
had held before enrolling in
literacy classes, sometimes
even with the same employer.
On the few occasions
when participants did find
jobs in the new areas in
which they were trained, the
positions were part-time. In fact, none of the participants in the study
achieved their vocational goal, which
was to obtain a full-time job in a specific
area.
continued
on page 2...
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