This study (Richmond ,1999) examines the nature and effectiveness of a community-based literacy program in a Canadian province, specifically the Community Academic Services Program (CASP) of New Brunswick. It will look at this rurally-located literacy program and at the experiences of the learners and facilitators within the program.

Literacy is a socially constructed concept that is defined in ways congruent with the expectations and attitudes of various interest groups. Most interest groups focus on the " problems of literacy" and define it in ways which problematise the relationships among literacy, education, employment and culture, as well as those among adults with low level literacy skills , their family and community, and with the literate members of society. The full impact of literacy as a problem, as well as its definition, lies within an intersecting network of local and societal beliefs which link literacy and education, literacy and employment, literacy and culture, and literacy and daily life in the local community.

In the past New Brunswickers could live their daily lives within a culture which did not demand literacy skills. Adults were assessed on the basis of their competence to do work and support their family. In this culture, adults with low literacy skills worked at seasonal unskilled jobs, in resource-based industries such as farming, fishing, mining, trapping, logging and hunting; and were supported by unemployment benefits for the rest of the year. Many of the jobs in these industries have disappeared due to over-fishing, mechanized farming and logging, bans on leg-hold traps, the collapse of the fur industry, fewer animals to hunt, and the depletion of mining resources. In other cases, the industries are no longer labour-intensive and jobs are fewer in number. The jobs that are left require new knowledge and new technical skills. Adults without this knowledge or these new skills are increasingly marginalised in the workplace, and fewer and fewer can find jobs that pay a living wage.