As I came close to finishing writing the dissertation I decided I would give all the interviewees pseudonyms. Although most of them had decided they did not need or want to see how they were represented, I felt the safest approach was to disguise their identities. Nevertheless, I have sent those participants who were interested a copy of the final draft of the study.

Protection from harm

Although only one interviewee was clearly interested in checking how she was represented, I was very aware that some of the comments might be more harmful to some of the participants than to others. A full professor may not see any danger in the comments a graduate student makes in her dissertation. A non university-based researcher may suffer consequences if her comments are viewed as too critical of an institution that funds her work or of a person she is collaborating with.

Based on the concerns outlined above, I have done my best to conceal the identities of all interviewees, concentrating my efforts in protecting those participants who could be more readily recognizable and threatened by the information I present. In the next chapters, participants' words are represented in quotations followed by the pseudonyms and the page number of the interview transcripts. I have included many and long quotes in order to give the "nuances" of the participants' understandings.

How my literacy work influenced my thinking

As described above, I used grounded theory to collect and analyse the data. I described the challenges of balancing participants' words with my own ideas. As much as I understood this challenge, I was aware that there were other ideas influencing my analysis as well. My work as a research friend with literacy and adult basic education practitioners has especially allowed me to reflect on research from a different perspective. When I am part of a research team with practitioners they look to me for guidance about research methods. They also question my suggestions when they do not seem to fit their way of thinking about their practice. These questions and sometimes resistance to my ideas about how to do research have helped me see and articulate underlying assumptions. Most of the ideas presented in the last chapter of this dissertation stem from the work I have been doing with practitioner-researchers.