Women's literacy

The author participated in a two-year national action research project in 1991-92, sponsored by CCLOW. With women from 11 other adult literacy and basic education programs across the country, she developed and implemented a woman-positive activity in her program.

McGill Students for Literacy (MSL) is an independent literacy organization founded and operated by McGill University students. Its mandate is to train McGill students to tutor adults and youth in basic literacy skills and to promote awareness of illiteracy issues. MSL's tutoring services are free and all of the students involved work as volunteers.

How does a woman upgrade her education and skills when she lives in a remote northern community? When the only road winds 25 kilometers north-east to a couple of small villages on the lake? When the nearest university is several hundred kilometers away? And what happens when a woman has children at home, and no money to spare?

Discrimination against older women is an educational form of violence in our society. Its ultimate end rationalizes the erasure of women's individual and collective presence, energy and empowerment which often grow and develop as women age. In an ageist and patriarchal society, aging in women is not just considered "ugly," but an outright disease.

The author's premise in this article is that education in general, and literacy in particular, are gender issues. What, exactly, is the difference between the West African practice of not paying girls' school fees, and the Canadian message to female students to limit their educational horizons? Isn't the Canadian man who refuses to parent in the evening while his wife attends classes helping to deny her access to education?

In this article, Shauna Butterwick reports the highlights of her visit to Bangkok, Thailand for the Fourth World Assembly on Adult Education, an exciting, inspiring and sometimes disturbing experience.

This is a report on a research project designed to examine the impact of literacy activities on the lives of women working as sex-trade workers in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The authors describe the research and share the two-year tale of their experiences and findings so that funders, literacy and community development workers, and women living and working on the street will feel confident embarking on literacy programs together.

This is a report on the activities of the Feminist Literacy Workers Network (FLWN) over a two year period.

This book is one part of the public record of an exciting research project involving women across Canada during 1991 and 1992. Two women from each of twelve adult literacy and basic education programs asked themselves, "What happens when some women in a literacy program decide to do something they consider woman-positive?"

This report contains the findings of a survey of adult basic education programs in Canada. The objective of the survey was to provide information which could be used to answer the question: To what extent do adult basic education programs in Canada address the learning and related needs of women?
The survey focused on two areas: