[NLA] but wait, there's more--USDE web site

[George E. Demetrion]

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002 12:05:43 -0500 "Debbie Yoho" <dwyoho at earthlink.net>
writes:

>With respect to the AELS, I could make the case that the absence of
academic freedom at the K-12 level represents an argument to position
adult education alongside higher ed, and not beside K-12 schooling.  
>
>Especially in the current political climate (tipping my hat to George
for a minute), I'm wondering if working for a national mandate to place
the AELS alongside higher ed could be a way to foster the flexibility
and>philosophy that we need to improve program quality.  This would also
associate th AELS more directly with research.
__________________________________________________________________

"Hiistory is as much of an art as it is a science."

Hello Debbie and colleagues:

That's certainly worth consideration.  What comes to my mind is the need
for the field to speak with several (not necessarily contradictory)
voices instead of one.  Viewed from this point of view, given the history
of state-mandated ABE programs and the strong focus on GED attainment,
perhaps that sector should remain with K-12.  But now, given its
international as well as nation-wide community-based focus, such agencies
as Pro Literacy Worldwide, perhaps could/should link up with the
university system.  This would provide a basis to establish an
independent research tradition upon which to ground adult literacy
studies and to gain an important source of legitimacy upon which the rich
practices its many local organizations are based.. Syracuse University
would be a logical point of connection, at least for the national office.
 One thinks of other agencies that support community-based adult literacy
programs such as World Education, the Center for Literacy Studies in
Knoxville, TN and various regional community-based programs around the
country as reflected in the public library system in CA, Literacy
Partners in NYC, and The Literacy Project in MA and the value that have
or could have strong university connections

While the intent here is not to create a great divide between
community-based adult literacy/ESOL programs and traditional ABE/GED
centers, the differences may be significantly sufficient to warrant a
distinctive research base.  This is particularly the case given the
historical phenomenon of the former to be colonized within the latter and
branded as "ABE light."  Given now the very strong emphasis on
scientific-based research as the only form of research viewed as
legitimate by the government (a political entity that reflects powerful
ideological intent regardless of the "science" upon which its ideology is
based) , perhaps there is a need now for the  community-based adult
literacy-ESOL sector (which is also enmeshed within ideology)  to
establish its own research base.  This would build in no small measure on
the research and theory that has been established over the last 35 years
with the acknowledgement that in order to attain broader public
legitimacy there would have to be some emphasis on bringing disparate
studies together, say through comprehensive review essays. 

 It's not that scientific-based research would be rejected.  That would
be absurd, but that research tradition in itself (note-a research
tradition, not the alpha and omega of what counts as intellectual
scholarship) would be critically examined within the ongoing framework
through which adult literacy studies has been established over the last
35 years. That is, it would be examined through the critical lenses of
the humanities exemplified in what has come to be known in the university
as cultural studies.   Note that these forms of scholarship have included
explorations of the role of political power and culture in the analysis
of how literacy is defined and by whom, which is more than a minor issue
particularly in an administration where literacy is being subtly
redefined as reading.

Though I've raised it here several times, there's been no discussion
about it on whether adult literacy studies has its more appropriate
intellectual home in the realm of the cultural studies (that is, the
humanities) or the "hard" social sciences.  Let's assume there's no
single answer.  Let's assume like in the field of history, literacy
studies is both an art and a science, particularly since so much of the
field's data is, as Catherine King has characterized it,  that of human
consciousness.  Rather than a great divide between the two scholarly
traditions, the more interesting question is the fruitful labor that
follows in vigorously  pursuing both of these research projects
simultaneously, which doing so in inevitably intrudes into the realm of
values.  

In terms of creative research projects, the adult literacy/ESOL
community-based sector would have much to offer university researchers in
terms of a slew of creative projects, particularly in the qualitative
research (including teacher research) mode upon which so much adult
literacy scholarship over the past 35 years has been based.  Obviously
some of this is already happening with NCSALL and NCAL which are linked
to two major universities, and with other universities across the country
that periodically or regularly connect with community focused agencies.
More sustained, formal connections would give this sector more 
independent research status or at the least, challenge the hegemony of
the federal government's definition of valid educational research.  For
the field it would likely result in a much more fruitful inquiry process
in illuminating the varied dimensions of adult literacy education  in
that each tradition opejns up a different set of issues and questions.. 

 At this time, without a full flowering of both research traditions, its
quite possible that even the university-based institutes doing research
in adult literacy-ESOL will become increasingly colonized by the recent
scientific mandates. Nonetheless, I believe it is only through the
universities and the major community-based adult literacy-ESOL agencies
working together, in seeking to systematically create and sustain an
alternative vision of research, that the fuller richness of the field can
come to pass.  

One thinks of the various powerful descriptions of a single program in
South Dakota presented by Nancy Hansen and what would be illuminated
through research traditions strongly focused on case study, teacher
research, and ethnographic research traditions. (Note--these traditions
may very well be perceived as forms of science, but I want to stress
their grounding as well in the humanities and de-privilege the term
science as being synonymous with all that stands for knowledge.)  Perhaps
analysis of one program only tells us about one program.  But then when
such research is multiplied 100 fold then a more broad-based
understanding of the dynamics of our field will become publicly
articulated.

Don't get me wrong, I think there's much merit in a truly scientifically
rigorous approach as Tom Sticht's most recent post illustrates.  More
strongly, since all research is empirical in terms of depending on
evidence (what is at issue is what methodologies are privileged and what
counts as evidence), top rate scholarship in the realm or the sciences
and humanities might well to converge to some significant degree, though
the matters of value and political power will have to be forcefully faced
in the process. 

 I contend that any objective examination of the data will show that
they're there anyway.  To assume otherwise is a form of mystificataction
which some scholars define as "scientism," as opposed to science, or
research, or scholarship.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com




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