[NLA] Site-based research

[George E. Demetrion]

Colleagues:

For what it's worth, several of the articles I have written (also on the
NALD web site) are based on my own site-based experience in managing an
adult literacy program in Hartford, CT.  
(http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/a-cde.htm#D).

Of course, the views expressed reflect my own point of view, hence, the
various interpretations are contestable. Also, I do not make any claims
of generalizability from my work.  Though I  would suggest that the
research contributes to a collective understanding of the field that
perpetually needs further refinement and elaboration, to say nothing of
the need for other perspectives (feminist, critical theory,
afro-centrist, functional, etc.) than mine.   Nonetheless, the articles
do represent one example of site-based, practitioner-based research,
notwithstanding the strong emphasis in my work on theory.

Also, while only about half the articles referenced on the web-site have
a strong, explicit site-based focus, even the more theoretical pieces
reflect the tensions, including quests for creative fusion, between my
stance as a practitioner and the various intellectual presuppositions
through which I seek to make sense of the pedagogy and politics of adult
literacy education.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle's (1993) Teacher Research and Knowledge: Teachers
College Press, contains many examples of practitioner-based research
along with a good theoretical discussion of the field.  Art had also
mentioned a practitioner inquiry project in Georgia.  There are others.

Of course, the issue of legitimacy of such research  is an important
matter.  While it may be unlikely that the federal government at this
time is going to give much credence to research based on ethnographic or
other "soft" social science/ humanities perspectives, that does not
negate the importance of such work--lest, of course, the government
becomes the defining source of what counts as legitimate research.

For this type of research to have full play, there would need to be
independent sources of repository where such work can be housed, where
various intellectual/scholarly/research traditions (including
practitioner-based research) can be identified, developed, refined,
discussed, and, of course, legitimized.

Some of the major institutions, which *in part* need to respond to the
current governmental mantra of "scientifically-based research," can also
be houses to store and legitimize alternative perspectives.  I'm thinking
of NCSALL, NCAL, ProLiteracyWorldwide, and possibly NIFL, particularly
with the EFF project.  

The challenge is for such research to reach a critical mass of public
vocality so that it at least gets heard in the major policy centers such
as the USDoE and its adult ed branches.  The need for this, however,
should not intrude upon the work of building an independent sector for
various scholarly/research traditions that has characterized adult
literacy since Freire's (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  This would
require strong networking as well as some degree of institution
building/legitimizing, which I would hope in particular that NCSALL,
NCAL, and ProLiteracyWorldwide can/would support and even encourage. 

 As the very viability of adult literacy education as a distinctive
branch of educational studies is at stake in the current political
climate, it becomes more important than ever for those agencies most
committed to it, to include as part of their own vital work, the
establishment and development of their own research.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com


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