Abstract
This research synthesis analyzed qualitative depictions of adult literacy learners and identified five ways in which they are typically characterized: the Heroic Victim, the Needy (Problem) Child, the Broken (but Repairable) Cog, the Pawn of Destiny, and the Capable Comrade. These types do not capture the diversity or complexity of all adult literacy learners, and we do not argue that they are comprehensive. Rather they are representative of the ways in which adult literacy learners are portrayed in the research literature. We argue that each type, like characters in a narrative, drive the “action” in research, policy, and practice arena. The ways in which they populate research may have very real consequences for how adult literacy learning opportunities are provided and the outcomes that can be expected.
Statistics about adult literacy levels and participation in programs abound (Kutner, Greenberg, & Baer, 2005; U.S. Department of Education Division of Adult Education and Literacy, 2011; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, n.d.). These statistics can be parsed into meaningful demographic information to establish, for example, the relationships between literacy level and age, gender, educational attainment, and race/ethnicity. Yet the statistics cannot tell us about the experiences, resources, and challenges learners bring to the classroom that may support or impede learning. Making a similar observation in reference to a literacy population study, Quigley (1997) remarked, What the NALS did not do—and was not intended to do—is give a picture of the trials, successes, or aspirations of the people it studied. . . . We actually know little about those who were studied in the NALS or similar studies. (p. 47)
Quigley (1997) advanced our descriptive knowledge of how low literate adults are portrayed in popular culture and political discourse, but to date there has been no systematic analysis of the research literature to synthesize descriptions of adult literacy learners.
Researchers have made the importance of this kind of knowledge clear by pointing to its absence. For example, Comings, Parrella, and Soricone (1999) observed that the common practice of classifying students by their demographic characteristics was not helpful in their quest to better understand what influences persistence. D’Amico (2004) asserted that programs need “to broaden their knowledge base by learning about diverse experiences and theories and by listening for the missing voices in their classes and curricula” (p. 48). We similarly believe that failure to attend to a more descriptive understanding of learners’ characteristics and the integral role they play in a range of social contexts will detract from the field’s capacity to meet their needs and help them improve their ability to use literacy fully.
To engage in this process, we identified qualitative studies that portrayed adult literacy learners as their primary purpose or as background to research with other purposes and then analyzed those descriptions. Due both to a paucity of systematically collected descriptions and the difficulty of capturing the rich range of experiences and perspectives among a diverse group that resists generalization, it is obvious that no one portrayal of adult literacy learners could ever emerge that adequately captures their diversity. Low literacy does not trump other characteristics to the point where it could ever be accurate to say low literate adults are: fill in the blank. Thus, it is easy to understand that this group of adults, with one characteristic in common, is as diverse as any other group that has just one characteristic in common. We found that our search told us more about the ways in which researchers portray adult literacy learners than about the learners themselves. Therefore, the question that guided our analysis of the literature became, “In what ways are adult literacy learners portrayed in the research literature?” We argue that such an analysis is important because it can clarify and then problematize the way that underlying assumptions drive how we address the needs of learners in practice, research, and policy.
Theoretical Framework
Street (1984) played a seminal role in articulating the notion that conceptions of literacy are socially constructed and mediated by history, culture, and the dynamics of power and class. This suggests that how and what people read and write is specific to the setting, the task, the text, the reader/writer, and the intended audience. In this conception of literacy, what the reader/writer brings to the task is of significance, as is the social context in which literacy events (Barton, 1994) occur. By extension, literacy students and the contexts within which they engage with literacy matter to the acquisition of increased literacy skill. What Street called an autonomous view of literacy, in contrast, assumes that literacy is a set of neutral and discrete skills uninfluenced by social context. This view leads to a technical/instrumental instructional approach suggesting that if only the right set of tools and strategies are applied to the task of teaching reading, everyone would learn. With a sociocultural view of literacy, in contrast, the learner’s cultural context, experiences, and perspectives are critical. This means that knowledge of the learner and the sociocultural context in which literacy is practiced is just as crucial to successful literacy instruction as is knowledge of tools and techniques grounded in empirical research about best practices.
Research Method
To address the research question, we employed a qualitative research synthesis as a way to complement portraits that can be generated through statistical analysis. Major and Savin-Baden (2010) suggested that such a synthesis can provide a fuller and more nuanced picture and “make meaning from existing qualitative studies viewed in aggregate” (p. 2). In contrast to a literature review, which is summative and descriptive (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2007), a research synthesis focusing primarily on interpretation is a way to make “connections between existing studies [and] . . . identify gaps and omissions in a given body of research [which] enables dialogue and debate” (p. 3). As recommended by Major and Savin-Baden (2010) and Sandelowski and Barroso (2007), we began with a research problem, or what the former call a meta question; created inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting data; identified a search strategy; established our sample; summarized the data; and then followed standard qualitative data analysis methods (constant comparison, coding, and identification of themes) to derive our interpretation (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Creswell, 2007).
Search Method and Selection Criteria
To locate sources for this synthesis, online searches were conducted using Academic Search Premier and ERIC, as well as an online university library catalog. The searches were aimed at locating qualitative research published in peer-reviewed journals, technical reports published by the federally funded research centers on adult literacy, book chapters, and book length studies (dissertations were excluded) that included substantial descriptions of adult literacy learners published between 1980 and 2013. Although a somewhat arbitrary decision, we did not analyze research conducted prior to 1980 because policy, funding, and service provision have changed significantly since then. We believe that research completed prior to 1980 is, therefore, less likely to have an impact on the field and is less relevant. Sources were excluded if their descriptions of learners focused specifically on youth, populations with learning difficulties or disabilities, or English language learners, or if the reported study was conducted outside the United States. AP was primarily responsible for evaluating sources for inclusion. However, if she was uncertain about whether a source met the search criteria, both authors discussed it until consensus was reached.
The search terms “adult basic education,” “adult student,” “literacy,” “student attitudes,” and “adult learning” were used to generate a list of potential journal sources. Sources were reviewed for relevance; 76 were selected for inclusion. Additionally, the authors reviewed all issues of Focus on Basics (1997-2008), a research-to-practice journal, and the annual Review of Adult Learning and Literacy (2000-2007)—both publications of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy; 31 sources were culled from these publications.
To identify book length sources, AP searched the online university catalog using the search terms “adult literacy” to get the most comprehensive results. This yielded 373 entries. Reference lists from all sources selected for inclusion and from titles familiar to AB were examined for additional sources. Using the selection criteria described above, 14 book titles were chosen for inclusion.
Ultimately, 121 sources were considered to have sufficient learner descriptions to be included in the coding process. Each source was then summarized and reevaluated for inclusion in the final synthesis. Of these 121 sources, 46 were excluded during the coding process as our selection criteria were refined.
Assessment of research quality is typically an issue in drawing conclusions in a research synthesis of this kind. If the objective of a synthesis is to increase the usefulness of qualitative research by allowing cross-case generalization (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2007), some level of confidence in findings from the selected sources is important. However, our objective was different: We were focused on the impression that the data created about adult learners—the story they told—rather than the trustworthiness of their findings. For our purposes, the most important measure of quality was the richness of the description of adult learners.
Coding and Analyzing
The first step of analysis was to write a summary of each selected source including research questions, literatures reviewed, methodology, findings, and recommendations. After the first 20 sources had been summarized, AB used open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify preliminary themes. The open codes were expanded as more sources were summarized. When coding was completed, there were an unwieldy number of codes that did not lend themselves to grouping into themes. This prompted a second consideration of the data. We began by considering how the “imported concept” (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2007) of Heroic Victim, a term coined by Quigley (1997) for a character type used to portray adult literacy learners, might lead to our naming other character types in the selected sources. AB used a constant comparative approach to code each source as portraying adult learners either as “Heroic Victims” or as other types, eventually ending up with a five-character typology that described ways adult learners are portrayed in the research literature. AP then coded the sources again, using these types, to increase reliability. In cases of coding disagreements, we discussed our decisions until we reached agreement. This process also sharpened definitions of each code. Every description of learners could be coded using one or more of the five types, and the typology was judged to be a robust approach to viewing the data.
Ways of Looking
Most previous analyses of adult learner descriptions have not been grounded in research. Instead, they have tended to derive from analyses of nonscholarly texts, especially popular culture or literacy program materials. Quigley (1997) identified the “Heroic Victim” from such sources. He observed that these students were usually male, struggling to survive, tragic, pathetic, and hopeless; they were “strong men injured by an unjust society and tragic vicissitudes, yet struggling on” (p. 52). This type “is basically an innocent large child, who with nurturing, can be saved from the grip of illiteracy and its evils” (p. 25). Sandlin and Clark (2009) had similar findings after analyzing 257 teacher-written descriptions of students they nominated for an annual success award in Pennsylvania. These were often quite gripping accounts of students who triumphed over extreme adversity, yet managed to learn how to read, get GEDs, or attend college.
Ilsley and Stahl (1994) and Sticht (2005) identified predominant metaphors used to describe the “problem” of adult literacy, and by extension adults who have low literacy skills. Ilsley and Stahl described schooling, medicine, military, and banking metaphors that suggest that low literacy adults are, respectively, like children, diseased (or the cause of societal ills), menacing enemies, or receptacles. To these, Sticht added the psychotherapy, business, economic, revolutionary, and parent metaphors. These metaphors suggest that learners have low self-esteem and are customers (but not savvy consumers), capital, oppressed, and helpless. All of these metaphors are, at worst, infantilizing or dehumanizing and, at best, take a deficit view that negates learners’ resources, knowledge, and experiences. Christoph (2009) analyzed texts from New Readers Press, a major publisher of instructional materials for the field, and suggested that their three most commonly used reading series perpetuate a view of adult literacy learners as childlike and needing to be led through a predetermined curriculum that ignores their interests, goals, perspectives, and day-to-day experiences.
In contrast, Fingeret (1983) conducted a seminal ethnographic study that revealed that low literate adults are interdependent rather than dependent. Fingeret found that they view reading and writing as two of the many skills that contribute to a social network in which goods and services are freely exchanged. They generally participate as equal members of networks contributing other skills or resources, making relationships mutual rather than hierarchically determined by literacy skill. Her findings countered the view of adult learners as deficient.
Literacy Learners as Character Types
Using the Heroic Victim character as a starting point, we identified four other learner characters portrayed in the literature. We called them the Needy, Problem Child, Broken (but Repairable) Cog, Pawn of Destiny, and Competent Comrade. These titles are glosses, but, like the standard that Bruner (1991) proposed for analyzing narratives, we argue that the trustworthiness of our identification of the five types should be judged “by their verisimilitude rather than their verifiability” (p. 6). To be clear, we are not arguing that these types represent actual learners, nor are we arguing that researchers explicitly and purposefully describe learners as specific types. Our analysis focuses on the ways in which learners are portrayed in the research literature, regardless of the researchers’ primary focus. Propp (1968) asserted that characters shape narrative action. Although research and narrative stories are obviously different, we suggest that character types we identified similarly help drive the “action” in research, policy, and practice. Making these types more transparent can clarify that the ways in which adult learners are studied and described have very real consequences for the adult literacy learning opportunities we provide.
Heroic Victim
Quigley (1997) argued that the “Heroic Victim” character is common in popular culture and public relations and marketing materials, but there are few examples of it in the research literature. We found just one student-authored example (Willard, 1998) and one researcher-authored example (Hanstock, 2004); each described a single learner’s experiences in some detail, the former in a non–peer-reviewed practitioner-oriented journal. Both described individuals who experienced turmoil and personal challenges that suppressed neither their desire to learn nor their eventual success. Two other articles (Jackson, 2004; Ridgeway & Griffith, 2002) included highly personal and troubling details about learners’ lives. In general, these descriptions tended to focus on who or what could undo the victimization of the learners, the triumph of individual effort, and the redemptive power of literacy to heal emotional injury and trauma.
It is perhaps unsurprising that there are so few portrayals of Heroic Victims in the research literature given Quigley’s (1997) assertion that their stories are typically used for nonresearch purposes. This is not to say that these portrayals are not evidence based but rather to say that the more prurient details of Heroic Victim stories are less relevant for research purposes than they are for public relations and marketing. Researchers may be more likely to ask questions that shift their gaze away from aspects of learners’ lives that are associated with the Heroic Victim character.
Needy, Problem Child
The Needy, Problem Child character has been portrayed in three, often overlapping ways: as having such significant personal challenges that meeting learning goals seems unlikely at worst and especially challenging at best, as located in some gray area between childhood and adulthood, and as resistant to adult education approaches, preferring more familiar and traditional schooling methods. Much of this research literature seems to have its roots in the deficit perspective.
Some research fitting this character type described debilitating emotions of anxiety, fear, shame, and low self-confidence (e.g., Gillespie, 2001; Robertson, 2007; Siedow, 2005). Sometimes these learners were portrayed as unaware of their capacity for academic success, or in terms of cognitive impairments and severe learning difficulties (Flynn, 2005; Snow & Strucker, 2000; Wilson & Morales, 2008). Although Needy, Problem Children experienced some of the same travails as Heroic Victims, they lacked the triumphant ending (Snow & Strucker, 2000). Instead, these learners were portrayed as perpetually mired in difficulties, burdened with heavy baggage about school and their ability to learn, and needing intensive personal support to succeed (Dann-Messier & Kampits, 2004).
Snow and Strucker (2000) provided an example of work that located adult learners in a gray area between childhood and adulthood. Their synthesis of research on emergent reading in young children and its application to adult literacy learners acknowledged that adult competencies are not always adequately captured in reading assessments designed for children, and described factors in both childhood and adulthood that may influence adult reading abilities. However, by drawing on research conducted on children and meant to inform early literacy education, they are potentially (albeit perhaps unintentionally) reifying understandings of adult literacy learners as childlike and affirming practices that share many characteristics with instruction designed for children. More generally, the language of school is common in research on adult literacy learners (e.g., the use of the term grade-level equivalent). While this can be appropriate for readers who understand such language as shorthand, metaphorical, or a place holder, it can also encourage traditional K-12 schooling practices not necessarily appropriate for adult learners.
Other researchers implied that adult learners have childlike qualities by describing a less than full ability to make sense of their circumstances. For example, Dann-Messier and Kampits (2004) described students’ inability to value education. Although there are alternative explanations for why many adult learners do not participate in higher education, their description suggested a childlike naïveté about the benefits of educational attainment. Other researchers described learners as if stuck in childhood, with expectations that adult learning should match earlier schooling experiences. Students were disappointed by alternative assessment formats because they ran counter to their expectations of school (DeJesus, 2008), and their dashed expectations led to resistance to learning opportunities that differed from their K-12 experiences (Campagna, 2005; Defoe & Folinsbee, 2004). Even learners who acted maturely in other situations were reported to revert to childlike behaviors in education settings by ceding authority to others (Rogers, 2004). This response can be attributed to the presence of a mental model (Norman, 2014) about formal learning based on previous experiences. Mental models are not in and of themselves juvenile. However, a K-12 schooling mental model is likely to encourage responsive instructors to take childlike approaches.
Broken (but Repairable) Cog
Research that portrayed the Broken (but Repairable) Cog character took a more technical approach to describing learners. Here, low literacy was just one piece, albeit broken, of the learner. While the Needy, Problem character seems based in the deficit perspective that Fingeret critiqued (1983), the Broken Cog character seems an outgrowth of an autonomous view of literacy (Street, 1984). It shifts from the problems of the learner toward the more abstract, disembodied challenge of reading improvement. A neutral “repair” is possible for all learners, if the right tools and strategies are applied.
Unlike research portraying Heroic Victim and Needy, Problem Child characters, researchers who invoked the Broken Cog image avoided gratuitous depictions of personal difficulty (e.g., Comings et al., 2001). This body of research pointed to brain-based processing problems (Murr, 2001), misconceptions about reading and writing (Gillespie, 2001), and logistical challenges of participating in formal learning (Strucker, 2006) as sources of difficulty. Researchers tended toward identifying fix-up strategies that focused on systematic instructional practices and improved program formats to alleviate or respond to barriers (e.g., Comings et al., 1999; Friesen, 2011; Porter, Cuban, Comings, & Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, 2005; Schoneck, 2006; Strucker, 2006). Researchers who portrayed adult learners as Broken Cogs were generally optimistic about the capacity of effective instruction and programs to do the repair work.
Pawn of Destiny
The Pawn of Destiny character was deeply influenced by social forces. In particular, poverty and gender- and race-based inequality were assumed to play a significant role in limiting learners’ opportunities to become fully literate (D’Amico, 2004; Horsman, 1990). For example, Schafft and Prins (2009) demonstrated that poverty leading to housing insecurity can make it extremely difficult to sustain participation in a program. Snow and Strucker (2000) asserted a connection between learner background, life experience, and reading ability, suggesting that poverty can contribute to impaired learning. Askins (1994) noted that women experienced “culturally sanctioned constraints and limitations on participation in adult education programs” (as cited in D’Amico, 2004, p. 26). In these examples, “blame” for low literacy and program participation lies outside the individual; instead it is attributed to disparity of opportunity grounded in inequality.
In addition to placing boundaries on learning, researchers asserted that gender, race, and socioeconomic status influenced the ways in which learners read (Cuban, 2001), wrote, viewed learning (Earl, 1997; Garner & National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, 2008), and interacted with instructors. Askins (as cited in D’Amico, 2004) found that students sometimes felt uncomfortable about the differences between them and their teachers regarding access to education or mainstream or “high” culture. These sources highlighted that race, class, gender, and socioeconomic status had an early and ongoing impact on learning, literacy development, and beliefs about schooling.
Competent Comrade
Research portraying the Competent Comrade is at the opposite end of the continuum from research describing learners as needy and even childlike. Competent Comrades followed the same developmental trajectory (Helsing, Drago-Severson, & Kegan, 2004) and read for the same reasons as more highly literate adults (Belzer, 2002; Cuban, 2003). Their biggest learning obstacles were similar to other adults: the difficulty of meeting the multiple demands of being a parent, worker, and student (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2006; Santos & Alfred, 2011). Although they may not have been fully capable readers and writers, they were portrayed as fully functional adults (DeJesus, 2008; Snow & Strucker, 2000). Like others who need help in areas where they lack skills (e.g., preparing tax returns or fixing leaky pipes), Competent Comrades’ need for literacy assistance was more normalized (Fingeret, 1983).
Competent Comrades were portrayed as dedicated, motivated, engaged, self-reliant, and resilient learners (Beder, 2006; Bingman & Ebert, 2000; Reder & Strawn, 2006). Competent Comrade characters participated in planning instruction, created or found instructional materials, and drew on their experiences, perspectives, and voices to shape learning and program contexts (Toso, Prins, Drayton, Gnanadass, & Gungor, 2009). They were also assumed to be capable of advocating for funding, contributing to policy debates, and participating in research as knowledgeable informants (Fingeret, 1989; Freedman, Miner, Echt, Parker, & Cooper, 2011; Zacharakis, Steichen, de Sabates, & Glass, 2011).
Competent Comrades might have resisted some instructional practices just as Needy, Problem learners did—but for different reasons. The source of resistance in Needy, Problem learners was seen as confusion, misguidedness, or even petulance. Competent Comrades may have resisted, in contrast, because they had a critical perspective on learning that empowered them to voice their opinions and set their own learning agenda. For example, Defoe and Folinsbee (2004) reported that employers assumed that workers were not filling out incident reports due to low literacy, but researchers found they were trying to avoid causing problems for coworkers. In another study, workers refused to follow procedural manuals because they had devised their own methods and did not need direction, not because they could not read them (Gowen, 1992).
Like many adults, however, Competent Comrades exhibited sometimes contradictory behaviors and beliefs about their capabilities (Gillespie, 2001). For example, Rogers (2004) observed adults who spoke actively and authoritatively about their children’s education but permitted schools to take actions counter to their wishes. Compton-Lilly (2009) observed that participants in a GED program viewed themselves as “official” failures because of low test scores or conceptions of what good readers are like, while simultaneously maintaining notions of “unofficial” competence. These contradictions indicate that learners’ sense of confidence and competence was domain specific and influenced by prior experiences and the particular context, rather than literacy levels.
How Characters Matter
Our analysis revealed a distinct pattern in how researchers characterize adult learners. It could be argued that drawing conclusions from researchers’ work whose objectives were different from ours could be problematic; it is possible that their descriptions are simply artifacts of their research questions or the result of space limitations. However, we believe that every researcher decision, from initial development of a research question to what is highlighted in the limited space of a journal article, is influenced by a particular perspective on the research problem, and in the case of adult literacy research, the learner. These decisions are influenced by researcher roles, identities, and positions (Creswell, 2007; Deutsch, 2004; Milner, 2007). It seems clear, too, that theoretical frameworks and disciplinary training play a distinct role in shaping which adult literacy learner characters will populate a particular study. Additionally, researchers are influenced by the social, historical, and cultural context in which they work. Therefore, the researcher is not a neutral bystander tasked with disseminating findings over which she or he has no influence. In identifying the presence of the five character types in a body of research, we are neither asserting the accuracy of nor placing a value judgment on any of them. However, we do suggest that each is likely to drive action in distinct ways because they are aligned with different ideologies and suggest distinctive responses.
Although not such a common portrayal in research, its prevalence in popular culture, marketing materials, and instructional texts highlights the importance of considering how the Heroic Victim shapes the narrative in research, policy, and practice. This character implies a “bootstraps” ideology in which learners can overcome great difficulty if only determined and motivated enough. To some extent, this portrayal seems to absolve programs and teachers of responsibility for successful outcomes. Instead, they are attributable to individual gumption, effort, and steadfastness rather than an effective teacher or a well-run program.
Thus, the implications for practice are limited to strategies that target the individual, such as bolstering motivation and addressing situational barriers to participation. There are few policy implications for the Heroic Victim because policy is a very blunt instrument for enhancing intrinsic motivation. At best, a policy response to this character (other than simply funding programs of any kind) might seek to increase extrinsic motivation by imposing a combination of consequences for those who fail to participate and incentives for those who do. For the most part, policy has not taken this route and is nonresponsive to this narrative character. Researchers playing their role in this narrative might seek to deepen understanding of who Heroic Victims are, how they differ dispositionally from other learners, and how programs and policies could cultivate deep intrinsic motivation that might give all students the same kind of commitment to prevail that is demonstrated by this type.
The Needy, Problem Child descriptions tend to perpetuate a deficit narrative. Descriptions that focus on extreme difficulties and needs are not necessarily wrong; many adult learners do suffer in a host of ways and this reality would suggest the need for intensive supports to help learners succeed in literacy programs. Yet they can also mask learners’ resources, skills, and competencies that could be used to bolster learning (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 1998). On a systemic level, they can also obscure the structural challenges of poverty and inequality that create barriers to participating and progressing.
When research suggests that adult literacy learners share many qualities with younger learners, as sometimes happens, however implicitly, in the literature, it advances a narrative in which it is appropriate for practitioners to borrow liberally from the research base on literacy instruction for children, especially in the absence of similar research on adult learners. In fact, three major research syntheses in the field draw on research from K-12 to inform their recommendations for practice (Kruidenier, 2002; Kruidenier, MacArthur, & Wrigley, 2010; Lesgold & Welch-Ross, 2012). The authors report being selective about which K-12 research to use; however, though it may be convenient and efficient to draw on this work when the field suffers from a paucity of research and evidence-based instructional materials and strategies for adults, the reliability of doing so has not been established. To the contrary, researchers have tested some reading interventions with adult students that have been found to be effective for children (Greenberg et al., 2011; Hock & Mellard, 2011; Sabatini, Shore, Holtzman, & Scarborough, 2011) and attempted to modify a successful school-based intervention to better match the participation patterns of adults (Alamprese, MacArthur, Price, & Knight, 2011). These efforts met with only limited success. The researchers inferred that the instructional settings of adult literacy programs and the needs of adult learners may be distinct enough from K-12 schools and younger learners as to dampen the positive potential of the interventions. These findings suggest that practitioners should not depend on instructional materials and strategies designed for children and that there is much research to be done in order to identify effective approaches for adult learners. However, the current policy climate encourages evidence-based practice and pushes the field to use research done with children in the absence of a sound knowledge base on effective practices for adults, thus normalizing positioning adult literacy learners as large children. This predicament calls out not just for translation research (Lesgold & Welch-Ross, 2012) but also for research that focuses on understanding the ways in which adultness (as defined by development, roles and responsibilities, age) mediates and changes what we know about best practice for children. An important first step is to prioritize funding much-needed research to learn more about how to evaluate and effectively use research from the K-12 world and to answer questions about improving educational practice specific to adult literacy learners.
As noted, the Broken Cog view of adult learners takes a fixer-upper approach to adult literacy instruction; identifying and effectively using the right tools enables practitioners to do the necessary repair and get the “gears” turning smoothly. This view fails to take into account how complex and multifaceted both literacy and adult learners are. The Broken Cog character seems to operate in a narrative that denies the influence of learner identity and experience, as well as the individual’s purpose and contexts for literacy practices (Street, 1984). This suggests that teachers need not concern themselves with tailoring instruction and materials to the particular contexts their learners live in or aspire to. Instead, they are impelled to assume the existence of and seek the “perfect” instructional tools or program structure that will be effective under all circumstances. The research action in this narrative is “scientific,” focuses on skill development, and assumes clear causal and generalizable relationships between instructional interventions and outcomes. The policy climate in this narrative pushes for standardization and focuses on easily measured, quantitative outcomes.
The Pawn of Destiny character assumes that learners are shaped in significant ways by gender, race, and class and might, to continue the metaphor, suggest that there actually is no one right tool for the job. While the policy and practice implications for the Broken Cog are not simple (especially due to a paucity of research in the field), they are less complicated than an approach suggesting that instruction should be mediated by how race, class, gender, and sexuality shape opportunities to learn. Here, research and practice narratives would seek to understand and respond to the ways in which social and cultural conditions influence the construction of meaning regarding literacy and participation in literacy programs. In turn, this narrative would complicate policy rather than the usual tendency to simplify it (Roe, 1994). However, acknowledging the complicated and challenging ways in which social structures mediate and sometimes limit opportunities for learning can also let programs off the hook as failure to have an impact on literacy abilities can be attributed to forces external to and beyond the control of learners, teachers, and programs.
Finally, a Competent Comrade view suggests that learners can and should be integrally involved not only in classroom and program decisions but also in research and policy making. Although lacking literacy skills, they are viewed as well resourced in other ways. Researchers in this narrative actively involve learners as participants, not subjects, in knowledge generation to help the field understand their experiences and more effectively meet their needs. Bridwell (2013) found that when given the support to do so, even marginalized adults who have not taken a critical stance on their experience develop “increased epistemological complexity and greater self agency” (p. 141), and Oughton (2012) asserted that instructors can increase the likelihood of critical student participation through the learning contexts they create.
Conclusion
Arendt suggested that “actions are often taken . . . to fulfill stories in the making” and that “we are called to action by beckoning scripts” (as cited in Thiele, 2009, “In the Beginning, was the Word,” para. 3). This discussion of the five character types and the actions they impel illustrates the “stories in the making” that beckon to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Efforts to understand how unconscious bias, implicit assumptions, or limited perspectives regarding adult literacy learners potentially influence and shape action in the field may broaden our array of appropriate responses. There is no sense in arguing that any one character type is a more accurate portrayal of adult learners. Rather, it is important to acknowledge that the narratives that emerge are shaped by the foregrounding of different characters. This seems to us to be a choice that can be consciously made but often is not. In different researchers’ hands, the same learner could seem to be any one of these types. Many learners embody aspects of more than one character type, but researchers often hone in on one or another depending, perhaps, on their perspectives, experiences, disciplinary backgrounds, political commitments, the lens through which their research is focused, or simply because of word limitations in journal articles. The fact that the view of learners is so variable and without empirical imperative suggests how important it is to be aware of the ways in which narrative action in research, policy, and practice is shaped by the characters with which researchers, policy makers, and practitioners populate their work. These views lead to very different consequences for learners as they participate in programs and likely contribute to different outcomes as well. Different characters will drive the action toward different endings. After this examination, perhaps the question to pose is, what is the narrative’s intended ending and what character will drive the action there? To once again revert to literary analysis to inform our thinking about research, perhaps Forster’s (1927) assertion that there are two kinds of characters in fiction, flat and round, is useful. Flat characters embody or represent just one idea or quality and never surprise the reader; round characters are more like real people—complex, dimensional, layered, and sometimes unpredictable. The five types we identified are, in a sense, flat. Maybe the best course of action is to look for the qualities that help us see learners as round characters that clearly have both strengths and flaws, needs and resources. In this way, we actively resist the temptation to oversimplify and are more likely to meet learners where they truly are rather than where we assume them to be.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
Previous oral presentations: Belzer, A., & Pickard, A. (2013, November). Capable comrades and broken cogs: Perspectives on adult learners from the research and implications for practice. Presentation at U.S. Conference on Adult Literacy, Washington, DC; Belzer, A., & Pickard, A. (2014, June). Framing adult literacy learners: From capable comrades to broken cogs. Presentation at Adult Education Research Conference, Harrisburg, PA.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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