Women. Literacy and Poverty

Tomorrow evening I'm doing my presentation to the Provincial Council of Women of Manitoba, a body that presents resolutions to government at the civic, provincial, national and international levels. I've written a provincial one about adult literacy that goes forward in February, but I'm doing a presentation on the content first. Stepping out on a limb, voicing opinions about what I've seen in program planning for the disadvantaged. In this case, what's driving me is what I've seen in the housing development literacy program. It's a prime example of how a particular social mindset and value system shapes programming in subtle but absolutely critical ways.

In short, I've traced the history of literacy programming in Canada through various shifts from the more socially-minded to now, where literacy has become - in my mind - co-opted by big business. OK, that's a gross oversimplification, but the idea is accurate. National literacy levels have now been understood to affect our society (through various international studies and reports), but it's the economic perspective that's becoming the driver. Ie. better literacy = better employees.

So where do the women in the housing development fit into that mandate? They don't, and hence funding for programs (and people?) that are perceived as "lost causes" (ie. they don't have a fabulous return-on-investment in the economy), are seen as charity work. Funding goes to literacy programs that can demonstrate their connecting to Essential Skills, a work-related brand of literacy. What used to be "Literacy as Freedom" (the slogan for the UN's Decade of Literacy 2003-2012) is now Literacy for Work.

Which is great, unless you're a low literacy, low income, single parent trying to go back to school to improve your literacy levels so you can get a better job and improve the life of your kids.

Here's the problem: the vast majority of "single parents" are actually single mothers, and women at low levels of literacy earn about half what men at low levels of literacy earn, because they're working in different kinds of jobs that require different kinds of skills. They actually need to progress twice as far with their literacy skills before they get into jobs that earn the same as men with lower literacy levels!

That means that, if we want to improve our national literacy rates and prevent continuing low literacy rates in the next generation, and maybe reduce poverty along the way, we might want to develop literacy programs for low income mothers, usually with several children, because they need different scheduling, childcare and transportation help, counseling, onsite programming, and content relevant to their lives. Why teach them to read a book about an astronaut, when they need to be able to read about getting restraining orders?! In order for it to be "fair" and accessible to single moms (parents) living in poverty, literacy programming actually needs to be far better funded and better designed. While the kids are young, we can support the moms far better in getting to upgrading programs. Otherwise we're asking for these already discouraged learners to jump over much higher hurdles than we ask anyone else.

Indeed, it's an interesting example of how the larger social context, which values work over parenting, economy over society, and "men's work" over "women's work", is affecting literacy programming for those who are raising the next generation.