Emancipatory pedagogy and participatory research in adult literacy: critical hermeneutics in social text

This interview study examines adult literacy phenomena within a participatory research methodology. Such research is rooted in a hermeneutic perspective in critical theory which interprets adult minority students' particular social texts within a broader political, economic and social dialectic whole. The values, beliefs, views and perspectives of adult working class ethnic minority students, as well as those of teachers and administrators, are investigated in this research to illuminate the complexities of the research, development and policy formation of education and literacy programs. The researcher critically examines the functional competency approach, which is embraced by the technocratic rationality in our society. This approach superficially prescribes what adults should know to be considered literate. In particular, individuals' views are presented for the designated competencies of such a functional approach which are based on the standards of the dominant white middle class, which usually ignores the values of working class minority students. In addition, the researcher uncovers how the functional competency approach excludes the social, economic and political dimensions of the illiteracy problem. This participatory methodology illustrates how the liberal reforms and remedial education programs, of which functional competency is a part, are still founded on the traditional ideologies of individualism and cultural deprivation. This research critiques how these ideologies place the blame and responsibility for working class minority student failures on the individual and his culture, labeling them as disadvantaged or deficient. Hence, this study reexamines the underlying social and political realities which perpetuate the problems of this population. The results of this study show that adult minority students view themselves as restricted, subordinate beings in relation to the dominant culture, and, thus, accept their role in society as one of adapting to and surviving within that dominant structure. However the communicative competence and reciprocal interaction in this research process suggests that participants, including the students, gained new views for communication and participation through discourse and self-reflection. As such, the same theoretical concerns form the basis for emancipatory pedagogy and participatory research. The new meanings which participants created in this more liberating research methodology also suggest newer understandings for literacy development. Although most educators in this study overwhelmingly support the functional competency approach for literacy development, their newer views can be interpreted as influences of the discourse in participatory research for creating more emancipatory and critical meanings for both pedagogy and practice.