Articles
Recent Writing on Violence and Learning
2004- 2006
Recent writing based on a synthesis of my earlier research and practice exploring the impact of violence on learning and ways to address it in educational programs.Articles
Who will hear? Who will see? The Impact of Violence on Learning: A Historical Journey. Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme. Ending Woman Abuse, Vol. 25 No. 1. (2006) (Journal website)
Moving Beyond "Stupid": Taking Account of the Impact of Violence on Women’s Learning The International Journal of Educational Development, Gender Equality in Adult Education, Vol. 26, Issue 2 (Journal website, abstract and issue table of contents) 2006 March.
"But Is It Education?" The Challenge of Creating Effective Learning for Survivors of Trauma. Women's Studies Quarterly, XXXII(1&2), 2004. (Journal website)
Putting Research into Practice
Responding to disclosures of abuse in women’s lives: A guide for teachers of literacy. In Andy Nash (Ed.) Through the Lens of Social Justice: Using the Change Agent in Adult Education. Boston: New England Literacy Resource Center / World Education, 2006.
Workshop Materials
Too Scared to Learn: The Impact of Violence on Learning. Workbook from workshop for literacy pracititoners, 2005
Everyone Can Learn: Changing the way violence gets in the way of learning. Workshop plan and handouts for literacy learners. 2004
Violence and Learning: Exploring blocks to youth learning
2003 – 2004
A focus on youth learningResearch Study
A year long research study carried out in Ontario to:
- deepen understanding of the complex picture of how violence affects learning,
- examine how school responses play a part in creating this picture, and
- strengthen the possibilities to support learning for youth in high schools and in youth literacy and training programs
(Funded by the National Literacy Secretariat of Human Resources and Skills Development, Canada)The challenge to create safe learning environments for youth. Toronto: Parkdale Project Read, 2004.
Articles
What Did They Learn? Legacies of Schooling. Literacies: Researching Practice Practicing Research. 2004, 4 Fall.
Putting the Research into Practice
The Impact of Violence on Learning for Youth: What Can we Do
This document focuses particularly on the words of the interviewees - especially the youth - and their suggestions about what we can do to improve education.Workshop Materials
Rethinking Violence and Learning: Moving Research into Practice
2000-2004
A focus on how to make change in adult literacy programs to take account of the impact of violence on learning.Research study
Research carried out with Susan Heald of the University of Manitoba (funded by the Valuing Literacy in Canada Program of SSHRC/NLS) to explore the process of educational change and the discourses that help and hinder the process of taking up the impact of violence on learning.Creating Change in Literacy Programs: Talking about taking account of violence (ERIC Document 461 077)
(You can find discussion about this paper in the discussion Creating Change of Alphacom at www.alphaplus.ca)Creating Change in Literacy Programs (shorter version - pdf file)
(presented at the Trapped by Poverty, Trapped by Abuse conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 2001)Articles
Creating change in literacy programs: Taking account of violence. In J. Anderson, M. Kendrick, & T. Rogers Portraits of literacy across families, communities and schools: Intersections and tensions New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.
(Publisher’s information on the book) Available from libraries, local bookstores or directly from the publisher)Rethinking Violence and Learning: Moving Research into Practice
Susan Heald University of Manitoba, Canada
Jenny Horsman Spiral Community Resource Group, Toronto, Canada
In T. J. Sork, V.L Chapman & R. St. Clair (Eds.) AERC 2000, An International Conference. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Adult Education Research Conference. Vancouver, University of British Columbia, 2000. (presented at the Adult Education Research Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June, 2000)Putting the Research into Practice
Violence and learning: Taking action. (Ed. M. Norton) Calgary: Literacy Alberta, 2004.
(Full text document available on NALD)The Violence and Learning: Taking Action (VALTA) Project invited literacy and adult educators to share and build knowledge about the impacts of violence on learning and ways to address them. Workshops, an online course, Changing Practices research projects and other activities, gave the three co-facilitators (Judy Murphy, Mary Norton and myself) and the Project participants an opportunity to explore ways to break silences about violence and to create environments to support learning for all. (Funded by the National Literacy Secretariat of Human Resources and Skills Development, Canada)
Take on the Challenge: A Source Book from the Women, Violence, and Adult Education Project – Elizabeth Morrish, Jenny Horsman and Judy Hofer, Boston: World Education. 2002 (Or order from: World Education …..or Grass Roots Press)
The project source book offers both an analysis of the effects of violence on learning as well as a practical collection of ideas and activities from a wide variety of settings, including corrections, ABE, GED, native language literacy, ESOL, welfare-to-work, and homeless shelter programs. (Funded by the US Department of Education, Women's Educational Equity Act Program).
Workshop Materials
Changing Literacy Programs to Take Account of Violence - Brief Notes
Handout from the RaPAL (Research and Practice in Adult Literacy) conference, London, June 2002 and the Portraits of Literacy conference, UBC, July 2002
"But I'm Not a Therapist" Literacy work with survivors of abuse
1996-2000
During this time I began to work in earnest on the issue of violence and learning – carried out a national research study “But I’m Not a Therapist,” an online discussion based on the findings, a series of workshops in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, and wrote about what I learned from this cumulative process in the book Too Scared to Learn.Research Study
"But I'm Not a Therapist" Furthering Discussion about Literacy Work with Survivors of Trauma . (ERIC Document 461 078)
The full discussion paper from the research study was written in 1997. Originally available for sale, and online at Alphaplus - the Ontario-based literacy discussion centre and library where discussion on the paper was hosted. It went out of print after Too Scared to Learn was published.Articles
Literacy learning for survivors of trauma: Acting "normal". In K. McKenna & J. Larkin (Eds.) Violence against women: New Canadian perspectives Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 2002. (Reprinted from Canadian Woman Studies 17(4), 1998)
(Available from libraries, local bookstores or from the publisher)“Why would they listen to me?" Reflections on learner leadership activities. In B. Burnaby & P. Campbell, (Eds.) Participatory approaches in adult education, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
(Publisher’s site - information on the book) Available from libraries or purchase from your local bookstore, Grass Roots Press or Erlbaum directly)'But I'm Not a Therapist' - The challenge of creating effective literacy learning for survivors of trauma. In S. Shore, (Ed.) Australian Council for Adult Literacy 21st National Conference: Literacy on the Line. Conference Proceedings. Adelaide, University of South Australia, 1998.
This paper, written in 1998, summarizes key findings of the research study. It was written for the Australian literacy conference. It also formed the basis for a presentation to teachers of English as a second language: TESOL 1999: Avenues to Success, New York, March, 1999.Putting the Research into Practice
Drawing the line: Dealing with affective issues in literacy. Saskatchewan Literacy Network: Saskatoon, 2001.
The Saskatchewan Literacy Network hired me to develop the Saskatchewan Level 2 Drawing the Line Kit to provide literacy workers with the information they need about violence and learning, and drawing the line between tutoring and counselling.
- Naming the presence of violence
- Balancing needs and respecting boundaries
- Bringing the whole person to learning
- Taking safety seriouslyMoving forward: Approaches and activities to support women's learning Parkdale Project Read: Toronto, Ontario, 2000.
In 1998 Parkdale Project Read (PPR) a community-based literacy program in down town Toronto obtained a grant: "...to explore the provision of appropriate literacy programming for women who frequently "fail" in literacy programs, including learners who have experienced trauma." We argued that such programming would give women the space to identify their strengths and draw on their whole selves to strengthen their ability to learn. We hoped that by the end of the course they would be in a position to imagine the possibility of change and create goals for the changes they were working towards. It was a chance to put ideas in "Too Scared to Learn", into practice.
Feeding our whole selves in the literacy classroom. The Change Agent: Adult Education for Social Justice: News, Issues & Ideas, New England, Issue 14, March 2002 (to be reprinted in the Change Agent 10 year anniversary collection, in press)
Workshop Handouts
Too Scared to Learn - brief notes
Notes to capture the key points in the book Too Scared, handed out in too many workshops to name in Canada, the United States and England!Plain Language version of the same notes intended for literacy learners. Adapted by Jo Petite.
Early writing on women, literacy, and violence
1994 – 1996
During this period I was writing mostly about women and literacy – following up from my doctoral thesis which became the book Something in my Mind Besides the Everyday. I was beginning to ask questions about how violence affects learning, to write about the tutoring I was doing with one woman who had experienced violence, and to insist that the literacy field must pay attention to this issue.Literacy and Gender. Study unit for Literacy Practices and Education module, Informal and Community Education BA/BA Hons. program, YMCA George Williams College, England, 1996.
The author explores:
- the lack of focus on women in the approaches to adult literacy programmes and in the literature on literacy
- the learner-centred approach, and the idea that what might benefit some learners may not benefit others
- studies that have suggested that women learn in particular ways
- family literacy programmes, to see what messages they give to women about women's roles
- inequalities taken for granted in women's lives and issues of power - literacy as 'women's duty but not women's right'
- violence in women's lives and its relevance to literacy programming for women
- literacy teaching as 'women's work' and the significance of this.
Links to these older articles coming soon:
Responding to disclosures of abuse in women’s lives. In Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women (CCLOW). Making connections: Literacy and EAL curriculum from a feminist perspective. Toronto: CCLOW, 1996.
Exploring learning and identity. In Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women (CCLOW). Making connections: Literacy and EAL curriculum from a feminist perspective. Toronto: CCLOW, 1996.
It must be my fault. In Twelve Pages: The Newsletter of Adult and Continuing Education, 4(3), The City University of New York, Fall 1995.
Violence and illiteracy in women's lives: Proposal for research and practice. International Journal of Canadian Studies. 11, Spring, 1995.
The problem of illiteracy and the promise of literacy. In M. Hamilton, D. Barton & R. Ivanic (Eds.) Worlds of literacy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1994.
Working on memories of abuse.... Australian Journal of Adult and Community Education, 34(1), 1994.
Discourses of il/literacy: A literature review. Canadian Woman Studies, 9(3 & 4), 1988. Reprinted in Women in Education, Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, January - February 1989 and in Educational Links, 39, Australia, 1991.
Is it her voice if she speaks their words? (with E. Gaber-Katz). Canadian Woman Studies, 9(3 & 4), 1988. Reprinted in Canadian Woman Studies, 11(3), 1991.
The Social dimension of literacy. Canadian Woman Studies, 9(3 & 4), 1988.
Research in Practice
I have always believed it is vital to link research and practice and to think that the knowledge gained through practice and through research must inform each other. For myself I weave research and practice – following my research with projects to put my learning into practice and then writing about the experience for other practitioners. Occasionally I have written about the importance of practitioners having the opportunity to participate in and direct research and speak back to researchers, and about ways to create more opportunities for such engagement in Canada. Some of these rather old pieces are included below. Increasingly in the adult literacy field in Canada (and internationally) there is a movement of research in practice so there is a growing body of practitioner research and organizations and mechanisms to support it.
A framework to encourage and support practitioner involvement in adult literacy research in practice in Canada. (with Dr. Mary Norton) Ottawa: National Literacy Secretariat, February 1999.
Exploring directions for research and critical reflection on practice: The Australian example. Ottawa: National Literacy Secretariat, January 1999.
Research in Practice: Crucial questions. In Literacy Works, 9(3), Saskatchewan, 1998.
Exploring Tensions and Possibilities for Research in Practice: Notes towards a presentation!
These notes formed the basis for my presentation at a seminar. Research in Practice Seminar Edmonton, October 24th to 26th, 1997. Although they are a little cryptic, I am including them here as a way to introduce my focus on the importance of bridging the gap between research and practice.