When literacy workers imagined the possibilities of shifting discourses and creating spaces for new practices in adult literacy, they often spoke of constraints within their own institutions and within government discourses. They struggled with the limitations that could not be moved unless they could shift the frames of their work at the highest levels. Teachers might feel the constraints from the administration, but administrators were clear that they were limited by provincial or state constraints and policy change was needed at that level. In different provinces and states, literacy workers itemized a similar direction of government policy which they saw as completely opposite to what was needed if the lives of learners were to be taken into account and issues of violence taken up within educational practice:

It feels like there's a constant tension between [the ministry] and integrating this stuff into the program. You're constantly sort of going like this [stretches in two directions], because it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit in the matrix, there's no way, there's nowhere for any of this stuff to be recorded. ...So it seems like the only way out is to diversify the funding and not be so dependent on [government] and then have the freedom to go the way you want to go as opposed to the way you have to go. (Interview, Toronto, Ontario, March 2000)

In programs lacking space to rethink possibilities and flexibility to carry out new ideas, workers talked about trying to cope and feeling unable to stretch to even think about new approaches. Where any space could be created - through professional development, supportive colleagues and supervisors, project funding, counselling supports - literacy workers are carrying out ground-breaking work.

Provide legitimacy for new concepts of education

Literacy workers who had the opportunity to take part in special projects talked glowingly about the possibility created to explore the unknown and to launch into unlikely experiments. Funding paid for and legitimized talk about new possibilities, allowed for new collaborations, supported a focus on creating beauty in the classroom and made it possible to try out new curriculum such as learning about learning, self-empowerment, writing and creative arts. It is only within such a space that new models could be generated to demonstrate the "success" of shifting what counts in education and provide a basis for challenging policy.