The research objectives

Within the aim of this study, stated at the beginning of this chapter, five objectives were identified. The first objective was to explore changes in the lives of adults who participated in family-focused literacy programmes. I set out to identify changes in the everyday uses of literacy and the literacy abilities of adults who participated in family literacy programmes, changes to other aspects of their lives that seemed to be related to their participation in the programme, and any connections that might be observed between the literacy changes and the broader changes.

As I noted in Chapter One, my general interest in the transformative potential of adult education and the signs from the New Zealand research that adults were attracted to family-focused programmes and derived benefits from participation in them (Benseman & Sutton, 2005; May et al., 2004) initially drew me to focusing on adults in this study rather than children or both adults and children. Surveying the international literature reinforced the potential importance of learning more about adults’ experiences and perspectives in the interests of improving the balance across and within the strands that constitute the field of family literacy as a whole.

Gadsden (2002), for example, has called for much greater attention to adults within family literacy research in relation to adult learning and literacy in its own right. This current study contributes to addressing these concerns. In keeping with the broad and inclusive approach the study pursues, the first objective involved exploring adults’ wide-ranging uses of literacy connected to their many interests and concerns. Parents’ concerns about and support of their children’s literacy learning is part of adults’ literacy activity but as Sr. Gonzalo, for example, has shown (see Chapter Four), adults’ uses of literacy extend beyond involvement with their children’s (or grandchildren’s) education (Barton, 1997; Kalman, 1997).

This objective also extended beyond essay-text literacy (and essay-text literacy in English) to include literacy as participants or the groups to which they belong define it. This is in keeping with a ‘social practice’ view of literacy as having multiple meanings (that is, there are multiple literacies and multiple modes of

literacy) (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Barton et al., 2000; Kress, 1997, 2000). This broad perspective was especially important as research participants and their communities were likely to differ culturally and therefore likely to have differing views on what literacy is and what it is for. The differences between Māori perspectives and official perspectives which framed programme funding, for example, was already known (see Chapters One and Two). The objective included an interest in the assessment information collected by programmes on changes in participants’ literacy skills and usages that were of interest within the objectives of the programme (including the official ones) but was not limited to this. Further, whilst changes in literacy skills and usages were noteworthy, of greatest interest in this study were the meanings of these changes to the participants. In addition, and again in keeping with the broad, holistic spirit of the study, this objective involved looking for other changes in participants’ lives that appeared to be connected to the programme and seeking to understand any connections to the literacy components. The focus of this first objective was those which seem to be most directly and immediately linked with the programme (Furness, 2007b, 2009b;

Nickse, 1993).

It is important to note also that focusing on adults’ experiences and perspectives, incorporating multiple meanings of literacy, and focusing on the meanings of changes were ways to open up the discussion about how family literacy in its collective, cross-strand sense, might be conceptualised in New Zealand, the study’s overarching goal (see Chapter One).

The second objective was to explore ways in which the effects of programme

participation ‘flowed on’ to other aspects of the adult participants’ lives and to other people in their social networks, especially within their families and communities. As I observed in Chapter Four, ‘flow on’ or ‘ripple’ effects have been identified in

previous studies, including New Zealand ones (Benseman & Sutton, 2005; May et al., 2004). I was especially interested in these effects as it made sense that the full score of the benefits of programmes such as the ones I was investigating might be seen in the layers of effects that ‘rippled’ outwards from the immediate effects on individual participants and be seen over time and in different places and in other people.

The third objective was to examine the effects of participation in the programmes that are found in relation to broad and holistic concepts of wellbeing. I was

interested in exploring these effects deliberately from the perspective of wellbeing holistically-conceived and in the New Zealand context. In other words, I wanted to explore how citizens of this country experienced and described these effects in relation to what mattered to them in the living of a ‘good life’ (see Chapter Five).

This objective was firmly rooted in a social justice agenda, as explained in Chapter One. It involved drawing on culturally-differentiated and historically-shaped perspectives of what wellbeing is and what is necessary for it to be experienced. It involved a multitextured and multilayered look at the impacts of adults’

participation in these programmes. I was interested in the personal wellbeing of the individual adult participants including the relational aspects, and in terms that were important to them; for example, their relationships within the collectivities they belonged to. Further, I set out to trace how the benefits which ‘flow on’ from the immediate and the personal to others in the adults’ networks and to their family, community and citizenship roles also contributed to the communal and collective good. This analysis drew on Nelson and Prilleltensky’s (2005) framework for wellbeing described in Chapter Five. Its use was intended to emphasise the wide-ranging good that may come from adults’ participation in family-focused literacy programmes.

This is the new contribution to the field of family literacy, relevant internationally and, contextualised in New Zealand, especially relevant to the field’s local

development. This objective constituted a challenge to family literacy theorists, practitioners and policymakers to think carefully about what the objectives, practices and assumptions underpinning family literacy programmes ought to be, and how they are arrived at, if those who see promise in family literacy are truly concerned for the welfare of all of the members of our societies. In New Zealand, as family literacy programmes are in their infancy, it constituted a potential

opportunity to shape how such programmes are viewed and evaluated in the best interests of not only the participants and their families but also their communities and New Zealand society more generally; in other words, in our collective interests as a nation.

The fourth objective was to identify which programme elements seem to be important for beneficial effects to be achieved. I felt it was important to try to understand what aspects of the way the programme was constructed and operated seemed to be important to achieving beneficial outcomes. However, the study is not a programme evaluation per se; I did not set out to describe and analyse the workings of every aspect of the programme and make judgments about its worth against criteria as is an evaluator’s role (Rossi & Freeman, 1989). Rather, this objective utilises an opportunity for gaining what may be important additional understandings incidental to the main focus of the study.

Finally, I aimed to include in this study programmes which represented a range of ways in which family literacy programmes might be ‘done’. As I noted in Chapter Four, New Zealand programmes based on the Kenan model have already received research attention here. Quite a lot is known about this model, and there is a tendency to equate ‘family literacy’ with its elements. In order to open up the discussion of how family literacy might be constructed here, two steps were taken.

The first step was to determine how and to what extent family approaches were already included in adult literacy programmes that might not have been generally recognised. The second step was to showcase in this study programmes that manifested a focus on families in a range of different ways and, where possible, ways that differed to those typical of the Kenan model. In summary, the fifth objective was to describe some different ways of ‘doing’ family literacy programmes to contribute to a discussion, which has not yet been had in New Zealand, about what might be included under the rubric of family literacy programmes. The first of these steps, introduced in Chapter Four, is not dealt with here but nevertheless provided, as will be explained in Section 4.1., the basis for selecting programmes for this study (see Furness (2006a) for a full description).