Charting a New Course

By Tamara Daly, Miha Dinca-Panaitescu, Gail Kunkel, Marcia Rioux, Christy Spielman and Ezra Zubrow

Why are illiteracy rates higher among people with disabilities? What makes illiteracy more likely in some places than others? What other factors affect rates of illiteracy among people with disabilities? These are just some of the important questions that the Canadian Abilities Foundation and a team of researchers from York University and University at Buffalo are exploring. The Adult Learning and Literacy Directorate of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development Canada are sponsoring the research.

The links between literacy and disability are complex. One woman with disabilities and chronic pain who was illiterate until the age of 19 says, “There was a reluctance to invest in my education and learning because I was ill a lot. The idea was that I was not teachable. If you have disabilities, it can cloud over many other things in your life.”

There is a bright side. This woman overcame her inability to read and is now completing her Ph.D. She notes, “Although many people overlook your abilities and only see your disability, the other side is that some people can see your abilities and it promotes your tenacity to learn to read.”

Policy-makers must acknowledge and address the widespread illiteracy among people with disabilities. Dr. Marcia Rioux, the study’s co-principal investigator, notes, “Without literacy, a person can’t exercise his or her basic citizenship rights, including things that most Canadians take for granted, such as voting.” The critical thing is to start a policy dialogue about the importance of these issues.

Understanding what factors contribute to high illiteracy rates among people with disabilities is an important research, action and policy issue, but the relationships are not straightforward, according to results from the team’s first study, Atlas of Disability and Literacy (2003). That study identified important factors that contribute to literacy, including a person’s gender; income level; immigration or citizenship status; the place they live; where they work and what they do; their language and ethnicity; their educational opportunities; whether they are or have been institutionalized; and what types of disabilities they have. Further details about the first study are available at the following website: www.abilities.ca/atlas/index.php

For the current study, The Landscape of Literacy and Disability, which will be completed at the end of 2007, the researchers are using a combination of statistical analysis of surveys, including the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, Youth in Transition Survey, National Population Health Survey, and the International Adult Literacy Survey, and maps to visually show links between literacy and disability.

Using easy-to-read maps allows the researchers to make hard-to-access statistical data more accessible. They create the maps using Geographical Information System (GIS) computer programs that allow them to compare different factors on the same map — for example, educational attainment and place of residence — to show “hotspots” across the country. The map on page 46 is a good example. Maps can be single or multithematic, by combining more than one set of data in layers, with each layer providing one type of data (a theme). A good way to think of this is to visualize a layer cake. For instance, the top layer could be educational attainment, and the lowest layer Canada’s base geography.

Maps draw our attention because they can quickly and clearly provide a snapshot of a specific issue, making them popular among busy politicians and policy analysts. But, like any other picture, they can usually be interpreted in many different ways depending on one’s perspective or political goals.

Producing publicly accessible maps based on the analysis of complex data sets that are not easily accessible is a step in the right direction. Such research provides the public with pictures that can be freely interpreted and used, pictures that, in the past, would have been available only to those select few with the political clout and technical expertise necessary to employ them in their arguments for or against policy reform. Experience has shown that these pictures tend to have even more power when placed in the hands of those who might not normally have access to them.

Of course, maps are only as good as the underlying data. For instance, the first study highlighted how the rate of disability and illiteracy changed depending on how surveys worded questions. The researchers feel that it is important to highlight these inconsistencies because political decisions made using bad data will not improve conditions for people with disabilities who are also coping with illiteracy. In order to ensure that the study remains relevant to people with disabilities, the follow-up study uses an emancipatory research design in which the study results contribute to a policy dialogue about illiteracy and disability in Canada.

One crucial aspect of emancipatory research is that its process and results are available, accessible and empowering to the people who are the subject of study. The researchers intend to make the findings readily available to policy-makers, people involved in program development and people involved in the literacy and disability movements. The goal is to support the efforts of people with disabilities to address the political, social and economic issues that contribute to illiteracy among people with disabilities.

Emancipatory research exposes the structural relationships between literacy and disability. It changes the roles and lives of people. Thus, around the world, people who were not mobile become mobile. People who were not teachable become teachers. And, people who could not read become authors, as in this article.

Please check upcoming issues of Abilities for updates on the literacy and disability study.