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This brief conversation took place on the Poverty, Race, Women & Literacy listserv from November 29 - December 4, 2006.
To view the actual posts, click here.
From: Mary Gleason info at ccliteracy.org
To: [PovertyRaceWomen 82] Re: Welcome2
Subject: Re: Welcome2
Date: Wednesday November 29, 2006
...One of the interesting issues that came up when I was reading about literacy was the observation that some women might drop out of adult literacy classes because the power balance at home got upset and domestic abuse escalated.
So far I only have found people who think this makes sense, and have heard that this might be the case more often than we know, but no one who can say for sure. I even asked Jenny Horsman by email, and she said she knew of no research on the subject of whether going back to school exacerbates domestic abuse. So, I have decided to research this issue. So far very little is written...
Mary Gleason
From: Barbara Garner b.garner4 at verizon.net
To: [PovertyRaceWomen 84] Re: Welcome2
Subject: Re: Welcome2
Date: Wednesday November 29, 2006
Hi Mary,
I'm interested in the issue you brought up: the increase in domestic violence as women progress in their adult literacy programs.
About 10 years ago I worked with 3 programs in Massachusetts that enrolled women who were on welfare into literacy and skills training simultaneously. The first year, at about midyear, some women were disappearing and when we tracked them down, we found that their partners had become abusive as they (the students) started preparing for on the job training. The closer the women came to independence in the form of being able to support themselves, the more dangerous their home situations became. The next year, we incorporated counseling into the program from the very start.
We did not do any formal research on this, but I bet you can find others like me who have similar anecdotal evidence of the phenomena. Please share your experiences as you conduct your research.
Barb Garner
From: TraceyAssociates at aol.com
To: [PovertyRaceWomen 96] Re: Welcome2
Subject: Re: Welcome2
Date: Monday December 4, 2006
Your hypothesis makes sense, but that does not make it right. Any change in the established order (balance of power) in a relationship can have negative (or positive) consequences.
One path that might help you find more data is to look for differences in the drop out rates of women (alone) versus women with a male partner who participated in adult literacy classes. This would still only be an indicator, but if you had a large enough sample (perhaps by getting others to share their data with you) you would have more to work with.
Paul Tracey
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