Final Report: Activities

An advisory group, comprised of people with a range of perspectives from the policy, research and practitioner communities, has met three times per year. This working group has acted as a 'sounding board' throughout the project, as we designed the methodology, carried out the data collection and analysis, and devised an effective dissemination strategy.

We have also made links with other historians working in the areas of Literacy, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Adult Education more broadly. We commissioned a special discussion paper from Sheila Rosenberg to strengthen our basic framework outlining the field of ESOL which has developed rather differently from literacy and numeracy. We held a one-day consultation with Professor Jennie Ozga, University of Edinburgh, to discuss our policy analysis framework and took part in a one-day conference on Methodological Issues in Lifelong Learning organized at the University of the West of England.

Mixed Methods Training Event. We have obtained ESRC TLRP capacity building funding for a one day training event on the use of large scale datasets in qualitative research on October 29 th 2004 (see Section 2 on Dissemination plans).

We organized an ESRC Seminar Series on Adult Basic Education (with Lyn Tett, University of Edinburgh). This brought together researchers, policy makers and practitioners to take forward socio-cultural approaches to adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL education, facilitate discussion and comparison of policy developments across Scotland and England and beyond to inform contemporary policy developments. The network formed through these seminars is planning to apply for European funding (see Section 2 on Dissemination plans). Details and papers can be found at www.education.ed.ac.uk/hce/ABE-seminars