Abstract
The Dudley area of Boston is well known among sociologists for its active and progressive neighborhood initiative. In Laboring to Learn, Lorna Rivera illustrates how we can continue to learn from organizations associated with this initiative, most notably Project Hope. Indeed, Rivera documents the importance of Project Hope to the Dudley neighborhood as the sisters of Project Hope have provided health care, shelter, and social services for Dudley residents, and they have been intimately involved in the community. Project Hope opened the Adult Learners Program (ALP) in 1990 to help individuals attain their GED on their path to escaping poverty. According to Rivera, this program is notable because it takes the popular education approach to learning, where knowledge is gained from analytic discussion of shared experiences and interests. In addition, it is notable because it formed during a time when the federal and state governments de-emphasized education, in favor of work and self-sufficiency.
Rivera assesses the popular education approach to learning through multiple research methods. She conducted ethnographic research by working with the ALP as a teacher and coordinator. She worked closely with the ALP from 1995 to 2005, and thus, her analysis is based on 10 years of ethnographic research. Rivera also conducted focus groups and interviews with homeless women, ALP teachers, and community organizers. Her research offers a rich, in-depth description of the Adult Learners Program and its impact on homeless and formerly homeless women.
Rivera suggests that the popular education approach to learning is particularly valuable for poor women because they face many challenges: abuse as children and then again as mothers, teenage pregnancy, lack of education, homelessness, frustration, and regret. These obstacles inhibit women from attaining education due to time constraints and self-doubt. Popular education allows class sessions to be guided by the experiences and interests of the class, and not solely by the agenda of the instructor.
Rivera exemplifies this approach by illustrating how students prepared for the GED social studies test by analyzing political cartoons where images of the bald eagle and Uncle Sam reflect our history. The teachers also shared local political cartoons, and allowed students to create their own cartoons. This proved to be a worthwhile endeavor as the women wrote about food stamps, a homeless shelter, and impoverishment. In addition, the women wrote editorials in the class on minimum wages and federal housing subsidies. The ALP, then, not only permitted, but truly encouraged students to deviate from a preestablished curriculum to learn through shared experiences. According to Rivera, these classes instilled self-confidence and enhanced aspirations among students. Thus, this form of learning can help overcome some of the internalized oppression experienced by poor and homeless women by illustrating that individual problems are connected to social problems.
According to Rivera, this form of learning also generates a shared consciousness, a sense of community commitment, and political advocacy. Students in the program became advocates of welfare reform, education, and housing equity, and they became more involved in their children’s education. Popular education, as taught through the Adult Learners Program, generated a sense of collective responsibility that is necessary to help overcome inequities in society.
Yet, Rivera also notes that the popular education method and outcomes challenge the status quo. Indeed, over the past decades, welfare reform has valued employment and self-sufficiency over education. She notes that welfare reform has left women “uneducated, underemployed, underpaid, and unable to effectively move themselves and their families forward” (p. 127). She contends that new reforms should focus on adult literacy and postsecondary education, in addition to health care, affordable housing, and the minimum wage. She also argues that popular education should be embraced as it generates self-efficacy, determination, and collective responsibility.
Laboring to Learn is an excellent book for an undergraduate stratification, policy, urban sociology, or education course. It is easy to read, and it is theoretically rigorous, drawing on many fields with a heavy focus on Paolo Freire. Rivera challenges readers to think about the meaning and the process of education, and to think about the unique challenges facing poor mothers. This research also illustrates the richness of insights that are generated from ten years of ethnographic research. With that said, I foresee a challenge with this book, or perhaps a great opportunity to generate classroom discussion. Rivera illustrates how a GED course can be taught in a way that instills confidence, determination, and collective action, but she does not illustrate as convincingly that this teaching method generates the “credentials” that are necessary to enhance incomes in a way that alleviates impoverishment and generates self-sufficiency. This should be articulated more fully to buttress the policy implications and to resonate with readers, particularly policymakers.