Millions of adults participate in adult literacy programs in the United States each year, but approximately half will leave programs before officially completing the requirements or meeting the expectations of sponsors (Brod, 1995; Lewis, 1997; Limage, 1990; Pugsley, 1987). Researchers have cited external complications, such as class schedule conflicts, work-related demands, and family commitments, as the primary source of this phenomenon (Darkenwald, 1986; Kerka, 1995; Quigley, 1998; Wrigley, 1993). Interventions have included creating flexible hours in programs, having employers support programming on site, and incorporating more family members into the work. Yet with all of this constructive effort, adult learners still leave in large numbers.

This dissertation project foregrounds the under-represented complexity of adult learners' lives and explores how learners' understandings and expectations of literacy might affect their decision-making about participation in adult literacy programs. Previous studies have typically focused on the sponsors' perspective, examining the issues of attrition and retention. Through ethnographic and qualitative methods, this study illuminates the perspectives of 19 adult learners in two adult literacy programs (one ABE, the other GED), highlighting their goals and motivations for program participation. It also considers the understandings of instructors, staff, and administrators and how these relate to those of the adult learners.

This study offers an important new perspective on adult learners' participation, one not based on sponsors' models of problems. As analysis of the interviews demonstrates, what learners have to say about their participation in adult literacy programs is vital information for revising the perspectives and work of adult literacy. Privileging learners' perspectives and understandings of literacy disrupts the common investment metaphor about literacy education. This study argues that we should consider how learners invest in sponsors in pursuit of literacy, informed by a complex network of forces and using their available resources, including social capital. The interviews also reveal how learners engage in meta-discourse about literacy, and how their literacy meta-discourse informs the ways they think about participation. This study suggests the need for more qualitative work with adult learners to challenge the current thinking that positions them as passive recipients of learning rather than active participants.