About Bridges

Key Points

  • 29% of Canadian women do not have a high school diploma (Statistics Canada, 2002)
    • the rate is:
      • over 40% among women using shelter services (Grasley, Richardson & Harris, 2000)
      • 47% among recipients of government financial assistance, most of whom are sole-support mothers (Ontario Works, 2003).
      • Level of education is the most important predictor of a Canadian woman’s income
  • The drop-out rate among adult education students is 33% (ABC Canada, 2001), and probably much higher among women experiencing abuse
  • research shows that abusers frequently sabotage women’s efforts to go to school with abuse that may include threats to her and her children, denial of access to transportation, and physical abuse causing missed exams (Riger et al.,2001).
  • Looking at women students in general, recent Canadian research reveals that 72% of women who drop out of adult basic education programs do so because of ‘socio-economic-circumstantial’ reasons that include job-related pressures and childcare, while 17% cite policy and program-related reasons such as content and teaching structure for leaving, and 6% cite cognitive-emotional (e.g. worry or nervousness about being in a program) as the reason they dropped out (ABC Canada, 2001).
  • Currently available adult education makes demands that, by nature of the challenges experienced by women who have experienced trauma and their responsibilities outside school, may be difficult or impossible to achieve, such as:
    • transportation to and from school
    • 80% attendance requirement for credit courses
    • no support for childcare, mental health, or safety
    • Cognitive resources, such as concentration, necessary for learning
  • The current proposal, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is a partnership between the Faculty of Education, The University of Western Ontario, and G.A. Wheable Adult Education Centre: