This paper reported results from a qualitative analysis of assets and supports disclosed in the narratives of adult basic education students. These students were identified as exemplary by their instructors for academic achievement, hours of program attendance, or community service. Themes were identified using the "Four Pillars"…

Hardly anyone can have failed to pick up on the recent flurry of stories in the national press about the Big Society, sparked off by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless's remarks that funds for volunteers are disappearing at an alarming rate, and that this is undermining the very idea of a "Big Society". At the same time, under the government's…

This paper considers how community literacy programs factor into broader economies of literacy development. The author analyzes two Appalachian community literacy projects, Shirley Brice Heath's ethnographic project in the Carolina Piedmont and Highlander Research and Education Center's organizing efforts with the Appalachian People's Movement, to…