Literacy Training and Job Placement of Hard-Core Unemployed Negroes in Detroit

In 1965 a study was conducted to test the relative effectiveness of the use of the initial teaching alphabet and traditional orthographic approaches to reading among 53 hard-core, functionally illiterate, unemployed persons (largely Negroes) in Detroit. Differences in the appropriateness of the two mediums were found. In the spring of 1966 a follow-up study was conducted to determine the job placement and general social adjustment of the participants. Only six of them had obtained jobs, and many of the remainder were continuing in literacy training programs. The findings of the follow-up study generally corroborate research on extended joblessness conducted in other cities and at different times. The achievement of literacy and job placement remain distant goals for the hard-core unemployed. More empirical research regarding specific programs and the sociocultural barriers to adult learning among urban poor minority group members remains to be done despite the growing number of sophisticated studies of human resources in recent years.