Originally published in 1996. During the author's decade of critical ethnography in Carpinteria, California, she has illuminated the intricate relationships between Latino families as together they build a sociopolitical community to bridge family and school alliances. How they extend their learning from the social networks to the family arena and to the personal, and in reverse, represents their protean responses to the diversity and adversity in their lives. This life-story captures the collective and individual texts of the Latino children, their parents and educators used to empower themselves to transform discontinuity in an age where continuity is increasingly foreign.

The purpose of the volume is to open up new perspectives in the study of literacy by bringing together current research findings from linguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology. The book divides into five parts. The first part deals with theoretical questions related to the definition and the modeling of the construct of functional literacy. The second part goes into the notion of literacy development. Both societal and individual aspects of literacy development are taken into account. In the next two parts the actual achievement of literacy in various regions of the world is dealt with. In part 3 the focus is on attaining literacy in developing societies, and in part 4 on attaining literacy in industrialized societies. In the final part the question is raised how functional literacy can be promoted through education. Starting from a cross-cultural perspective the central issue is how standards of functional literacy can be established throughout the world.

This popular text, now in its third edition, "unpackages" the various dimensions of literacy – linguistic (the nature of language, oral-written language relationships, language variation); cognitive (constructive nature of perception, the reading process, understanding written discourse, the writing process); sociocultural (literacy as social practices, authority of written discourse); and developmental (constructing the written language system) – and at the same time accounts for the interrelationships among them. Distinguished by its examination of literacy from a multidimensional and interdisciplinary perspective, it provides a strong conceptual foundation upon which literacy curriculum and instruction in school settings can be grounded.

"The ethnics are coming" --and the fear of many observers is that the quality of traditional disciplines will suffer as a result. Immigrant Voices: In Search of Pedagogical Reform is a new book which shows that such fear is unfounded. Ethnic scholars of international repute come together in this new collection of essays to meditate upon the single most important social phenomena in America today: Immigration. Due to the ever increasing ethnic diversity in today's school populations, the need to explore this issue has become more critical than ever. Giving voice to a broad range of complex experiences, contributors from China, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, and Slovakia provide insight into the numerous obstacles immigrants must overcome in order to succeed in both the academy and society at large. Offering broad theoretical perspectives, as well as powerful and unforgettable personal narratives, this book serves as a invaluable resource for continued efforts toward educational equity.

This volume is an important and timely contribution to the field for it captures the rewards and challenges of service learning from the varied perspectives of faculty dedicated to this type of teaching, and, at the same time, illuminates strategies for campuses and non-profit organizations to adopt to solidify institutional commitment. Increasingly, service learning is valued as a teaching and learning strategy consistent with the democratic ideals of education, and to this end, a better understanding of the faculty role is essential to advancing practice and improving society.

In Assessment the writers take the reader beyond the obvious function of assessment and focus upon the roles it performs in the social structuring of society.

The field of critical race theory has gotten increasingly more attention as an emerging perspective on race, the law, and policy. Critical race theory examines the social construction of the law, administrative policy, electoral politics, and political discourse in the U.S. Race Is ? Race Isn't presents a group of qualitative research studies, literature reviews, and commentaries that collectively articulate critical race theory in secondary and post-secondary educational settings. The editors explore links and conflicts with other areas of difference, including language, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, with the goal of opening a dialogue about how critical race theory can be incorporated into education research methodologies.

Shows how full literacy can be achieved for minority language communities and brings together examples of good practice and recent research.

This reader-friendly text examines the key foundational studies in early literacy. It addresses such essential questions as how research informs current practices and where the field still needs to go to provide the best learning opportunities for all children. Each chapter describes the methods and findings of one to five seminal studies, critically assesses their long-term impact on practice and policy, and offers takeaways for the classroom. Leading authorities--including several authors of the original pivotal studies--cover 12 essential aspects of language development, literacy development, and home and community literacy experiences in PreK?2.ÿ ÿ

In Literacy, Culture and Identity, Canadian literacy educator and researcher Jill Sinclair Bell uses narrative inquiry to argue that literacy should be understood as an individual construct growing out of personal experiences shaped by societal attitudes. Through her innovative autobiographical study of an attempt to become literate in Chinese, Dr. Bell makes evident the conflicting stories of literacy held by members of different cultures. The difficulties encountered and the resulting challenge to the image of self highlight the degree to which identity is bound up in literacy and learning practices. Given the multicultural nature of education in North America today, this individually and culturally based notion of literacy has profound implications for our understanding of the teaching and learning situation.