Literacy Practices in Minority Families and Communities

Historically, educational researchers have observed that children who grow up in minority families and communities face significantly more problems learning to read and write in school than children from mainstream families and communities. Various reasons have been provided to explain this phenomenon. This entry examines the changing attitudes toward minority children's preparedness for schooling as a consequence of family and community influences in the context of ever-changing definitions of literacy.

How We Define Literacy Matters

Anthropological theory and research at the turn of the 20th century promulgated a “Great Divide” view that there were vast differences between the inhabitants of what some scholars referred to as primitive and civilized cultures. Over time, proponents of this view argued that similar differences existed among members of nonliterate and literate ...

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