Language, literacy, and power in schooling

Language, Literacy, and Power in Schooling brings critical ethnographic perspectives to bear on the negotiation of language, literacy, and power in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts, showing how literacy and schooling are negotiated by children and adults and how schooling becomes a key site of struggle over whose knowledge, discourses, and literacy practices "count." Part I examines tensions between the local and the general in literacy development and use; Part II considers the face-to-face interactions around literacy practices in ethnically diverse classrooms; Part III widens the ethnographic lens to position literacy practices in the context of globalization and contemporary education policies. Each section concludes with a commentary by a leading literacy researcher. Above all, this is a book oriented toward social action. Unpacking the complexity of literacy practices and experiences in diverse settings, the authors seek not only to build new knowledge, but also to inform and transform the pedagogies and policies that limit human potentials. The chapters in this volume have much to teach us about the roots of inequality. engage politically, confronting education