Examining the Literacy Practices of Home, School, and Community: When Does Difference Make a Difference?

A mismatch between the intended purpose of a curriculum strategy and the discourse understandings of students that enable them to engage in the activity is a common occurrence when the purposes of the curriculum strategy are not apparent to the students. This is more likely to happen in schools in multicultural societies. Experiences in a long-term research project in Australia illustrate the differences that can occur in negotiating culture in the classroom due to differences in use of literacy. The match and mismatch between the literacy of home and school have been explored in a variety of Australian schools and communities. In the first phase of the project, case studies of four schools with innovative literacy practices were conducted. The second phase involved detailed observation and discourse analysis of the literacy practices of 35 students from the case study (years 6 and 7). The most recent work focused on detailed studies of student literacy practices and analysis of student, teacher, parent, and community member views of English literacy and support of English literacy in school and the community. Literacy was variously constructed as knowledge, performance, negotiated meaning making, and "doing" school. Research results show that successfully negotiating school literacy involves learning the norms and expectations and ways of participating that are valued in school contexts. Shared understanding is critical to making literacy learners of students. (Contains 29 references.) (SLD)