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Family and intergenerational literacy programs are among the most rapidly growing educational intervention efforts in the United States. Often appended to federally funded, school-based programs intended to serve low-income families such as Even Start and early childhood programs such as Head Start, family literacy has been integrated into a variety of "life-span" programs that aim to serve adults and children alike (Mikulecky & Lloyd, 1995). However, the constructs of these programs differ, sometimes dramatically, and researchers and practitioners in other domains (e.g., workplace and adult literacy) argue that it is difficult to see "how to make such programs work," given their varied purposes and the many interpretations of even the concept of family literacy.
Family literacy programs, themselves, report that they experience many of the problems faced by other types of literacy programs. However, the specific intergenerational issues embedded in our conceptualization and implementation of family literacy efforts dictate that these programs focus on critical questions of parenting, family support, and reciprocal teaching and learning within and outside of home contexts. Despite this slight deviation in the specific purposes and contexts of family literacy, as a field family literacy and the programs that have emerged over the past few years have not addressed many of the critical and complex issues identified by other programs such as school-based and adult literacy programs. Questions about instructional and curricular development persist, as do problems of retention and the more basic issues of program design, development, and implementation for multiple and diverse populations. Like other literacy efforts, family literacy programs serve populations who share common problems, such as problems of reading and writing and often the attendant problems of poverty, but who sometimes differ greatly in racial, cultural, and religious affiliation; socio-political histories and ethnic connectedness; socio-economic backgrounds; and life views.
The issues of race, class, and culture are central to family literacy and are tied to many of the very purposes for which parents and children from diverse backgrounds enter programs, as well as the real experiences of their daily lives. In my own research, parents connect the issues of race and class to questions of access, and have clear and defined purposes for sustaining their participation in programs (see Gadsden, 1995a and 1995b). The impact of these racial and cultural factors as well as life experiences frame the ways that learners value and use literacy, and the ways in which they come to construct views about the processes involved in literacy learning and program participation.
The first task of existing programs would seem to be to re-examine their own purposes, commit themselves to understanding the social and cultural contexts in which the learners they serve live and develop, and conceptualize learning and teaching as reciprocal processes. This puts programs in a position to collect the different experiences of family members and to recast them into appropriate curricula that engage and motivate family members who participate in programs. As part of the initial step, programs might explore approaches to obtaining information about learners' ethnic and cultural beliefs and practices; assessing the importance of these beliefs and practices to learners' purposes for participating and to their family experiences; and identifying ways that these beliefs and practices can be integrated into the program effectively and appropriately.
This paper is divided into four sections, beginning with an overview of the conceptualizations of family literacy for programs. The focus then shifts to the importance of social and cultural practices within families, and parents' perceptions of family literacy. Next, instructional concerns of race, class, and culture for family literacy are considered. As summary and conclusion, the purposes of family literacy instruction are revisited and the focus is on ways of thinking about the design and development of family literacy efforts that integrate historical, cultural, and racial issues into instruction, and that generate a more global context for family literacy programs.
Whether and how practitioners and researchers consider issues of race, class, or culture are largely measures of how they conceptualize the field in which they work or the goals of that work. A fundamental issue is what family literacy actually means to the establishment and survival of programs themselves, and what it means for those developing instructional and learning activities and the definitions of family literacy that contribute to the program's mission. As in other areas of literacy, family literacy practitioners and researchers may:
As noted in other places (e.g., Gadsden, 1994), research on family literacy is developed around a variety of themes that attempt to explain the relationship between children's performance in school and parents' literacy levels or literacy practices in the home. Purcell-Gates (1993) identifies four of these themes. One is developed around research findings that suggest children first acquire basic cognitive and linguistic skills within the context of the family. A second theme suggests that substantial literacy learning occurs in the years prior to children's receiving formal instruction. A third describes parents' education and literacy practices in the home as critical to children's school achievement and performance on tests; and a fourth theme stresses the difficulties faced by low-literate parents when they assist their children in literacy learning. Embedded in each one of the themes are cultural identities, histories, and experiences of family members, all of which contribute to whether and how learners become engaged in and sustain learning.
These themes often are discussed within two perspectives on family literacy. One perspective describes literacy as composed essentially of school-based academic activities within family contexts, and assumes that parents--particularly low-literate, low-income parents--want to support their children's literacy development, but lack the knowledge and understanding of school-based strategies and approaches to assist their children to develop the literate behaviors required in classroom settings (see Edwards, 1990). A second perspective highlights the importance of understanding existing family practices as a prerequisite to developing curricula that build upon home and community knowledge and experiences (see Auerbach, 1989). Family practices and interactions are examined to determine the functions, uses, and purposes of literacy within families; and programs are developed around the contextual needs of family members.
Several program models were put into effect over the past ten years, although little, in general, is known about the design of family literacy programs (see Paris et al., 1995). The most widely known of these models include the Kenan Model of the National Center for Family Literacy; Parents as Partners, developed by Edwards; the Missouri Parents as Teachers program, developed by Winter and her colleagues; and the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY). In addition, parent-child reading curricula and on-site programs have been developed by researchers such as Strickland and Morrow (1989), Paratore et al. (1992), and Handel and Goldsmith (1989).
The differences in the structure and content of program models (and in their possible outcomes) appear to be modest in some cases, although the interpretations for practice, stated purposes, or ideological bases of the projects may vary substantially. What is noteworthy, however, is that, although these program models are used disproportionately with families of color and families in low-income homes, and although each model highlights its work with different populations, none specifically addresses issues of racial, class, gender, or cultural differences in discussions centered upon assessment or instructional approaches and strategies. Based upon work done in Michigan, Philadelphia, and other sites throughout the country, many individual programs collapse parts of the above models for their own purposes and attempt to develop culturally responsive curricula (e.g., a Chicago program that uses an Afrocentric approach and a Los Angeles program designed to meet the needs of Mexican-American families).
Research studies and data from the field suggest that programs must be mindful of the strengths of families and the cultural communities in which families exist (Ferdman, 1990). Family literacy efforts that do not build on such strengths may succeed for parents and children in the short term, but may fail on a long-term basis, or, at least, will not be sustained. Although strengths have rarely been delineated clearly, the social connectedness of the family to others in the community and with those who share common cultural traditions and interests is often identified as important.
In several studies on families of color, including papers written on immigrant and indigenous groups, researchers describe variability in the approaches to literacy; relationships among parents, children, and other family members; and expectations within the family as a function of culture. All of these often combine into what I call family cultures: collections of beliefs, practices, and approaches to which family members contribute and from which they extract, and which are modified over the life-course of the family (Gadsden, 1995a). 2* These family cultures, as I have noted from my research with multiple generations of African American and Puerto Rican families, provide individual family members with a way of constructing their futures within or oppositional to the life-course trajectory of the family. My own research in programs and in different cultural communities reminds me that families wield enormous power in the lives of adult and child learners and a high level of value is attached to cultural traditions and to the problems that families associate with race and racism.
When program staff and practitioners lack knowledge of these familial or cultural traditions or minimize, ignore, or devalue the importance of these factors, their unfamiliarity may be interpreted as a lack of interest or may result in their implementing practices and activities for the program that offend the learners or their families. Jerri Willett and David Bloome (1992), for example, show that over time children began to experience tension, anger, hostility, resistance, and alienation in their relationships at home when their literacy experiences did not enable parents to participate. Concha Delgado-Gaitan (1987) found that Mexican-American parents wanted a better life for their children and were eager to support their children's literacy development, but often used systems of support that did not mirror those of the dominant American culture.
Gail Weinstein-Shr (1991), referring to her work with Cambodian families, focuses on the degree to which the western-centered, time-honored view of history and culture constrains the opportunities for children and parents of other cultures to develop literacy; traditions within families defined children's roles in specific ways. My own work (Gadsden, 1995a) with multiple generations within the same families suggests that in the intergenerational messages within the African American families studied, perceptions of power, powerlessness, and access are inseparable from the value of literacy or the nature of access; parents convey the value of literacy along with a sense of the difficulty in achieving literacy.
While there is relatively little research that examines parents' specific concerns about culturally responsive instruction and materials, Lily Wong-Fillmore's accounts (1990) from Hispanic parents suggest that these parents seek out and value sound early educational programs that are also culturally sensitive. Parents in a Head Start parent literacy project in the National Center on Adult Literacy described literacy in relation to its socially enabling qualities and its role in empowering their children to address societal inequities (Gadsden, 1995b). In another study, parents defined access in specific socially and culturally contextualized ways, stressing the potential impact of literacy for ensuring power and success for future generations (Gadsden, 1995a).
Despite research support for the importance of cultural knowledge and our intuitive sense that issues of race, class, and culture matter, neither family literacy research nor practice typically raises these issues. Some programs may discuss them as separate concerns, cite them in program readings, or examine them in relationship to family members' perceptions, for example, whether parents and children perceive that literacy can and will make a difference in their lives. Whatever the program's stance, program staff must determine for themselves how to access information and how to translate what is known about culture, ethnicity, race, and gender for family literacy learners. This presumes that the staff will include some people from the cultural and ethnic groups of program participants. However, when this is not the case (and often it is not), programs and the practitioners who are part of the programs will need to evaluate their ability to obtain this information and to create learning environments that do not simply invite participants to offer such information but also respond to what is learned.
The critical questions here are bound to culture and to context: Family literacy practitioners, like other practitioners, enter their classrooms with assumptions and beliefs about their students. Work in family literacy must unravel assumptions and encourage strong learning contexts respectful of the lived experiences and goals of parents, children, and other family learners.
Parents and children who participate in family literacy programs, though disproportionately low-income and families of color, differ within these descriptions and across a variety of other social and cultural dimensions. I often consider these in-group variations and the tendency to hope for a unilinear explanation for the behaviors and experiences of socially less powerful groups. As an African American, I am asked often to respond to questions about the needs of the black community or the problems of black children. The people asking the questions assume that blacks represent a monolithic group with similar experiences, apparently unaware of or neglecting the fact that within this collective, called blacks, there are many different subgroups and cultures, just as there are in other cultural and ethnic groups.
People who consider themselves black Americans may be of continental African, Caribbean, or African American heritage; they may be native speakers of Spanish, French, English, or different African languages or dialects; or they may share common histories but have different traditions and familial expectations. What most may have in common, however--as is true of Hispanics, Asian Americans, American Indians, and European Americans--is a core of common examples of how others respond to them in school, work, or social settings. That is, black men may be feared; Hispanics, even those who are native-born, may be treated as limited-English-speaking immigrants; Asian American students desperately needing educational support may not receive it because of a perception that they are all good students; and European Americans may be considered racist even when the label does not apply. The point is that racial, cultural, class, and social issues are complex for all people across all ethnic groups--and are not the "natural preserve" of people of color.
How does a family literacy program begin to examine these issues? Programs will need to separate the package of issues by identifying written materials and other resources that help provide a context, and then reassembling the issues with the help of the very populations that they serve--in a way that enables staff, family learners, and the program to learn and grow. If we address issues around race, ethnicity, and culture, for example, we might consider the meaning of these terms and the ways in which we as practitioners, researchers, and learners manipulate these concepts. Historically, curricula in Pre-K-12 and other educational settings present race and culture as unchanging, biological concepts, when in fact our experiences tell us that these concepts are fluid and change as social situations and practices change. In addition, despite the fact that women as mothers are over-represented in family literacy programs, too often issues of gender are excluded from discussions or readings.
A family literacy program begins to deal with issues of diversity by developing activities that encourage learners to examine their own concepts of the terms and by providing readings that provide context for the issues. This process should begin at the first meeting and in assessment activities and should continue throughout the instructional program. Practitioners and learners might share information about their own ethnic, racial, and cultural histories; examine their own family histories and origins; and talk about, write about, and analyze their own experiences. Particularly as we work with parents who have goals around their children's development, the focus on the family's cultural, social, and ethnic histories can be used as a point of entry to conversations about the purposes, uses, and valuing of the literacy learning that is occurring between parent and child.
Family literacy classrooms must be settings in which teachers and students demonstrate mutual respect for the knowledge and experiences that each brings into the classroom, and developed upon the premise that teaching and learning are reciprocal activities: within each teacher, there is a learner, and within each learner, there is a teacher. Issues of race, culture, ethnicity, gender, and religion are difficult to discuss in groups that are diverse and large. I have found that even in my own teaching of university graduate students, the allure of these issues as concepts is more appealing to students than the reality of discussing them. What is important in developing a "space" for this conversation and in developing appropriate curricula for the university course and for work in family literacy programs is to enable students to meet in pairs and small forums. These small groups enable students to speak openly and to engage in a variety of important cognitive activities. To determine the best approach to take and to determine what the most critical and urgent issues are, practitioners must rely on their own observations and invite "feedback" from students.
There is no fool-proof method to assure that programs respond to the expectations of learners. However, this paper suggests ways of thinking about "difference" and "commonality."
As an initial step, programs must assess the resources and the limitations of existing program structures, content, and focus. Rather than conceptualizing the racial, ethnic, and cultural histories of learners as an addendum to design and conduct, programs must assess the strengths and knowledge voids that their staff members bring to the task of teaching--as well as the cultural assets and individual limitations that the populations they serve contribute to the learning environment. Programs must investigate the ways that reading and writing activities build upon both differences and commonalities of families and of the learners within those families. They must encourage learners to see themselves and their familial and social history as critical domains within which literacy develops.
Family literacy programs also must "carve out" their purposes, identifying whether program content will focus on parenting education, job preparation, parent-child interactions, parent-child book reading, or some combination of activities, and the ways in which these foci can be developed to attend to issues of race, culture, class, and gender.
Next, the programs must be explicit and committed to the development of literacy, including notions of reading, writing, computing, and problem-solving. Through activities and exercises that connect reading, writing, cultural issues (including family life), and experiences as integrative, programs can set the stage for learners to connect their multiple selves (e.g., as parents, students, and workers) with the program. In other words, programs signal to learners that it is appropriate and important to include their "cultural selves" in the process of literacy learning. Toward that end, a variety of activities might be used.
In addition, program staff must work with family literacy program participants in engaging their family members in discussions about their emergent literacy skills, in order to help family members understand and support the participants' learning. This not only encourages shared discourses within families but also increases the continuity between the activities of program, home, and other contexts.
Focus on family support requires that family literacy programs specialize in a core of expectations and program demands. Family literacy researchers and practitioners must, then, consider the learner within a context, sometimes as an individual and at other times as a member of a cultural, ethnic, and social collective called the family. Practitioners and family literacy learners can go on to construct portraits of learning and of new self-images that become a part of home and family life and that reflect the personal experiences of parents and children learning together and may, of course, include grandparents, grandchildren, and other family members. However, the value that family members assign to the learning in a literacy program may be affected by the degree to which non-program participants in the family view the time and effort expended by the family literacy learner as intrusive to the daily functioning and experiences of the family. These issues are a part of the fabric of family life and may be revealed publicly by learners or masked as private issues. Practitioners can assist learners by not intruding unnecessarily into their personal lives, but by establishing a range of activities that are "safe places" for learners to explore new ideas and to reconcile their desires for learning with other positive and negative experiences in their lives.
The central actors in family literacy programs are those who learn (and, in many ways, their families) and practitioners. Like families, programs are most effectively supportive when they include an interchange of ideas, trust, and mutual respect, as well as projections for the future course of activities and an expectation that learning will occur through commitment. Practitioners and family literacy learners are co-constructors of the context of teaching, learning, and knowledge generation. To understand where, when, and how positive change can occur requires understanding how learners and families define themselves, particularly when the teacher and student differ substantially in their cultural, social, or ethnic backgrounds.
With less fear of differences, the practitioner can open up the possibility of building on commonalities that are not threats, but rather contributions, to knowledge. The practitioner will need to know, of course, about the learner and his or her family, and the learner should be knowledgeable about the practitioner. Both can use such information as a springboard in co-constructing the course of instruction and learning, realizing hopes and goals, and sharing personal and intellectual power to expand what has been called in historical accounts of African American families, "the power of knowledge (Holt, 1990)."
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1* Issues of gender are particularly important to discussions in family literacy. I have included only modest references to gender and to religious differences because both issues deserve wider attention than is possible in this analysis and are included in the references to culture as a broad concept.
2* In recent work, I have developed a framework called "family cultures" which combines developmental context of families with life-course issues.
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