Culturally contested literacies : America's "rainbow underclass" and urban schools / Guofang Li.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Li, Guofang, 1972-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Multicultural education--United States--Case studies.

Multicultural education.

Literacy--Social aspects.

United States.

Education, Urban--United States--Case studies.

Education, Urban.

Literacy--Social aspects--United States--Case studies.

Literacy.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

218 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2008.

Summary:

Culturally Contested Literacies is a vivid ethnographic account of the everyday cross-cultural living and schooling experiences of six culturally-diverse families in urban America. Documenting the ways in which these families learn about literacies and their meanings in relation to schools, inner-city environments, and other ethnic groups, Guofang Li's incisive analysis reveals the unique experiences of fractured urban America-the dynamics of how and in what conditions the families take up contradictory positions of conformity and resistance within and across various discourses and boundaries.

Unlike prior research that fragments various social categories, Culturally Contested Literacies explores the rich complexity within each family as it makes sense of its daily relations in terms of literacy, race, ethnicity, class, and gender. It juxtaposes the productions of such familial relations across different racial and cultural groups within the context of the larger socio-political and socio-economic formations. By presenting a realistic picture of the varying ways that America's "rainbow underclass" might encounter schooling, Li argues that urban education must be understood in relation not only to the individual's cultural and familial milieu, but also to the interactive context between the individual and schools.

Contents:

Introduction : America's "rainbow underclass" and inner city schooling

Where the stories began : the city and its schools

Being Vietnamese, becoming somebody

Being Sudanese, being Black

Being white, being the majority in the minority

Multicultural families and multiliteracies : tensions, conformity, and resistance to urban schooling

Culturally contested literacies and the education of America's "rainbow underclass".

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [201]-211) and index.

ISBN:

9780415955645

0415955645

9780415955652

0415955653

OCLC:

126229286