Many Families, Many Literacies: An International Declaration of Principles » (1st Edition)

Denny Taylor has received international recognition for her research and writing. Her awards include the Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize from the Modern Language Association, the Elva Knight Award from the International Reading Association, and the Richard A. Meade Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. Her field research is the basis of all her books, including Many Families, Many Literacies: An International Declaration of Principles (Heinemann, 1997) and Toxic Literacies: Exposing the Injustice of Bureaucratic Texts (Heinemann, 1996).

At a time when family literacy policies and practices are confusingly fragmented and often deficit driven, Many Families, Many Literacies provides much-needed guidance on developing policies and practices that build on the strengths that families bring to any learning situation: their diverse languages, literacies, and complex problem-solving capabilities.

Many Families, Many Literacies reclaims family literacy from the family literacy movement and asserts that society constructs the conditions of poverty in which many minority families are forced to live. It represents the opinions of forty-nine leading education experts and family literacy practitioners, including Lucille Fandel, Ken Goodman, Yetta Goodman, David Barton, Audrey N. Grant, Klaudia Rivera, Judith Kalman, Letta Matsiepe Mashishi, and many others.

This edited collection is essential reading for any educator, researcher, or community-based practitioner concerned about the political implications of the family literacy movement.