This original book offers a meaningful window into the lived experiences
of children from immigrant families, providing a holistic, profound
portrait of their literacy practices as situated within social,
cultural, and political frames. Drawing on reports from five years of an
ongoing longitudinal research project involving students from immigrant
families across their elementary school years, each chapter explores a
unique set of questions about the students' experiences and offers a
rich data set of observations, interviews, and student-created
artifacts. Authors apply different sociocultural, sociomaterial, and
sociopolitical frameworks to better understand the dimensions of the
children's experiences. The multitude of approaches applied demonstrates
how viewing the same data through distinct lenses is a powerful way to
uncover the differences and comparative uses of these theories. Through
such varied lenses, it becomes apparent how the complexities of lived
experiences inform and improve our understanding of teaching and
learning, and how our understanding of multifaceted literacy practices
affects students' social worlds and identities.
Children in Immigrant Families Becoming Literate is a much-needed
resource for scholars, professors, researchers, and graduate students in
language and literacy education, English education, and teacher
education.