Literacy, Latinos - General, Education - Philosophy & Social Aspects, Educational Anthropology, Alternative Education, Homeschooling, Study Skills, Family & School - General & Miscellaneous

Collaborate or Compete?

Name: Collaborate or Compete?
Author: Alastair Macbeth, Douglas McCreath, and James Aitchison
ISBN: 9780750704694

by Alastair Macbeth, Douglas McCreath, and James Aitchison

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Overview

We learn from a Latino immigrant community in Carpinteria, California that literacy is interwoven in all aspects of our lives. From storytelling in Spanish-speaking children's peer groups to communication between Latino families and the school, this community reveals the cultural strengths of the people as they forge new identities in a different language and with varied sociocultural demands. A strong awareness of their own personal and cultural history encourages the families in Carpinteria to create the optimum learning environment for their children in the home, community and school. During Delgado-Gaitan's decade of critical ethnography in Carpinteria she has illuminated the intricate relationships among Latino families as together they build a sociopolitical community to bridge family and school alliances. How they extend their learning from the social networks to the family arena and to the personal, and in reverse, represents their protean responses to the diversity and adversity in their lives. This life-story captures the collective and individual texts of the Latino children, their parents and educators used to empower themselves to transform discontinuity in an age where continuity is increasingly foreign.

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Booknews

Delgado-Gaitan (sociocultural studies in education, U. of California-Davis) draws on her decade of ethnographic work among the Latino immigrant community in Carpinteria, California, to explain how literacy is interwoven through all spheres of people's lives. She shows how they apply what they learn from the social network to the family arena and their personal lives, and in reverse represent their own responses to the diversity and adversity in their lives. She concludes that the close integration provides an optimum learning environment in the home, community, and school. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)