City Literacies: Learning to Read Across Generations and Cultures

Hardcover, xx + 232 pages, b&w illustrations in text, NOT ex-library. Gentle handling wear, interior is clean with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Boards show a bit of shelfwear, short creases to edges. Issued without a dust jacket. -- Contents: Introduction: Poverty and Illiteracy - the Deficit Myth [Myth of Poverty and Learning Difficulty; Myth of Poverty and Parental Deficiency; Myth of Mismatch and Learning Difficulty; Myth of the 'Correct Way' to Teach Literacy; Success Through Difference: An Alternative Model; Spitalfields Study]; Part One: Living and Learning East of the Aldgate Pump -- 1 Places and Peoples [Learning to Live with Contrasts (Huguenots: From Riches to Rags; The Irish: Famine and Fenians; Jews: Anglicising the Aliens; A Life of 'Sweating' in Spitalfields; East and West: 'The Dark Continent Within Easy Reach of the General Post Office'; Housing the Poor: Philanthropic Capitalism; Fighting Back: Rebels and Revolutionaries; Bangladeshis: From Sylhet to Spitalfields)] 2 Schooling the City [Sir John Cass School; From Charity to Board School; Contrasts and Change: Canon Barnett School; Jews' Free School: From Foreigner to English Citizen; Mediators of Literacy in East End Communities (Jewish Religious Classes; Qur'anic and Bengali Classes; Libraries: Friends to the Poor; Toynbee Hall)]; Part Two: Childhood Memories of Literacy and Learning -- Introduction 3 Literacy for Survival [Families: 'Getting on' in a Land of Contrasts (English Londoners: One Foot in the City and One Outside; Wealth and Poverty; School and Work; Dependence and Independence; Jewish Children: From the Outside, Looking in; Poverty and Wealth; Jewishness and Englishness; Reading at Home: The Role of Parents; Parents as Role Models; Parents as Catalysts in Language Learning; Parents as Providers of Opportunity; Funds of Knowledge in the Community; Magic of Toynbee Hall; English Literacy Classes; Library: Escaping Everyday Life; Hebrew Classes: 'The Be-all and End-all' for Our Jewish Families; School as Mediator of Literacy, Literature and Life in the World of the Empire; Early Days at School: Learning to Read by Rote and Memorisation; Reading as an Introduction to Literature and Culture; Teachers as Guiding Lights; Entering the British Empire: Syncretising New and Old Worlds] 4 Literacy for Equality [Families; Home Learning; Pioneers: The Schoolchildren (Janet and John Across the World; Secondary School; Grammar School: 'An Indispensable Kind of Citizen'; Modern School: A 'Practical and Craftsmanlike Tradition'; Guiding Lights); Pioneers: The Teachers; Pioneers: The Mature Students]; 5 Literacy for Choice [Family as Provider of Love, Language and Literacy (Role of Love, Pride and Tradition; Families as Teachers of Language and Literacy); A Treasure Trove: Literacy in the Community (Qur'anic Classes; Bengali Classes; Why Didn't They Say 'The World Is Your Oyster'? Literacy, Language and Learning in the English State School; Teachers: 'The Good Ones Made It Hard'; Syncretising Literacies, Languages and Identities; Coming to Terms with Choice)]; Looking Back; Part Three: Looking Ahead: Young Literacies, Lives and Learning -- Introduction 6 Living Literacies in Homes and Communities [Reading at Home (Monolingual Mothers; Children; Literacy Brokers and Guiding Lights); Formal Learning in Informal Contexts (Bangladeshi-British Children); Booksharing at Home (Mothers; A New Paradigm of Early Literacy?)] 7 Learning the Literacy of School [Nadia and Her Friends: The Early Syncretism of Home and School Learning (Playing School at Age 7; Into Nadia's Classroom: Learning the Strategies of Reading; From School to Home and Home to School); Maruf and His Friends: The Later Syncretism of Home and School Learning (Early Years: Learning to Learn Differently at School; Shared World of Home and School: Playing School at 11)]; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index.