«East is East, West is West»?: Home Literacy, Culture, and Schooling (Rethinking Childhood)

Focusing on four Chinese immigrant children’s intersecting worlds of home literacy, culture, and schooling, Guofang Li brings the reader into the inner worlds of these children and their families through an ethnographic lens. Centering on the meanings that these children’s home literacy practices and their beliefs about literacy have brought upon their school experiences, this book documents the complex, multifaceted nature of the different literacy practices of these children in their distinct family milieus. Li highlights the role of culture and family capital in shaping home literacy practices and schooling. The illustrations of the varied, but often frustrating home experiences counteract the schooled, Eurocentric notion of literacy that may constrain and contradict immigrant children’s learning outside of schools.