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...

The impact and influence of their school experiences and of their teachers on children and their subsequent beliefs and values are unknown. This book attempts to capture what is in the hearts and minds of teachers and mentors as they provide mind-forming experiences for children. In their own voices, teachers describe why the environment is an important component of their educational practice why it is even more important than traditional school subjects such as science. Conservative moral principles, not unbridled emotions, guide their behavior as responsible professionals who care deeply...

This book speaks to the heart of an urgent task facing teacher preparation programs on campuses at the beginning of the twenty-first century: How can college instructors work most effectively with a new generation of nontraditional students that includes growing numbers of immigrants, single parents, and returning homemakers struggling to find their way in large and unfamiliar institutions? Susan Bernheimer went straight to the source for answers, interviewing impoverished students aspiring to become teachers of young children. Revealing, poignant, and replete with practical insights about...

This story began in an educational setting where two children who were physically and culturally different experienced conflict on a daily basis. Peley s family emigrated from Cambodia and Vietnam, Raji s from Bombay. Both children struggled throughout their first year of formal education in a predominately white suburban school district. Social and academic problems developed during work and play, formal literacy learning, holidays and celebrations, and home/school communications. Their teacher, Ms. Starr, also struggled as she tried to understand the two children and their families,...