The purpose of this ethnographic research was to understand four Chinese immigrant children and their families' beliefs and uses of literacy in their intersecting worlds of home, school, and community in a Canadian context from a socio-cultural perspective. The data were subjected to thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the nature of the home literacy practices is multifaceted and complex. Factors such as the families' literacy experiences and heritage in China, their experiences in Canada, and the social context of the families' lives interweave in their daily literacy and living. The Chinese literacy traditions and cultural values of the parents dominate the families' home literacy practices. These literacy traditions, embedded in Confucianism and the socio-cultural context of modern China, differ from the values of mainstream Canadian schools, and thus contribute to the mismatch between immigrant children's home and school literacy practices. The findings also indicate that family physical environment and economic status have relatively little impact on children's literacy development. Rather, parental educational background, and the social environments including parent-child interactions, shared family activities, and the degree of parental involvement and support for children's learning play an important role in the families' literacy practices. This research also demonstrates that the four families' literacy and living were influenced by the choices made by the families around access to and utilization of media. The disparity between immigrant children's home and school literacy practices often hinders their literacy development and cultural integration into Canadian society. Implications of this study highlight the importance of communication between home and school. There is a need for teachers to take a proactive position to connect classroom practices with children's literacy experiences outside school. The study suggests immigrant parents need to provide a variety of learning opportunities for their children and be involved in all aspects of their children's learning. Furthermore, they need to empower themselves by learning English language and become informed of the literacy practices in schools in the host society. The implications also suggest that it is necessary to connect policy with practice and make first language and literacy education a part of school curriculum.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-10212004-002000 |
| Date | 01 January 2000 |
| Creators | Li, Guofang |
| Contributors | Robinson, Sam |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-10212004-002000 |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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