Introduction to the Session

• In Event: Troubling Our Assumptions About Family Literacy: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?

Abstract

Objectives: “To know is not enough.” Not only must scholars know about their respective fields, but it is essential to reflect on where knowledge comes from and the underlying epistemological assumptions (Crotty, 1998; Scheurich & Young, 1997). This symposium of family literacy scholars focuses on the roots of knowledge about literacy and families. We argue that when family literacy scholars recognize the basis of their beliefs, they can grapple with their assumptions and refine their practices.
Theoretical Framework: Epistemologies are “concerned with knowledge and how people come to have knowledge” (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2005, p. 13). As Crotty (1998) argues, epistemological positions involve more than modernist and postmodernist perspectives. A vast range of epistemological positionalities can be conceptualized as occurring on a continuum (e.g., constructionism, interpretivism, critical inquiry, feminism) with pure, and perhaps mythical modernist and postmodernist epistemologies residing at opposite ends (Crotty, 1998). This range of epistemological positions is evident in family literacy scholarship and involves how families are viewed, what counts as literacy achievement, what literacy practices are privileged (e.g., storybook reading, completing workbooks, reading on grade level), and what research methodologies are recognized. In this symposium, we consider family literacy with an eye to epistemologies related to research, practice and the diversity of families. In particular, these three papers explore epistemological assumptions related to storybook reading, major texts in the field, and the ways diversity is conceptualized and treated.
Family literacy programs and family literacy research serve people who are diverse relative to culture, social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and language raising important epistemological questions. Specifically, Scheurich and Young (1997) explore the construct of “epistemological racism,” arguing that dominant White epistemologies and accompanying methodologies are generally comfortable to White researchers and scholars, including critical scholars who overtly critique racism. They argue that dominant methodologies often stifle the development of epistemologies of color and that “advocates for the critical tradition, therefore, need to support the emergence and acceptance of other epistemologies that are derived from different racial or cultural social histories” (p. 10). These claims begin to address what Ladson-Billings (2003) calls “racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies” (p. 398) that are often unrecognized and unacknowledged. Scheurich and Young (1997) argue that scholars, including White scholars, must engage in debate and dialogue while recognizing and respecting the work and perspectives of Scholars of Color.
The importance of examining epistemology as inseparable from examining diversity is made clear by Ladson-Billings (2003) who notes that “how one views the world is influenced by what knowledge one possesses, and what knowledge one is capable of possessing is influenced deeply by one’s worldview” (p. 399). Therefore, to examine epistemological understandings in family literacy scholarship, we present three papers. The first paper focuses on practices related to home storybook sharing. The second paper considers major works in the field. A third paper applies critical discourse analysis to research that focuses specifically on diversity in family literacy.

Author

• Catherine F. Compton-Lilly, University of Wisconsin - Madison