Full Description
How might educational leaders and teachers improve literacy achievement in schools serving communities experiencing high levels of poverty? This question is the focus of this book. Drawing on long-term case studies of four primary schools located in these communities, this book describes the difference between what is commonly practiced and those practices that have a greater chance of supporting young people's literacy learning.
In this multi-layered analysis of the effects of policy on practice, the authors: discuss global concerns with literacy policy and testing in view of the growing gaps between rich and poor; examine the effects of the intensification of inequality and entrenched poverty, and the implications for schools; illustrate how deficit discourses pertaining to communities living in poverty are contested in schools; and describe the complexities of sustaining pedagogical and curriculum change to address the problem of unequal educational outcomes in literacy.
This book grapples with some of the most debated questions regarding educational disadvantage, school change, leadership and literacy pedagogy that face educational researchers, policy-makers and practitioners internationally. As well as providing a critique of the risks of current policy rationales, it conveys some hopeful accounts of practice that provide leads for further development.
Contents
Lists of figures, maps, tables or cases
Series Editor Introduction
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
About the Authors
Introduction
Chapter 1. Poverty Now
Chapter 2. Studying Schools
Chapter 3. Educational Leadership Practices: Making and Remaking the School
Chapter 4. Uncommon Pedagogies
Chapter 5. Common Pedagogies: Missed Opportunities and Unmet Hopes
Chapter 6. Supporting Children's Literacy Learning at School and Home: Analysing the Effects of Discourse
Chapter 7. 'We Can Make a Difference': Educational Leadership Practices for Literacy Learning
Appendix A
