Representing and Promoting Family Literacy on the
World Wide Web: A Critical Analysis

Jim Anderson
Jodi Streelasky
University of British Columbia
and
Terry Anderson
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine critically how family literacy is promoted and represented through the images and written texts on Web sites developed by providers of family literacy programs. Naturalistic research over the last 20 years or so demonstrates that the family is a rich site for supporting children’s literacy development across socioeconomic and cultural contexts. This research suggests that families engage children in a wide array of literacy activities in their daily experience. Furthermore, many significant others in addition to parents play important roles in children’s literacy development. In this study we examined a representative sample of family literacy Web sites from across Canada. Findings suggest that literacy tends to be narrowly defined; responsibility for children’s literacy is usually ascribed to mothers; and troubling assumptions about families as being deficient still persist.

Copyright © AJER, the Faculty of Education, and the University of Alberta, 2006.
Last revised: July 27, 2007.

Designed by G.H. Buck