Broadening the Circumference: A Socio-Historical Analysis of Family Enactments of Literacy and Numeracy within the Official Script of Middle Class Early Childhood Discourse

Abstract

Informed by s socio-historical theory, this paper will report on a study that sought to document the literacy and numeracy outcomes for children living in low socio-economic circumstances in a region south-east of Melbourne, Australia.  The research focused on children in preschool and child care centres in the year prior to beginning school, and was designed to map literacy and numeracy experiences of children in the home and in the early childhood centre. In this paper an analysis of the cultural tools that families were intentionally developing in the context of their homes and communities is featured.  A socio-historical analysis of the data revealed children’s active engagement in the funds of knowledge (Moll and Greenberg 1990, Moll, 1990, and Moll, 2000) available within the community, the situated nature of learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991) within their communities, and the challenge for families transcending the constraints of ‘everyday learning’ to engage with ‘schooled learning’ (Hedegaard, 1998).  The study also revealed the institutional barriers to learning the landscape of schooling  (Greeno, 1991) and the deficit positioning evident for children and their families within the official script of middle class early childhood discourse (Fleer, 2003).