ABSTRACT
Borderlands Up to this point we have kept deliberately, yet artificially, to home literacies as if the home was an isolated domain, distinct from other domains such as work-places, educational settings and other public institutions. At first we imagined we would encounter a distinct home literacy which could be contrasted with work literacy or school literacy. To some extent this is true. There is a distinctiveness to many home literacy practices, but what is more striking is the range of different literacies which are carried out in the home, including work and schoolliteracies which are brought home where they mingle together. Cecil Klassen in a study of bilingual literacy practices in a Canadian city refers to the home as 'the centre from which individuals venture out into other domains' (1991: 43), and this is how we came to see the home domain. People start from the home and move out through local activities such as shopping and going to the library or the doctor's surgery, to mope or less complex engagements with other institutions through, for example, work or educational activities. They then bring back into the home resources, possibilities - and problems - from elsewhere, which are used, acted on, solved, enjoyed, talked over and worried about.
