ABSTRACT
The aim of City Literacies has been to highlight the wealth of literacy practices in the lives of those often considered by the educational establishment to be ‘deprived’ of literacy. Throughout the twentieth century, these practices contrasted not just with the ‘official’ ways of the school, but between groups and individuals living and learning side by side in the same class. Thus in Part I we gave a historical perspective, revealing some of the contrasts both between and within the City and Spitalfields, as well as the different educational and literacy provision for the poorer members of each community. In Part II, these contrasts were embodied in the memories of different generations of pupils living and learning in both communities. Our pre-war generation looked back on the contrasts between ‘Jewishness’ and ‘Englishness’ portrayed through different lives and literacies; our post-war generation contrasted grammar and secondary modern education and the different ways of life provided by each, and our group of young Bangladeshi British women contrasted literacy practices across English and community schools and across generations. Finally, Part III raced to the end of the twentieth century and revealed some of the contrasts in literacy practices taking place in the monolingual English and Bangladeshi Londoners’ lives as well as between both groups and the literacy of the school. Throughout the book, we have argued that access to contrasting literacies gives children strength, not weakness; that our children have a treasure trove upon which to draw as they go about understanding the literacy demands of the school.
