ABSTRACT
Public education systems such as those in the UK and Eire have been built on the belief that they will provide equality of opportunity for all. Yet these systems must also cater for differing abilities in literacy and literacy development. National education systems have tended to expect children to have reasonably similar abilities and often assume children enter education on a ‘level playing field’; that is, they come into the system with similar resources and backgrounds. It can be argued that schools have historically defined acceptable literacy practices and competencies in a way which served the interests of the more powerful dominant groups and classes (Green and Kostogriz 2002; Luke 1993). This tendency for schooling and literacy programmes to privilege certain groups takes place against increasing concerns over the ‘gender gap’ and ‘linguistic minority learners’.
