ABSTRACT
In this chapter I look at literacy from the inside out, that is, I describe how literacy practices are constructed and understood from the perspective of homes and communities and how these visions can inform practices in other settings such as museums and educational contexts. I explore what we can learn from these family and community literacies that then can be carried over into more formal school settings. I take a “strength” perspective to families, recognizing that those literacies that are within homes are valuable and can be used as “funds of knowledge” (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005) for literacy learning in schools. This perspective aims to foreground those missing perspectives that are often marginalized, silenced, ignored or denied. I focus on ways of hearing local knowledge of spaces, listening to narratives within communities and how it is possible to use public spaces to provide listening opportunities. I describe two case studies of practice in which narratives from homes and communities were placed in a wider public space. The fi rst was a project involving a group of artists working with a school to place children’s representations in an art gallery. The second involved a group of British Asian families who represented their family stories and artifacts in a community exhibition.
