ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how well some current instructional practices fit with the expectations that parents and students from different cultural backgrounds have concerning literacy learning and teaching. Holistic teaching is a pedagogical phenomenon uniquely imbued with mainstream Euro-centric cultural features. Holistic approaches seek to empower individual students, to give them voice, yet individual voice is antithetic to some cultural views. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents, students, teachers, cultural liaison workers, and administrators over a period of one and half years. Interpreters who also were members of the same cultural and linguistic communities conducted the parental interviews in parents' first languages. A cultural-liaison worker informed the teachers that the parents were reticent about interacting with authority, and that they, the teachers, were viewed as authorities. The way individuals view teaching and learning, including the role of literacy, varies across cultural groups, especially views regarding holistic teaching and learning.
