ABSTRACT
For the child, from the outset, the process of acquiring literacy in the formal educational context is simultaneously a process of acquiring discipline and learning to conform. Learning the alphabet, for example, means acquiring a set of symbols and a relationship between sounds and those symbols which is accepted as natural. Learning to spell means learning to write words in the same way that everybody else writes them. Learning to construct a proper sentence, paragraph and essay means learning rules and learning to follow rules which everybody else follows. Moreover, this process takes place in a formal context, the classroom, which requires a high degree of conformity from all who are in it. There is a high degree of conformity in the Caribbean classroom in the grouping and appearance of the children as a result of age grading and the wearing of school uniforms, among other things. Conformity in the Caribbean classroom is therefore both apparent and taught. This conformity is pursued in the Anglophone Caribbean, a region where each country has a different and in most cases complex language history.
