ABSTRACT
Intergenerationalliteracy is associated often with deficit models and with the idea of "fixing" problems within families in order to create opportunity for future generations. Some analyses are as likely, if not more likely, to emphasize the lack of literate abilities that families pass on from one generation to another as to highlight the strengths that family members possess and share (Gadsden, 1994; Taylor, 1994; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). The perspectives that emerge from these analyses well might be labeled social-utilitarian or family-deficit. They deny the possibility and complexity of both intergenerationality and literacy as more than the simple production and transfer of knowledge within families and across different generations. However, as the Reverend White and the proclamation of the Black Men's Convention suggest, intergenerationalliteracy draws from beliefs about knowledge, its power, and its contributions to the future, but is not restricted by such beliefs and expectations. It houses vision and implicit meanings and purposes that are constructed and conveyed within families and communities, that are influenced by societal access and barriers, and that become a part of our own social and contextual historiography.
