ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Catherine Compton-Lilly takes up whitewashed approaches to family literacy. She opens with a prescient warning about the vulnerable nature of critical perspectives. Following a brief historical review of the field, she reviews a long series of attempts made by critical scholars to explicitly and intentionally attend to cultural, linguistic, and racial differences that define the experiences of the communities served by family literacy efforts. After considering what it might take to truly challenge deficit thinking about families and literacy, Compton-Lilly explores the affordances of critical race theory alongside the need for thoughtful reflexivity on the part of researchers and the field. Finally, she considered the limits of strength-based perspectives, highlighting the need for systemic changes that extends beyond family literacy efforts.
