Natalie, however, is one parent who recognizes the power in the school system after many years of being trapped herself in an abusive relationship dominated by her husband. Thus, she does not hesitate to fight for what she feels her children need and she is in frequent contact with the school. Delpit (1995) speaks about the special kind of listening that is needed with these families, "…listening that requires not only open eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds" (p. 46). She stresses that educators must never forget that individuals are the experts on their own lives and for educators to understand the lives of others, they must be willing to give up their sense of who they are and turn themselves around to see another perspective and understand the power.

The educators at Parkview School are all in the white middle class majority. Although they try to understand those who are different from them, their ready acceptance of hurtful stereotypes, such as being lazy and not caring, may work against efforts directed at supporting the parents in their hard work to help the children become literate. As discussed, there are challenges that accompany the families living in poverty circumstances and the uneven power balance in literacy tipped toward the teacher is evident.

Discussion

Table 11 on the following two pages offers a summary of the pedagogical influences on literacy development. Problems and barriers related to the social organization of the school and the culture of power are outlined in the table.

Families are where many cultural traditions are taught, practised and internalized. Literacy is just one such tradition and parental print exposure clearly influences literacy development of children.(Symons, Szuszkiewicz & Bonnell, 1996). The reduced support, lack of time and energy for children, plus limited material resources work against parental efforts to achieve school literacy. This study has revealed however, the occurrence of a great deal of literate behavior in the home of low-income families although much of it may be for practical purposes and not school literacy. Once this is recognized and promoted, families may be regarded more as an educational resource rather than having a deficit.