The history of the family literacy movement and the inherent difficulty in defining the term literacy was highlighted at the outset. A definition of literacy adopted for this research was stated. The literature review indicated a need for theoretically framed research in family literacy of school–age children. In my thesis, I have also entered uncharted territory by extending critical theory to the field of family literacy. Critical social theory brings together disciplines such as economics, philosophy and politics to critique the bourgeois culture and philosophy. By adopting the perspective of the oppressed groups, critical theorists seek social change for sociopolitical transformation. Thus, through my study, I provide a new way of understanding an old problem. I look at the literacy experiences of low–income school–age children and their families while exploring concurrently their home and school environments or their sociocultural context. In my thesis, I have established an important theoretical link between Bourdieu'sconcepts of cultural fields of power, the existence of effects of practice in family literacy units.

The focus of the study was then refined following the pilot study. Staff and students from Parkview School were selected to participate in this study largely because of the school's commitment to literacy, the principal's overwhelming support for the proposed study and the school's desire to improve literacy performance in their students.

Once approval of the study was granted from the University Ethics Committee and the School District, permission to participate was obtained from families and school participants. The study then proceeded as planned. My case study design applied a variety of observational techniques as outlined in Chapter 3 over a period of seven months. The data collection methods included an iterative process of multiple interviews, home and school observations, review of parent reflective journal entries and responses to a questionnaire, analysis of videotaped parent–child interactions and field notes. These particular methods were chosen because of their combined ability to provide the greatest amount of data and triangulation to ensure accuracy of the results. This critically needed data focused on low–income children between the ages of six to eight years and their families interacting in their everyday life circumstances of home, school and community environments. This study also reviews the school culture as being unwittingly structured by dominant middle and upper class cultural schemes that are not familiar to low–income families.