Areas for Future Research

Family Participants

Some exciting opportunities exist to refine and build upon this research and allow further insight into the phenomenon of family literacy in low–income homes. As a single researcher, this project dictated the number of participants that could be included for a manageable study. In the previous section, I made it clear what I saw as some other possible limitations of my study such as the inclusion of only families with children in the Core French program attending one school and who spoke only English at home.

A larger scale study with a varied sample, including new Canadians and those with mixed language or from other cultural minority backgrounds, could be considered for providing confirmation, rejection or clarification of the current findings with a range of the groups represented under the low–income families umbrella. Similar studies in other school settings may yield interesting results and alternatives that could further refine the research questions.

A more systematic review of literacy artefacts would also be helpful. In the present study, only artefacts given specifically to the researcher were collected. Seeking these out would provide information from all families regarding where they are kept and what values the families place on them.

It was not the intent of this research to try various interventions and to assess the outcome, but rather to observe, participate and describe what was viewed. However, giving scrap paper to the children was one intervention that was offered in the course of study. The children used this to create original pictures, to draw or to write short messages. It would be interesting to undertake an action research project to reveal how these parents in low–income circumstances experience various 'problems' or issues and how they can take action for change and become advocates for their children's education.