Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital

''The authors of this text make you CARE about these communities and children. They provide insights about how we must focus on literacy in order to make a real difference in the lives of students. This is one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of community literacy, documenting the transformation of media habits from books to computers.'' --Linda B. Gambrell, Distinguished Professor of Education, Clemson University This is a compelling, eye-opening portrait of two communities in Philadelphia with drastically different economic resources. Over the course of their 10-year investigation, the authors of this important new work came to understand that this disparity between affluence and poverty has created a knowledge gap--far more important than mere achievement scores--with serious implications for students economic prosperity and social mobility.