Second, all of us as educators, teacher educators, and researchers have much to learn about how we can foster not only an understanding of—but the valuing of—the multiple dialects used in schools and society.

A second theme we discerned as we analyzed the studies in this category is that teachers must understand and build on students’ home language practices in their literacy instruction

linguists attribute variation in people’s language and ways of communicating to socioeconomic status, social and cultural background, gender, geographical location, and ethnicity

(a) conversants’ purposes and what they say and do in relation to the social context in which they converse, (b) culturally-determined ways of perceiving interactions among people in different settings across different time frames, and (c) the ways conversants conceive of themselves and of the other participants within a conversation.

Rather, interactions with others shape the very nature of the unique knowledge and ideas about the world that learners can construct. Since these interactions occur through language, language plays a central role in shaping the literacy learning opportunities that are constructed in social interactions.

All the Discourses acquired later in life, beyond the primary Discourse, are acquired within a more “public sphere” than the initial socializing group. These can be called “secondary Discourses” (Gee, 1990). They are acquired within institutions that are part and parcel of wider communities, whether these are religious groups, community organizations, schools, businesses, or governments. Secondary Discourses include the ways with words, things, and deeds used in school, at church, in dealing with governmental institutions and courts of law, and in playing video games or engaging with citizen science.

Primary Discourses can change, hybridize with other Discourses, and they can even die.

To understand what is being said in any deep way people need to know what speakers or writers are trying to do. This requires people to know about social practices and genres of activity in the world. To understand what is being said (and done) also requires that people understand who the speaker or writer is trying to be, what socially significant identity or social role he or she is trying to “pull off.” This requires people to know about the social identities, roles, and groups that make up a society (or a classroom for that matter).

When people speak or write they simultaneously say something (“inform”), do something (act), and are something (be). When people listen or read they have to know what the speaker or writer is saying, doing, and being in order to fully understand (Gee, 1999).

imposition of mother-tongue primary education on the indigenous population in South Africa by the white minority government during the apartheid regime was seen as an act of repression, since it contributed to the exceptional difficulty black pupils faced in proceeding to secondary and higher education, which was in English and Afrikaans only

Although it is clear that pupils need to have access to the standard form if they are not to be at a disadvantage in the formal settings of adult life, such as job interviews and appearances in a court of law, it is nevertheless the case that those who arrive at school speaking a variety of English that is markedly different from the standard may experience considerable difficulty both in becoming bidialectal and in acquiring literacy

inescapable relationships between language and power, the formulation of school language policies cannot be considered as a purely educational matter, since they reflect and, in due course, contribute to the prevailing political climate

need for pupils to develop an understanding of the concept of linguistic appropriateness in relation to situation, audience, topic, and language mode.