This book charts new direction in Latin American studies of literacy and numeracy and explores the relationship between these and international perspectives.

Judy Kalman is Professor, Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico City.

Brian Street is Emeritus Professor of Language in Education at King's College, London University.

FOREWORD Luis Moll PREFACE 1. Introduction: Literacy and numeracy in Latin America: Local perspectives and beyond Judy Kalman and Brian Street PART I: Latin American Literacies: Theoretical and methodological approaches 2. The local and the global in literacy practices in "traditional communities" Marildes Marinho 3. Access to written culture as part of the social reproduction strategies of rural families in cordoba (Argentina) Elisa Cragnolino 4. A multimodal approach to the understanding of students' collaborative writing of digital texts Enna Carvajal PART II: Literacy and numeracy as social practice: Latin American perspectives 5. GPS technology, map reading, and everyday location practices in a fishing community Judy Kalman 6. When illiterate isn't illiterate. Reading reality in a multimodal way María del Carmen Lorenzatti 7. Indexical signs within local and global contexts: Case studies of changes in literacy practices across generations of working class families in Brazil María Lucia Castañheira 8. Survival of original knowledge Irma Fuenlabrada and María Fernanda Delprato PART III: Literacy and numeracy in Education: Experiences in Latin America 9. When literacy brings too many risks: a successful lesson in failure Shirley Brice Heath and Daniel Sobol 10. The Brazilian landless movement and a mathematics education research program Gelsa Knijnik 11. Reading, writing and experience: literacy practices of young rural students Gloria Hernández 12. Technology and literacy: Towards a situated comprehension of a mexican teacher's action Irán Guerrerro 13. Preambles, questions and commentaries: Teaching genres and the oral mediation of literacy Elsie Rockwell 14. Learning English in Mexico: Transnational language ideologies and practices M. Sidury Christansen and Marcia Farr AFTERWORD: The threat of a good example: how ethnographic case studies challenge dominant discourses David Barton