Basal Readers and Reading as Socialization: What Are Children Learning?

This manuscript analyzes the content of the texts that were used for reading instruction in second-grade classrooms at two urban sites–one that used Open Court and the other that used Direct Instruction. Even though the practices and the texts differ, the teaching of literacy and literacy itself became part of the social practices that seem to leave working class children disadvantaged in the institutional world of schooling and in lifetime opportunities for employment.