Families have the right to define themselves.

• Families have members of all ages and should not be narrowly defined as "undereducated parents and their children."

• Families are both biological and social. They span the generations from great-grandparents to great-grandchildren. They bring together people who want to spend their lives together; sometimes there are no children.

• Definitions of family need to include the men, women and children who are separated from their families because of political, social or economic reasons—family members who are refugees, those in political exile, and those who work as migrants in other countries to support their families at home.

• Such definitions also need to include children who might might be living away from their biological parents in foster care, on the streets, or in institutionalized care.

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Families share the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts of their everyday lives.

• Families' funds of knowledge and ways of knowing are complexly structured and highly dependent on the cultures to which they belong, the languages they speak, and the social, economic and political circumstances of their daily lives.

• Such a view of family life may be thought of as processual —in process—and evolutionary as well as dynamic and developmental. A processual view of family life shifts our thinking away from abstract notions such as "normative states.'

• Simplistic statements about families that do not take into consideration the complexities of everyday lives —such as "low level literacy are the result of poor parenting"—cannot be supported and should not be made.

• The voices of family members are important. "Experts" should not speak for them, own the talk, or write family literacy programs in which their voices are not heard.

Families are the primary literacy resource for their children.

• All families should be given support in their important role of initiating and maintaining their children's literacy.

• Once we take into account the cultural and linguistic complexities of family life, the ways of knowing, and the funds of knowledge that families share, we can no longer assume that living in a low-income community means that a mother or father cannot read and write.

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Racial and ethnic identity should not be used explicitly or implicitly to suggest that families live in households that lack social and intellectual resources.

• We should resist the pressure not to recognize the rich resources of some families simply because they are socially, educationally, and economically disadvantaged.

• We also question whether some families have fewer job opportunities and educational opportunities because they are denied such opportunities by the dominant society.

• When families experience racism and prejudice they often also experience hopelessness and despair. Economic hardship, poor health, and the lack of adequate housing all take their toll, and sometimes leave families unable to cope with the problems that they face in their everyday lives.

• Many families who speak multiple languages and have complex literacies still live in poverty, their lives disregarded or considered a burden by the society in which they live.

• When all families are valued by society, all of society benefits.

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