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Abstract:
In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to navigate digital landscapes has become essential for flourishing as an individual and for maintaining family bonds and cultural identities. Immigrant families, particularly those with young children, face a unique set of challenges and inequities that can significantly influence their access to economic opportunity, involvement in their children’s education, and civic engagement. Through this article, we summarize available data on digital inequity, explore current digital literacy practices among immigrant families, and propose implications for family literacy programs. The aim is to bridge what is known about the barriers that immigrant families face with an asset-based approach that builds on their diverse, everyday digital literacy practices. We recognize how immigrant families’ digital literacy practices can shape family literacy programming, including several practices such as sustaining transnational connections, sharing and maintaining cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge, engaging in intergenerational learning experiences, and applying a cultural lens to navigate a complex technological landscape. Accordingly, we suggest that family literacy educators build on immigrant families’ existing digital skills, usage, and access; create opportunities to actively and critically engage with technology; and design for digital equity.