Bernstein challenged schools to bridge this gap for working class students by attending to their different cultural orientations; Heath’s work reads like a case study for his theory, adding the dimension of race to the puzzle of language, class, and culture. We have seen that middle class children learn that books and print offer knowledge of things outside of personal context: stories and ideas that exist independently of one’s personal life. In other words, they learn to interpret and use both public and private voices, both elaborated and restricted language. We have seen that working class
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