This article, part of a four-year research partnership with a multilingual faith community and its school, explores what happened when we invited young children in an aftercare program to inquire into the university from their perspectives. Through a sociocultural literacy framework and realist theories of identity and experience, we examine the…

Critical literacy requires an exploration of privilege and social justice. This includes an exploration of power and action in one's "inner" and "outer" lives. This qualitative case study illustrates the ways in which Jonah, a preservice teacher, navigates social practices and actions in his roles as a student, activist, and…

This critical content analysis examines the representation of Latinx characters in 15 picture books published in 2013 and identified by Children's Cooperative Book Center (CCBC) as having significant Latinx content. The theoretical framework undergirding this study is Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002;…

The current study explores how picture books can be used in bilingual classrooms to support more critical understandings of gender stereotypes by preschool children. The research uses a reader-response perspective that stresses the importance of the reader's role in interpreting texts as well as sociocultural theory to analyze the social dynamics…

Drawing on analysis of student work, we will discuss the ways in which literacy supported youth's civic engagement in the context of sustainable democracy projects that engaged students from an alternative high school in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago in the investigation of social issues relevant to their communities. Our presentation…

In 2002, the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) published "New Designs for Career and Technical Education at the Secondary and Postsecondary Levels," in which Copa and Wolff (2002) proposed that the mission of Career and Technical Education (CTE) is "to serve individuals and the nation through…

Purpose: This paper aims to consider how students and teachers engaged in political work in their design and enactment of critical literacy workshops in one US elementary school facing pressures of accountability and standardization. Design/methodology/approach: As a collaborative team of university researchers and classroom teachers, the authors…

This article, the first column for this issue's Policy and Advocacy department, features a discussion about a recent experience in a graduate program in Medellín, Colombia introducing students to critical literacy. Graduate students used ideas from critical literacy to engage in an in-depth analysis of textbooks they had used in their practice.…

Using critical discourse analysis, this study assesses reader comments to newspaper articles on the "Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin" Supreme Court case. The Fisher case challenges the consideration of race in the college admissions process at UT. Findings show that this racial equity practice was framed as being antithetical to…

Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for change be collaborative rather than competitive? Can we envision self-love, wellness, and intercultural…

In this article, we seek to reconceptualize content-based instruction (CBI) curricula and practices from a critical perspective. Further, we propose developing criticality as an essential component of CBI, advocating for an approach we call critical content-based instruction (CCBI). While the importance of CBI has long been recognized, previous…

Disappearing cultural, political and physical boundaries push humanity beyond a one-community perspective. Global citizenry requires a set of literacies that affect the ability to communicate effectively, think critically and act conscientiously. This challenges educators to consider reframing instructional practices and curricular content. The…

This article shares teachers' conversations within teacher inquiry groups and considers how this reflective approach has potential for transforming teachers' practices. Conversations took place at the early stages of a longer teacher inquiry project and centred on the critical interrogation of social justice-oriented children's literature. These…

Purpose: Non-dominant voices have been further marginalised in the most recent national curriculum in England (DfE, 2014), and those working across the English teaching profession often find the subject framed according to narrow, assessment-driven models and prescribed skill sets. This paper aims to bring together two perspectives on the…

The purpose of this study is to explore how Korean university students develop their readership in integrated reading classes that address both conventional and critical reading instructions. The two researchers taught university students in Busan and Seoul, alternatively, to read texts in English critically. Fifty-nine students (thirty-two from…