This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to…

Rigid foci on accountability, accreditation, and customer service pose significant challenges for literacy educators today. The most consequential identified as the snuffing out of scholastic innovation and erosion of academic freedom. This article recounts a recent experience that occurred while the author prepared a lesson for an undergraduate…

This study focuses, from a bilingual perspective, on how a Swedish national test is intended to promote critical literacy and language development in line with related aims in syllabuses for Swedish and Swedish as a second language. The material consists of reading and writing assignments and prescribed classroom preparations (including…

This qualitative case study explored four English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners' critical literacy practices by analyzing their reflective essays on a gender-related article and their perceptions of critical literacy. Four participants with varying English proficiency were purposefully selected from a critical literacy-oriented reading…

This qualitative study explored the exchange between post-secondary Critical Media Literacy instructors and their students, describing their understandings of Critical Media Literacy, as well as their pedagogical struggles, within the context of a teacher education program. The data suggested that the UCLA instructors understood Critical Media…

The need for twenty-first century learning skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and the use of technology are paramount to success in today's classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore what happened when children engaged in collaborative and critical discussions of themes related to social skills and social…

Students have access to a vast amount of information about American politics through new media outlets (e.g., the Internet). We survey the perils and promise of this new landscape through a case study of a political science class at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York (CUNY), that examined congressional races in the 2010…

In this article, we propose a framework for literacy education, called artifactual critical literacy, which unites a material cultural studies approach together with critical literacy education. Critical literacy is a field that addresses imbalances of power and, in particular, pays attention to the voices of those who are less frequently heard.…

Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, this article engages post-structural theories of language and critical feminist theories of social class to examine two fourth-grade, White, working-poor girls' narratives about their urban neighbourhood in the United States. The author argues that young girls should be perceived as social theorists…

This study examines how critical mathematical literacy teachers conceptualize their practices and how those practices were demonstrated in the classroom. Practices were considered from an ontology of mathematics education, specific to critical mathematical literacy, in which classroom interactions question what it means to do mathematics as an…

The need for twenty-first century learning skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and the use of technology are paramount to success in today's classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore what happened when children engaged in collaborative and critical discussions of themes related to social skills and social…

We conducted a content analysis of 34 statements of interest submitted by applicants applying for admission to an education leadership preparation program. The purpose of the analysis was to understand their orientations toward social justice. Using Kumashiro's (2000) and Apple's (2001) discussions of antioppressive education, we identified three…

Natural gas production in Wyoming is a lucrative and influential industry. All the perks--jobs, education spending, the budget surplus--are huge incentives for communities and the fossil fuel-friendly state legislature to play along, to stay silent. And many are willing. There has been natural gas production in the state for almost a century, but…

In an attempt to address minority issues with Israeli Arab English-as-a-foreign-language ninth-grade students, I as a teacher researcher introduced picture books on the issue and invited students to respond in different modes, one of which was artistic. In one of the lessons, students created collages to represent their identities. In this…

It is clear from several government reports and research papers published recently that the curriculum for English in primary and secondary schools is about to change yet again. After years of bureaucratic stranglehold that has left even Ofsted report writers criticising the teaching of English, it seems as if the conditions are right for further…