This volume examines revolutionary constructs in literacy education and demonstrates how they have been gentrified, whitewashed, and appropriated, losing their revolutionary edge so as to become palatable for the mainstream. Written by top scholars in literacy education, chapters cover key concepts that were originally conceived as radical theories to upset the status quo—including Third Space, Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant Pedagogies, and more. Each chapter addresses how the core theory was culturally appropriated and de-fanged to support rather than take down racial and societal hierarchies. Critiquing the harmful impact of watering down these theories, the contributors offer ways to restore the edge to these once groundbreaking ideas, reject racist and assimilationist trends, and support the original vision behind these liberatory theories. In so doing, this volume adopts a truly radical, critical stance that is essential for researchers, scholars, and students in literacy education.

This groundbreaking text provides practical, contextualized methods for teaching and discussing topics that are considered "taboo" in the classroom in ways that support students’ lived experiences. In times when teachers are scapegoated for adopting culturally sustaining teaching practices and are pressured to "whitewash" the curriculum, it becomes more challenging to create an environment where students and teachers can have conversations about complex, uncomfortable topics in the classroom. With contributions from scholars and K-12 teachers who have used young adult literature to engage with their students, chapters confront this issue and focus on themes such as multilingualism, culturally responsive teaching, dis/ability, racism, linguicism, and gender identity. Using approaches grounded in socioemotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and historical and racial literacy, this text explores the ways in which books with complicated themes can interact positively with students’ own lives and perspectives. Ideal for courses on ELA and literature instruction, this book provides a fresh set of perspectives and methods for approaching and engaging with difficult topics. As young adult literature that addresses difficult subjects is more liable to be considered "controversial" to teach, teachers will benefit from the additional guidance this volume provides, so that they can effectively reach the very students these themes address.

There is growing pressure on teachers and other educators to understand and adopt culturally relevant pedagogies as well as strategies to work with diverse groups of races, cultures, and languages that are represented in classrooms. Establishing sound cross-cultural pedagogy is also critical given that racial, cultural, and linguistic integration has the potential to increase academic success for all learners. The Handbook of Research on Race, Culture, and Student Achievement highlights cross-cultural perspectives, challenges, and opportunities of providing equitable educational opportunities for marginalized students and improving student achievement. Additionally, it examines how race and culture impact student achievement in an effort to promote cultural competence, equity, inclusion, and social justice in education. Covering topics such as identity, student achievement, and global education, this major reference work is ideal for researchers, scholars, academicians, librarians, policymakers, practitioners, educators, and students.

Literacy education can take place in many locations and periods across the lifespan. Literacy educators require flexibility and a deep toolbox to meet their students’ diverse needs, regardless of whether they work in traditional school and college settings or in other environments with varied populations. Teaching Literacy in Diverse Contexts shows how practical experiences can be used in creative ways to support educator development for teaching literacy in a global context. Mentorship between a developing literacy educator and an experienced teacher educator is central to the book, and to the practical experiences in training or professional development that it focuses on. Chapters share the creative solutions discovered during mentorship that supported developing literacy educators to teach with authenticity in a number of contexts, including the adult learning sector, a rural community in Africa and alongside parents of very sick children. The authors demonstrate how this can be done in a sensitive and culturally relevant manner by parents, volunteers and teachers with varying degrees of experience in both formal and informal spaces. Together, the chapters build a crucial resource for preparing a broad range of literacy educators to teach literacy in many contexts where policy on how best to teach reading and writing to diverse student bodies ebbs and flows.

Most practitioners and scholars agree that critical and reflective early childhood and elementary teachers are foundational for children’s holistic growth and development. Yet current policies focused on elevating testing and performativity are contributing to student and teacher anxiety and alienation. This book offers a counternarrative to neoliberal standardized preservice teacher development and assessment processes. The author examines how a cohort of teacher educators worked alongside their preservice teachers—both groups predominately White and female—to redesign their teacher education program. Sherfinski reveals how the narrative portfolio, an inquiry-based alternative to accreditation and standards-based assessments, was designed to locally document, resist, and disrupt the status quo. The narrative portfolio speaks back to standardized preservice teacher assessments by providing spaces for teacher candidates to demonstrate their knowledge of theory and practice as enacted in the natural settings of school and community. Rooted in Belonging shows why humanizing, democratic, place-based practices should be at the forefront of teacher education. Book Features: Provides a rare portrait of equity-based teacher education at the confluence of place-based approaches, student diversity, and teacher education. Grapples with tough issues such as how the shared Whiteness of preservice teachers and children and their families play out alongside their differences.Explores how educators negotiate deep ideological differences while still preparing teachers for critical work.Examines how the current political climate around Black Lives Matters, the 2020 presidential election, and the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to the challenges of working in communities. Discusses how race, space, time, and settler colonialism shape the work of preservice teachers and their teacher educators.Shares action research and teacher leadership assignments, critical thinking and planning exercises, personal reflections, and preservice teachers’ narrative portfolio artifacts.

Differences in performance between students of poverty and more advantaged students are reflective of an opportunity gap, as opposed to a gap in student ability. This book argues that significant attention must be given to eliminating the barriers that produce educational inequities in student achievement. Walker-Dalhouse and Risko focus on disparities in literacy achievement that might be attributed to color-blind practices, deficit mindsets, low expectations, or context-neutral practices. Situating literacy learning within a comprehensive view of literacy development, they provide a set of instructional practices that will best support students living in poverty. Specifically, vignettes from kindergarten through middle school classrooms are used to demonstrate practices that address critical areas of the reading process; are responsive to students’ racial, ethnic, cultural, gender, and linguistic histories and assets; attend to students’ strengths and needs; and go beyond the impact of short-term testing to support optimal and sustainable learning. Educators and school leaders can use this resource to transform schools into nurturing and vibrant communities that are committed to change, equity, and diversity. Book Features: Provides recommendations and detailed guidance for enacting literacy instruction that will close opportunity gaps for students living in poverty.Includes vignettes from leading literacy educators and researchers that demonstrate high-quality literacy instruction implemented in K–8 classrooms.Presents instruction that is responsive to differences and honors the languages, literacies, and cultural resources that students bring to their learning.Offers specific recommendations and practices that can guide advocacy for change. “The authors correct the deficit misperceptions by showing how students experiencing poverty are the targets, not the causes, of educational disparities. . . . What a different world schools would be if we each embraced these lessons.” —From the Afterword by Paul C. Gorski, founder, Equity Literacy Institute

This original book offers a meaningful window into the lived experiences of children from immigrant families, providing a holistic, profound portrait of their literacy practices as situated within social, cultural, and political frames. Drawing on reports from five years of an ongoing longitudinal research project involving students from immigrant families across their elementary school years, each chapter explores a unique set of questions about the students’ experiences and offers a rich data set of observations, interviews, and student-created artifacts. Authors apply different sociocultural, sociomaterial, and sociopolitical frameworks to better understand the dimensions of the children’s experiences. The multitude of approaches applied demonstrates how viewing the same data through distinct lenses is a powerful way to uncover the differences and comparative uses of these theories. Through such varied lenses, it becomes apparent how the complexities of lived experiences inform and improve our understanding of teaching and learning, and how our understanding of multifaceted literacy practices affects students’ social worlds and identities. Children in Immigrant Families Becoming Literate is a much-needed resource for scholars, professors, researchers, and graduate students in language and literacy education, English education, and teacher education.

Critical Perspectives on Teaching in the Southern United States presents new and provocative insights into education in the Southern United States, from the perspective of educators with a variety of experiences. This book foregrounds the Southern United States as having unique sociopolitical, sociohistorical, and sociocultural contexts which directly influence knowledge and classroom pedagogies. Contributors use a range of critical frameworks that coalesce around methods including: self-reflection through research, social justice advocacy, and culturally responsive, culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and asset-based pedagogies. Through the lenses of these critical frameworks, several contributors also address challenges and strategies for teaching controversial topics in the classroom. Drawing upon unique experiences teaching in various regions of the Southern United States, chapters explore salient topics such as race, language, gender, discrimination, identity, immigration, poverty, social justice, and their influence(s) on pedagogy. This book raises questions considering the ways that history has shaped present-day Southern education and about the myriad complex dynamics that influence pedagogy in the Southern U.S. context. Ultimately, this book affirms the importance of utilizing critical perspectives in contemporary discussions about education in the Southern United States.

This book responds to the urgent need for instructional practices that recognize student diversity and cultural backgrounds as valuable assets. As the United States continues to grapple with policies that promote culturally dominant ideologies, the opportunity gaps continue to widen for minoritized, marginalized, and otherized PK–12 students. This timely book provides a comprehensive developmental framework for implementing Culturally Responsive Instructional Supervision that fosters an educational environment that disrupts the culture of white supremacy, promotes a sense of belonging, and achieves culturally appropriate instructional outcomes for all learners. The authors show educators how to establish diverse and representative supervision teams that provide formative feedback and promote self-reflection. Schools can use this book to effectively observe, assess, and support teachers on their journey toward becoming culturally responsive practitioners. Book Features: Encourages instructional leaders to embrace their role as equity leaders and actively work to dismantle harmful educational practices. Offers strategies focused on the strengths and assets children bring to school every day, instead of the deficit-oriented perspectives reinforced by the accountability movement. Centers sociocultural identities as the key factor to providing feedback to teachers about culturally responsive practices, while maintaining rigorous expectations for student learning and academic outcomes. Includes the foundations, practical approaches, and examples of praxis for the implementation of Culturally Responsive Instructional Supervision.

A collection of essays and reviews, both favourable and negative, about the Igbo poet. The book begins with a memorial essay by Chinua Achebe. Other contributors examine the imagery that Okigbo drew from nature, history and politics, exploring the surrealistic qualities of his work.