Reverberating Chords: Implications of Preservice Teachers’ Touchstones in Contemporary Multicultural Literature for Change in Schools

• In Event: Redesigning Curriculum and Instruction to Meet the Needs of English Language Learners in Content Areas

Abstract

It is generally agreed that pre-service teachers ought to be more exposed to contemporary multicultural literature that represents marginalized perspectives. The research, a national study conducted as seven case studies across Canada, investigated pre-service teachers’ responses to picture books. The expectation was that encounters with the literature would help disrupt teachers’ prevailing notions of multiculturalism. Re-analysis of interview and focus group data across five of the sites found a significant source of teacher knowledge lodged in touchstones: teachers’ memories of childhood texts. Further, most intertextual connections were to personal experience. More research is needed to examine the implications of “reverberating chords”: the sources of pre-service teachers’ investments, and pedagogical approaches intended to move teachers towards critical forms of nostalgia.

Authors

• Teresa Jean Strong-Wilson, McGill University

• Ingrid Johnston, University of Alberta

• Lynne Wiltse, University of Alberta

• Anne Michelle Burke, Memorial University

• Heather Ann Phipps, McGill University

• Ismel Gonzalez, Lakehead University