A Critical Sociocultural Approach to English Education

• In Event: 14.041 - Toward Justice in Literacy Teacher Education: Critical Literacies in Elementary and Secondary Methods Courses

Abstract

This presentation describes a critical sociocultural approach to English Education. The term “critical sociocultural theory” was coined by Lewis, Moje, and Enciso (2007, p. xi) in order to retain constructs from sociocultural theory while pushing for more direct attention to issues of power, identity, and agency that are central to literacy learning and practice. Critical sociocultural theory is crucial to our program because it provides students with a foundation for understanding that learning is mediated by signs/tools and constituted in social codes and cultural practices. Our program draws on critical sociocultural theory to consider how reading, writing, and response to literature and digital media shape and are shaped by race, culture, identity, and codes of power. Rather than isolate just one course, we will focus on two courses that comprise a cohesive learning experience influenced by critical sociocultural perspectives: Methods of Teaching Literature and New Developments in English Education. We identify three dimensions of critical literacy that offer a pragmatic view of the primary issues at hand in any English classroom: (1) how texts position readers; (2) how readers position texts; and (3) how texts and readers are positioned within social, political, cultural, and spatial contexts. We also discuss ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews through which teacher candidates explore the ways in which social action and identity construction is performative, and how these performances can reproduce, sustain, or challenge the social and political structures of power embedded in classroom communities. We end the presentation with a discussion of some of the dilemmas that emerge from a critical sociocultural focus. We open this discussion through two key stories of program graduates that illuminate not only the dilemmas of becoming an English teacher as critical sociocultural pedagogue, but also the epiphanies that result from their experiences throughout the program with critical sociocultural approaches to teaching and learning.

Authors

• Cynthia J. Lewis, University of Minnesota

• Tracey Pyscher, Metropolitan State University

• Erin Beeman Stutelberg, University of Minnesota