Using Critical Literacy to Promote Preservice Teachers' Multicultural Awareness With Children's Literature

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Division K Section 5 Poster Session 1

Abstract

This paper presents an instructor’s action research on using critical literacy to promote preservice teachers’ multicultural awareness. It demonstrates methods that the instructor used to engage participants in critical literacy practices with award-winning children’s books. Results show that dialogic discussions of the literary texts on diversity broadened preservice teachers’ understandings of diversity and inspired them to use children’s literature for addressing inequities in teaching. Furthermore, preservice teachers’ presentations and the instructor’s research journal revealed that their multicultural awareness and capacity of enacting multicultural practices were greatly improved via selecting appropriate children’s literature to disrupt cultural stereotypes and include minority students. However, preservice teachers still need time and practices to apply multicultural awareness to their literature curriculum design and future teaching.

Author

• Xuezi Zhang, University of Florida