Social Justice–Oriented Content Experts: Examining English Language Arts Teachers' Critical Content Knowledges

• In Event: Engaging With Teachers in Justice-Oriented and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies

Abstract

Much scholarship examines how teachers deliver their traditional content in expert ways--but less is known about how content experts deliver content from a social justice perspective intent on dismantling oppression. This study investigates: what successes and challenges do English Language Arts (ELA) content experts face as they share their critical content knowledge with students? Findings show that ELA teachers, recognizing the secondary literature canon as overwhelmingly White and male, successfully use their critical content knowledge to incorporate non-required texts that center marginalized races and genders. Additionally, teachers reconcile the inaccessibility of their ELA curriculum by incorporating supplementary texts intended to help students engage more authentically with the material. Yet, certain obstructions stymied their ability to share critical content knowledge with students.

Authors

• Jeanne Dyches, Iowa State University

• Ashley Summer Boyd, Washington State University