A Critical Examination of Picture Book Read-Alouds for Social Justice: Implications for Pedagogies and Practice

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Seventeen
  In Roundtable Session: Children's Literature as a Form of Resistance to Racial Oppression (Table 7)

Abstract

This paper is a critical investigation of three educators’ pedagogical practices when sharing liberatory picturebooks with young children. The work is informed by critical literacies and Zapata’s (2022) framework of teachers as critical curators of picturebooks. The authors discuss the impact and implications of the methods used during read alouds and how they contributed to the critical consciousness development and self-determination among their students. The authors employ a reflexive analysis which enabled them to deconstruct their own actions and (re)productions of exclusionary hegemonic norms. The research reveals the cruciality of working in conversation with the literature we present to children, with regard to positionality, presence, and reflexivity.

Authors

• Oona Fontanella-Nothom, California State University - Dominguez Hills
  Presenting Author

• Amanda Welch, California State University - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Juliette Marie Lahey, Community Action Partnership San Luis Obispo
  Presenting Author