Critical Literacies and Peacebuilding to Transform Post-COVID Communities

• In Event: How Critical Literacies Are Changing in a Post-Pandemic World

Abstract

This study explores how preschool and elementary teachers understand, reflect on, and transform educational post-Covid challenges through Critical Literacies to build peace. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic include increased global poverty, growth of inequality, food insecurity, unemployment, and lack of access to quality education, among others (World Bank Group, 2023). In Colombia, the impact of Covid-19 added to the country's long history of direct violence, with one of the longest armed conflicts in the world, and structural violence, represented in poverty, food insecurity, inequality, and the consequences of drug trafficking (Guevara-Rosas, 2018). After lower criminality rates and a renewed sense of hope resulting from the signature of the peace agreement with the FARC-EP guerrilla in 2016 (Rico & Barreto, 2022), Colombia has experienced an upsurge of violence after the pandemic. This is evident in regions such as the Caribbean Coast, where inequality and armed conflict have been historically prevalent (Meisel & Granger, 2019; ACAPS, 2022). Because schools are fundamental for promoting equality and peace, the 18+ month closure of schools (Becerra, 2022) had negative effects on student learning.

This study is grounded in the tenets of Critical Literacies (CL) to promote peacebuilding in school communities. CL refers to "the appropriation of semiotic resources for participating in and transforming social practices" (Trigos-Carrillo, Calle-Díaz & Guerra-Lyons, 2023), so that the communities can accomplish their goals and resist the coercive effects of dominant literacies (Rogers & Mosley, 2014). Peacebuilding is a transformative and integral process that includes at least four dimensions: (1) Peace with myself, (2) with others, (3) within my community and territory, and (4) with my natural surroundings (Oxford, 2013; Chaves et al., 2017).

The study followed a Critical Participatory Action Research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis et al., 2019). CPAR aims to make social actors aware of the challenges they face to enact social transformation. The 2-year study was conducted in a public school in the Colombian Caribbean region, with fifteen PK to 5th-grade teachers and 512 students aged 4 to 11 participating.

At the beginning of each year, teachers created social cartographies identifying the main challenges of their school community. Teachers expressed difficulties related to the four levels of peace: children needed to develop skills for adequate emotional management, families faced food insecurity and unemployment, local communities lacked job opportunities and dealt with insecurity, and children's homes had sanitary issues. Teachers incorporated children's literature to reflect upon these social realities and propose transformations. Teachers and children reflected on their community's social conditions and proposed ways to address them by (1) reading books focused on social issues through critical questions; (2) conducting activities where children could express their thoughts and experiences in multimodal ways; and (3) finding new books that addressed topics relevant to their classrooms.

This study is important because CL offers alternative approaches to understand and transform post-Covid communities. We argue that using CL to foster peaceful relationships allows both teachers and children to strengthen their agency to transform social issues such as emotional regulation, racism, and environmental justice.

Authors

• Lina Trigos-Carrillo, Universidad del Norte

• Luzkarime Calle Díaz, El Recuerdo School

• Jesus Guerra-Lyons, Universidad del Norte

• Jorge Herrera, Universidad del Norte

• Mariana Belén Pérez Cogollo, Universidad del Norte