Critical Inquiry, Dialogic Space and Purposeful Selection of Diverse Children's Literature

• In Event: Critical Inquiry and Dialogic Space

Abstract

“We have a responsibility to create engaging learning contexts for students and to invite them into conversations that include various historical, social, cultural, racial, and linguistic perspectives” (San Pedro & Kinloch, 2017, p. 134).
We consider how purposeful selection of diverse children’s literature is in dialogue with the curriculum (what is present and [un]intentionally omitted) and how class sets of diverse children’s literature can provide a dialogizing background (Bakhtin, 1981) for critical curriculum conversations around dismantling racial injustice and constructing educational possibilities (Bishop, 1990; Kinloch, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2021). We are silenced when we don’t see ourselves in the literature we read or have read to us, and/or when our local realities are not valued.
Theoretical framing
Dialogic space is the opening of a shared space of possibilities that exists between speakers as ideas are tried out, co-constructed and realized (Cook et al., 2019; Kinloch, 2017; Shor & Freire, 1987; Wegerif, 2015). A prerequisite for dialogic space is difference – in what is already known, and what is presented; and willingness to listen and consider what is presented. As we dialogue with self, with content, and with each other, our differences can come into creative tension and open dialogic space. As more and different perspectives enter into relationship, dialogic space widens. As perspectives challenge each other (and remain in relationship), dialogic space deepens.
Purposefully selecting diverse children’s literature requires teachers to be intentional with authors, characters, contexts – drawing attention to diverse stories and perspectives, potentially widening dialogic space of possibility through amplification of voices often omitted and silenced. Teachers can invite differences into creative tension – even conflict – but especially into dialogue that promotes change and new possibilities.
Methods
We theorize intersections of critical literacy and dialogic space through purposeful selection of diverse children’s literature. We discuss two classroom contexts that illustrate how selection of diverse literature can invite teachers and students to consider our local realities as we respectfully explore, challenge, and [re]consider assumptions and new possibilities. First, a third-grade author-study in a suburban South Carolina classroom of primarily black and brown students. Second, a graduate-level teacher-education course on teaching diverse children’s literature with pre-and-in-service teachers/learners - primarily White women whose experiences would likely differ from the students they would teach and those storied in diverse children’s literature.
Findings
Findings illustrate the critical impact of seeing local realities mirrored in the literature read. They detail ways a course can 1) grow pre-and-in-service-teachers/learners awareness of ways children’s literature makes visible political and social systems that maintain inequities (i.e., racism, sexism) 2) cultivate a dialogizing background for ongoing discussions around transformational teaching and enacting change and 3) develop familiarity with, criteria to consider, and resources for purposeful selection of diverse children’s literature.
Significance
Today teachers find themselves walking a metaphorical tightrope of reading/teaching books banned from classrooms due to their subject matter (Boyd & Bailey, 2009). Selecting, reading and teaching diverse children’s literature in public schools across the U.S. requires knowledge and courage in this current time of censorship and book banning.

Authors

• Christina U. King, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Maureen P. Boyd, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Sarah D Reid, Illinois State University