Cultivating BLM Awareness With Elementary Preservice Teachers: Conceptualizing Readiness Through an Examination of Implicit and Explicit CRT Themes in Children’s Literature

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Abstract

This study documents PSTs who examined implicit and explicit CRT themes in Black Lives Matter (BLM) themed children’s literature in a reading methods course. An analysis of instructor mentoring, in-class literature explorations, and interviews demonstrates enhanced awareness of the need to implement BLM themed literature, against the grain of rigid curricular requirements and policies that ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) dialogue in numerous school districts. Moreover, PSTs identified these texts as a source to appropriately guide CRT, informed by student readiness, to raise awareness of the history and permanence of systemic racism and its influence on contemporary society and implementation of culturally relevant literature.

Author

• K. Dara Hill, University of Michigan - Dearborn