The Seductive Power and Harm of Religious Rhetoric in Literacy

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium brings together scholarship at the crossroads of religious education and literacy research. Kevin Burke recently noted that religion has always been part of the conversation on literacy and education. This observation “complicates our easy sense of schooling as a space devoid of the spirit (Burke, 2022 p. 68).” This symposium explores the cross-pollination of contemporary conversations about religious education and literacy discourse: from metaphors employed in the media campaign for “Science of Reading” to use of biblical reading strategies to justify particular positions on race, to the ways that teachers’ own religious identities and faith inform their classroom pedagogy. Together these papers encourage scholars and practitioners to acknowledge the inevitable interactions between literacy and religion in American education.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Religion and Education

Chair

• Allison Skerrett, University of Texas at Austin

Papers

• Religious Metaphors in Media on “Science of Reading” - Patricia C. Paugh, University of Massachusetts - Boston; Lara J. Handsfield, Illinois State University; Deborah Ann MacPhee, Illinois State University

• Interpreting Race and Racism: Young Woman’s Auxiliary of the Southern Baptist Convention Read Scripture - Carolyn Hunt, Illinois State University; Ziva Reimer Hassenfeld, Brandeis University

• Religious Identity and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Among Urban High School Teachers - Candace Kyles, Loyola University Chicago