DisCrit Literacies: Early Childhood Teachers Critically Reading School as Text and Imagining an Otherwise

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Critical Literacies and Expressions That Promote Equity and Justice in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This participatory case study explored the critical literacy practices of early childhood teachers in a year-long inquiry group focused on justice-driven literacy pedagogies. Though critical literacy is often discussed as a way for children to read and critique their worlds, rarely do we see instances of teachers reflexively reading the early childhood classroom and schooled worlds they inhabit and create. Yet, oppressive ideologies (e.g., ableism, racism) infiltrate early literacy classrooms and schools, and teachers are often apprenticed into viewing taken-for-granted schooling mechanisms as “normal.” Bridging Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) and critical literacies scholarship, we examined early childhood teachers’ engagement in DisCrit literacies in which they critically read school as a text, uncovering intersecting systems of ableism and racism.

Authors

• Margaret R. Beneke, University of Washington

• Emily Machado, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Jordan Taitingfong, University of Washington - Seattle