RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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A Sneak Peak from our Winter 2016 Issue Our next issue of Reading Matters will focus on the issues of social justice education and issues of equity in classrooms. This article by Jill Shumaker and Sandra Quiñones was selected as both a preview and an inspiration for themed articles to be included in our next issue. We challenge you, our readers, to explore the ways that you can research and practice equity education in our schools, and how we can empower students from pre-K to university to challenge the status quo in order to create a more just society. We look forward to what you will have to share!

Reading Matters Looking Ahead

Moving Beyond a Pedestrian Approach: Rethinking HowWe Use Social Justice-Themed Children’s Literature in Our Classrooms

Jill Shumaker, Duquesne University Sandra Quiñones, Duquesne University

(Jill) and a teacher educator in literacy education (Sandra).

Abstract — In this article, we share our experiences and perspectives about the use of social justice-themed children’s literature in both early childhood and university classrooms. Specifically, we describe a pedagogical challenge regarding the meaningful use of picture books about poverty and homelessness with young learners. This challenge unearthed issues for both of us to contend with—namely, the need to go beyond a pedestrian approach to read-alouds. A pedestrian approach denotes a lack of depth and engagement with the text and the complex issues that it raises. Thus, there is a need to create authentic learning experiences grounded in children’s literature and social action; particularly in regards to the Common Core State Standards. In the implications section, we provide recommendations to early childhood practitioners and teacher educators. In doing so, we contribute to the growing scholarship about how to critically use children’s literature as a vehicle to address social justice issues.

For the purposes of this paper, we describe a pedagogical challenge posed to us during the 2014 Barbara A. Sizemore Urban Education Conference at Duquesne University. This pedagogical challenge pointed to an area of development for both of us to contend with—namely, the need to go beyond what we call a pedestrian approach to social justice-themed realistic fiction picture books. A pedestrian approach is one that merely raises awareness about biases and inequities, but does little to interrogate and respond to biases and inequities. In other words, a pedestrian approach denotes a lack of depth and engagement with the text and the complex issues that the text raises. We ground our conceptual thinking in Nieto’s (2013) definition of social justice in education. Nieto defines social justice as having four components, two of which inform our thinking. Teaching within a social justice framework “challenges, confronts, and disrupts misconceptions, untruths, and stereotypes that lead to or exacerbate structural inequality and discrimination” (p. 21). Moreover, “social justice in education is about creating a learning environment that promotes critical thinking and supports agency for social change, in effect providing students with an apprenticeship in their role in a democratic society” (p. 21). This lens complements the use of realistic fiction picture books about poverty and homelessness as tools for critical thinking that spurs action at the individual, community and systemic levels. In this article, we emphasize the need to go beyond a pedestrian approach to social justice-themed children’s picture books in our classrooms. In so doing, our work contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we pursue this challenge from the perspective of a classroom teacher and a literacy teacher educator. Second, we provide the reader with a discussion of the relevant literature and

The purpose of education in an unjust society is to bring about equality and justice. Students must play an active part in the learning process. Teachers and students are both simultaneously learners and producers of knowledge.

—Paulo Freire, as cited in Mary Cowhey’s 1st Grade Classroom (2006)

Part of our role as educators is to expose students—both early childhood and university students—to a variety of classroom materials that reflect our increasingly diverse and global society (Nieto, 2013; Silvers & Shorey, 2012; Souto-Manning, 2013). In this collaborative narrative, we share our experiences and perspectives about the use of social-justice themed children’s literature, specifically realistic fiction picture books centered on issues of poverty and homelessness. We approach this topic from the perspective of an early childhood classroom teacher

Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | scira.org | 81 |

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