The Critical Literacy (CritLit) project promotes using critical texts to engage readers in examining their lived experiences and understanding of social justice issues. This study used a qualitative participatory approach with a narrative design to research the students' engagement in a book club using critical texts. Participants were fourth- and…

As the COVID-19 pandemic invaded our lives in March of 2020, schools were forced to close their doors and urgently transition to remote learning. This action research study is about pre-service elementary teachers (PSTs) in a social justice-focused social studies methods course who used this unprecedented time as valid curricular material. While…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the ways in which K-8 teachers from a semirural, predominantly white district perceive their responsibilities to work toward anti-racism, as well as to learn more about how the teachers can be supported as they work to overcome the challenges facing teachers in these fraught times in this…

The purpose of this action research study was to develop a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of teaching social justice principles in early childhood using critical literacy. By the time children enter Preschool, they become cognizant of visual differences between them and others in their environment and begin creating or adopting biases…

Learning to question power relationships, symbols of power, and how power is used and negotiated in children's literature through critical dialogue can support young readers to move toward a social justice mindset. The authors of this article share critical strategies and analytic tools to support teachers and readers to analyze types of power,…

This paper details a critical ethnography I conducted in my own classroom--an undergraduate children's literature course for pre-service elementary educators--in which I analyze white students' emotional responses to multicultural children's literature through the lens of a cultural politics of emotion (Ahmed, 2015; Zembylas, 2008). In my paper I…

Long-standing and ongoing calls exist for making mathematics meaningful, relevant, and applicable outside the classroom. Major mathematics education organizations (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics [NCSM], Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators [AMTE], TODOS: Mathematics for…

Purpose: This paper aims to present three girls' visual annotations and digital responses that restory a scene in the picturebook I'm New Here. The authors focus on how children use multimodal tools to reflect their critical knowledge of the world by illuminating how this group of girls responded to and incorporated broader social issues.…

This instrumental case study examines how elementary teacher candidates (TCs) came to understand citizenship and civic engagement after participating in a news group project during the 2020 presidential election season. TCs formed a binary understanding of civic engagement as "passive" vs. "active," viewing themselves as active…

Many researchers have considered recent and intergenerational immigrant children's perspectives on immigration policies. Fewer have investigated nonimmigrant children's views despite children's sociopolitical identities forming long before they can vote. Drawing from data generated in spring 2017, the author illustrates how young children at an…

Millions of teachers regularly turn to Internet sharing sites such as Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers for curriculum resources and ideas. While this innovative technology poses a number of advantages for teachers who are almost never given an appropriate amount of time to engage in curriculum planning, and who can supplement their…

From newcomers and novices, to cautious censors and seasoned advocates, pre-service teachers and in-service teachers who use critical literacy approaches to advocate for justice walk an imagined precarious line between courageously engaging in difficult, critical conversations about risky texts, navigating obstacles, and getting burned by…

Inspired by critical literacy practices, sixth-grade students at Carter Elementary designed, curated, and publicly displayed a museum exhibit to expose and confront issues of social justice. Through this case study of one display within the exhibit, we analyze the ideas and stances represented in each of its artifacts and investigate how,…

Critical race pedagogues and culturally responsive educators advocate for greater emphasis on the voices of Students of Color that invoke their lived experiences, cultural knowledge, ancestral wisdom, and supportive familial relationships. However, few educators have adequately described how to bring these stories directly into K-12 classrooms.…

This multiple case study is part of a larger investigation of literacy practices in "Our Home," an after-school program that provides learning support to children from refugee backgrounds. I asked, "What happens when translingual children from refugee backgrounds respond to multicultural, transnational, and translingual…