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From Situated Privilege to Dis/abilities: Developing Critical Literacies Across Social Issues
Author(s) -
Young Sara LewisBernstein
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.720
Subject(s) - situated , privilege (computing) , critical literacy , critical theory , sociology , critical discourse analysis , critical pedagogy , oppression , pedagogy , literacy , ideology , power structure , critical reading , curriculum , power (physics) , reading (process) , epistemology , political science , politics , ethnography , computer science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , anthropology , law
Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate how curriculum grounded in critical literacy strategies supports critical language awareness and activism across social issues and identities. The research is grounded in theories of critical literacies, discursive practices, and situated privilege. Critical practitioner research was used to collect classroom data, which were then coded and analyzed through critical discourse analysis to examine language, literacy, and examples of activism in the data set. Findings indicate that although strategies such as decoding discourses and ideologies, revealing connections between language and power, and engaging in social action are important to developing critical literacies across social issues, understanding privilege, power, and one's own role in maintaining oppression are also crucial to developing critical literacies around issues of situated privilege. Implications for teachers include consideration for the complexity of identities and social locations in critical literacy pedagogies.