Diverse Critical Literacies: Pedagogies of Recognition and Hope [Hardcover]

This book presents, discusses and explores questions around teachers (mainstream teachers, student teachers, EAL teachers) conceptions of language and literacy practices as they seek to meet the educational needs of pupils from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The book captures the voices of a range of educators from various educational contexts and has implications for the future of literacy education in both pre- and in-service teacher education programmes. Learning from indigenous epistemologies associated with marginalisation and inequity in school settings, the book allows the stories and experiences of multilingual pupils in predominantly monolingual classrooms to be understood, and to form the basis of a proposal for hope: a clear set of principles to underpin specific curricular and critical pedagogical approaches for authentically inclusive and socially just classrooms.

This book presents, discusses and explores questions around teachers conceptions of language and literacy practices as they seek to meet the educational needs of pupils from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Yvonne Foley is Professor of Literacies and Multilingual Education at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is Chair of the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum.

Argues strongly for the need to critically reframe language and literacy curriculum and pedagogies across educational settings

Foley shows how Scottish teachers have built their literacy understandings in particular historical, social, cultural, economic and political contexts, and how these combine to produce classroom practices for EAL students. Readers get a fascinating look into diverse Scottish classrooms, where constraining practices, but also practices that promote inclusive critical literacy, are played out.