Righting the Literacy Teacher Education Debt: A Matter of Justice

Abstract

The literacies of Black and other communities of Color have long been narrated pathologically in literacy teacher education. Literacy teacher educators have been complicit in upholding linguistic injustice and enacting linguistic violence in and through their practices, devaluing the practices, marginalizing the experiences, and interrogating the humanity of Black and other teachers of Color. In this article, extending Ladson-Billings's concept of the education debt, I assess the literacy teacher education debt, unveiling how white English and whiteness in general have been (over)valued and positioned as currency in literacy teacher education. After (re)examining and (re)assessing offenses and harms inflicted by literacy teacher education across historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral realms, composing the literacy teacher education debt, I take a restorative justice approach and offer an invitation to right literacy teacher education by addressing obligations and committing to healing as a matter of justice.