Growth Through Crisis: Preservice Teachers Learning To Enact Culturally Relevant Literacy Teaching

ABSTRACT A critical mass of literacy scholars have re-defined what it means to prepare reading teachers toward approaches that foreground culture, critical inquiry, and multilingualism. An upsurge in research on critical approaches to prepare caring and conscious reading teachers has resulted, though fewer studies have examined the ways novice teachers worked through moments of crisis that often accompany anti-racist learning experiences. This study reports findings from a qualitative investigation of seven prospective teachers’ coursework during their participation in an elementary reading methods course framed around culturally relevant literacy teaching for teacher learning. Findings begin to document specific activities PSTs engaged in to productively struggle through crisis and suggest that preservice teachers can and should wrestle with the complexities of effective literacy teaching for African American and Hispanic readers in ways that lay the foundation for culturally relevant teaching. Implications for literacy teacher education and research are included.