Challenging Misrecognition: A Case for Critical Literacy

Abstract

This research set out to examine if a critical literacy pedagogy can help student teachers better understand how inequity is reproduced in the field of education. These issues were explored using Bourdieu’s (1977) distinctive concepts that frame literacy as an ideological act, an act of misrecognition that results in ‘symbolic violence’. The study took place in a small, specialist teacher education college in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The methodological design was based on action research supported by semi-structured interviews pre- and post- intervention. For the action research, a semester-long, pre-existing undergraduate literacy course was restructured to embed critical literacy. A group of eight self-selecting third year student teachers participated in the research project. Findings reveal that the students held beliefs that tended to conflate poverty with prejudicial stereotyping and attribution of fault to others who are located differently in the social world. Underpinning this was unquestioning acceptance of the education system. Acquiring a sociological, specifically a critical literacy perspective I conclude can help nurture student teachers’ ideas and understanding about teaching for social justice.