PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Following the significant societal upheaval of our age, critical literacies have been gaining recognition in the Western world, as a pedagogical concept that promotes questioning of traditional classroom practices. However, their definition and implementation are either too vague to understand or incredibly context-specific, so much so that their relevance to wider audiences becomes enigmatic. Teachers, in particular, as the primary actors in applying critical literacies in the classroom, have been significantly underrepresented both on a national as well as on an international level. Investigating their situated understandings of the Critical, as well as their specific contexts is of great importance not only to expand the boundaries of nationalwide education, but, most importantly, to identify (and further apply) global knowledge of what means to teach critical literacies. This contribution focuses on exploring and reconstructing teachers’ perspectives of critical literacies comparatively. More specifically, the thesis highlights similarities and differences in the way teachers from Canada, Scotland and Finland think of the definition and implementation of critical literacies in their own situated, sociocultural and socio-educational contexts. The study is based on theory-generating expert interviews and a comparative case study design, and the analysis of the data follows a grounded theory framework. The main results show a considerable convergence in perspectives; while Canadian teachers explored connections of critical literacies with social justice education, Scottish teachers underlined their connection to reader identity development and Finnish teachers rather highlighted ideas of information management and multiliteracies. Nevertheless, there were noticeable connections among these perceptions which are integral in not only understanding the field, but also building towards a global, transnational lens of critical literacy practice.