Critical literacy and critically reflective writing : navigating gender and sexual diversity

Purpose: In this article, the author draws on Janks’ territory beyond reason as well as literature on (critically) reflective writing. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a space for personal, affective writing in the classroom might enable teachers, students and learners to 1) come to terms with gender as a social practice, 2) locate themselves in the relations of power, marginalisation and subversion being explored and 3) negotiate the internal contradictions that come with personal and social transformation. The author presents and unpacks how second-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) students at a prominent university in Johannesburg, South Africa, unpacked issues of gender and sexual diversity in a critical literacy course. This paper focuses on students’ completion of a reflective writing task but is situated in a broader study on critical literacy and gender and sexual diversity. The findings suggest the need for sustained critically reflective writing in the classroom and continued research on critical literacy as both a rationalist and affective project. Furthermore, the findings suggest ways in which critically reflective writing was used to create a space where students could place themselves into the content and relations of power being studied and identify and unpack the ways in which discourses of power have informed their own identities over time, with the intent to develop the capacity to position themselves in more socially conscious ways. This study, therefore, illustrates only a fraction of how students might use reflective writing to come to terms with controversial topics, place themselves in the systems of power, explore marginalisation or subversion and negotiate the internal contradictions of transformation. However, the data also suggest that there is potential for this practice to have a greater role in classroom practice, a deeper effect on learners’ understanding of self and society and further research on the impact of critical reflection in the classroom. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, the author presents and unpacks how second-year undergraduate B.Ed. students at a prominent university in Johannesburg, South Africa, unpacked issues of gender and sexual diversity through reflective writing in a critical literacy course. Findings: The findings suggest the need for sustained critically reflective writing in the classroom and continued research in critical literacy as both a rationalist and affective project. The students who participated in this research revealed the ways in which critically reflective writing might be used to create a space where students place themselves into the content and relations of power being studied, identify and unpack the ways in which discourses of power have informed their own identities over time, and, perhaps, develop the capacity to position themselves in more socially conscious ways. Research limitations/implications: While the findings reveal the need for continued practice and research in the territories beyond a rationalist critical literacy, they are based on a small data set in a single context. Practical implications: Findings from the analysis of the data suggest that there is potential for critically reflective writing to have a greater role in classroom practice, a deeper effect on learners’ understanding of self and society and further research on the impact of critically reflective writing in the classroom. Perhaps a sustained practice of critically reflective writing is what is needed, as well as processes of self and peer evaluations that put that writing up for critical analysis. Social implications: There is scope for further, long-term research in the role of critically reflective writing, critical literacy classrooms and the territory beyond reason across social issues and educational contexts. Existing resources on critically reflective writing are vital for imagining what this prolonged practice might look like in classrooms (Ryan and Ryan, 2013; Lui, 2015; Pennell, 2019). Originality/value: The data presented here are limited and illustrate only a fraction of how students might use reflective writing to come to terms with controversial topics, place themselves in the systems of power/marginalisation/subordination/subversion being explored and negotiate the internal contradictions of transformation. However, these data also suggest that there is potential for this practice to have a greater role in classroom practice, a deeper effect on learners’ understanding of self and society and further research on the impact of critical reflexivity in the classroom

RePresent Strathclyde : Decolonising the Humanities & Social Science Curriculum

In Summer 2022, Dr Lizann Bonnar and the HaSS Faculty GEDI committee were awarded funding from the Resilient Learning Communities Fund for 2 undergraduate interns on decolonising the curriculum within HaSS. The interns are: Daniyaal Ali (School of Social Work & Social Policy) and Sara St George (School of Humanities), supervised by Dr Navan Govender (lecturer in applied language and literacy studies, School of Education). The interns developed two main objectives: 1) to produce a report or resource that would serve as a productive starting point for HaSS staff and students as they work toward decolonising their own practices and curriculums, and 2) to begin developing a student body survey that would enable the faculty to gain insight into HaSS students’ perspectives on decolonising the curriculum. Attached is the resource that the interns produced. We hope this will provide a springboard for staff and student learning and action across the faculty

Negotiating the gendered representations of sexualities through critical literacy

The conflations of sex and gender, and then gender and sexual identity in representation becomes problematic in a context where homophobic discourses and violence still persist, despite South Africa’s progressive constitution. Therefore, this study focuses on the implications of the conflations between sex, gender and sexuality for education. Using literature on theories of power, sex, gender and sexuality, as well as critical literacy, I have designed a critically aware educational workbook that confronts issues of sex, gender and sexuality. Because no text is neutral, this workbook and the process of its production are critically reflected upon and scrutinised in order to understand how critically aware educational materials can be produced. The workbook is then implemented in a critical literacy course for pre-service student teachers at a university in Johannesburg. In these lectures, the workbook is used to deconstruct patriarchal and heteronormative order in the attempt to understand how effective the workbook is, and the responses that participating students give in relation to texts and activities in class. These responses are recorded through field notes and notebooks, wherein students complete in-class activities, and have revealed the complexities involved in reimagining sex, gender and sexuality as socially loaded concepts and its impact on language use in the classroom. Finally, because critical literacy advocates (re)design practice, students are given a task to design their own educational materials. These are then critically analysed in order to consider how students’ design trends and ‘evaluations’ of the course show their changing understandings of sex, gender, sexuality and the conflations between them, or how they remain the same. Throughout this thesis, I argue the need for critical literacy in education, across learning areas and grades. Specifically, I argue for a critical literacy that is unafraid to deal with controversial issues and difficult conversations, as well as a practice that uses subversive texts and diversity as resources for teaching and learning

Teacher identity : crossing the technical-rationalist and affective divide

The authors argue for a professional education of teachers which adopts a strong social justice agenda, and that takes seriously both the technical-rationalist and affective components of teacher identity. While a rational approach to teacher education privileges student teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge development, an affective approach prioritises the necessary influence of (student) teachers’ identities and emotional capacities on practice. However, one without the other limits the possibilities for doing critical and social justice education. Instead, the authors argue for a holistic approach in which student teachers consider how the messiness of working across disciplinary content knowledge, communities of practice, critical engagement, and diverse identities in socio-cultural context might actually provide a strong foundation for developing critical, responsive educational experiences

Queer critical literacies and initial teacher education : transnational moments

Gender and sexuality diversity are still considered controversial topics in many places. Education, particularly, has been a site of heated debate about the 'appropriateness' of curricula and classroom discussions that include critical reflections on gender and sexuality. Schools and higher education institutions in many countries are characterized by heterosexist pedagogical approaches that erase, devalue or actively oppress the experiences and lived realities of queer people (see for instance LGBT Youth Scotland 2018 and OUT LGBT Well-being 2016). A queer critical literacies (QCL) approach (Govender & Andrews 2021) challenges heterosexism by promoting critical analysis and reflection on discourses and representations of gender and sexuality. QCL brings diverse representations into classrooms where these were predominantly (actively or unconsciously) excluded before, enables readings of texts that recognise and validate (a)gender and (a)sexual diversity, and critically confronts the heterosexism inherent in dominant discourses in societies that informs the production and reception of texts. QCL, like critical literacies more broadly, has a social justice agenda that seeks to transform societies through pedagogical approaches that build consciousness of systems of domination, access, diversity and design (Janks 2010)

AS IS; Access and Inclusion in KE Events

This brief report reflects on inclusion and accessibility in relation to a recent in-person Knowledge Exchange (KE) event, the AS IS play, held in the city centre of Glasgow (Scottish Youth Theatre) on Saturday 2nd July. This report is not intended as a definitive how-to guide for inclusion and accessibility in relation to KE events, but instead offers reflections as part of ongoing work to challenge and question who KE events include and how we approach accessibility for those who present/perform, attend, or do not currently engage. This report was written collectively and includes interruptions, reflections, images and questions for our imagined readers. We found the interruptive approach useful to be in conversation with each other over time and space. This is particularly salient in the context of hybrid working and offering options for collaborative working in spaces and times that suit each member of a group (Humphrey and Coleman-Fountain, 2023). We invite you to engage with this work and with these interruptions in your own way and at your own pace. If you are reading this to plan your own event you might want to start with the questions/prompts and the read the report thinking about your own event and keeping those questions in mind. You might wish to dip in and out of the report and we have sectioned off reflections into boxes to make this process easier. This report includes poetic interruptions which are autoethnographic reflections on this event in particular. If you are reading this report after completing your own event (or research project and thinking about research sharing) you might want to think if you could write similar poetic reflections. For more on using poetic reflections as a methodological approach to research and teaching see (Humphrey, 2023). This text also uses deliberate poetic interruption as a storytelling method

Cockayne Syndrome : A Report Of Two Siblings In A Family

Family cases of cockayneâ€s syndrome are very rare. We report tow siblings in a family affected with this syndrome and highlight the significance of cutaneous features of this syndrome