Chapter 2: When Effective Instruction Is Not Enough: A Critical Look at the Emergent Understandings of Liberatory Pedagogy by Teachers in a Master’s Program

Traditionally conceived, literacy education has a history of neutrality that has only been reinforced in the current era of standardization and state-driven accountability. While promoting technically sound “good teaching” many teacher preparation programs fall short of equipping literacy educators to become literacy leaders who work against social inequities reproduced in hegemonic schooling practices. Given the well-documented failure of schools to meet the needs of all students, this study examines the emergent understandings of liberatory teaching of a cohort of in-service teachers attending a graduate literacy program that was in transition toward the embodiment of more overtly critical practices in literacy leadership. The program aimed to nurture critical literacy pedagogues who saw teaching for social justice as an imperative.