Deploying Black Joy

2021 ◽  
pp. 360-377
Author(s):  
Lisa Brown Buchanan ◽  
Cara Faulkner Ward ◽  
Amy Senta
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Black Identity ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Elementary Classroom ◽  
Practice Approach

This chapter describes a theory into practice approach for using children's literature to explore and affirm Black joy, Blackness, and Black identity in the elementary classroom. The work of Dr. Bettina Love on abolitionist teaching provides the theoretical grounding for this chapter. The authors describe a synthesis of representation in children's literature and framework for abolitionist teaching, a description of three lessons focused on teaching Black joy, and a call for expanding this work in teacher education.

Bridges to Global Citizenship: Ecologically Sustainable Futures Utilising Children's Literature in Teacher Education

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Bradbery
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Global Citizenship ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Global Citizens ◽  
Sustainable Future ◽  
Value Diversity ◽  
Sustainable Futures ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

AbstractDeveloping an understanding of the importance of a sustainable future is vital in helping children to become ‘global citizens’. Global citizens are those willing to take responsibility for their own actions, respect and value diversity and see themselves as contributors to a more peaceful and sustainable world. Children's literature — picture and story books in particular — can be used as a powerful tool to help even the youngest citizens become aware of the need to assume responsibility for creating and enjoying a sustainable future through global citizenship. Children's literature can be utilised to help children examine and change personal lifestyles to secure a sustainable future; to identify, investigate, evaluate and undertake appropriate action to maintain, protect and enhance local and global environments; to challenge preconceived ideas, accept change and acknowledge uncertainty and to work cooperatively and in partnerships with others. This article explores and examines ways in which some examples of Australasian children's literature, specifically Storm Boy (Thiele, 1963), Lester and Clyde (Reece, 1991), The Waterhole (Base, 2001), Window (Baker, 1991) and Belonging (Baker, 2004), have been used in a literacy focused preservice teacher education course to assist preservice teachers entering their internship school placements to develop children's understandings of an ecologically sustainable future. It provides further insight into methods for embedding teaching for a sustainable future into pre-service teacher education.

scholarly journals Representation of racial diversity in picturebooks in teacher education programs in the Republic of Croatia

2021 ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Matea Butković ◽  
Ester Vidović
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Intercultural Education ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
University Instructors ◽  
The Republic

In the Republic of Croatia, the importance of intercultural education and competence-oriented curricula has gained momentum in the last decade, with children’s literature being perceived as an invaluable source of intercultural learning and a fruitful tool for an exploration of global cultural diversity. Given that empirical data indicate the importance of children’s age for selecting age-appropriate intervention methods that would help combat discriminatory and prejudicial views, especially during the period between early and late childhood, this paper explores the choice of authors and picturebook titles taught in children’s literary courses at six Croatian Faculties of Teacher Education (Rijeka, Pula, Zagreb, Osijek, Zadar, and Split) with the aim to determine how university instructors interpret multicultural children’s literature and to which extent their syllabi accentuate the potential of picturebooks in fostering future pre-school and elementary-school teachers’ intercultural competence. The findings indicate a misalignment between the objectives of intercultural education and the racial and ethnic representation of authors and their characters, especially protagonists. Furthermore, intercultural competence is not a major learning objective in the analyzed university syllabi. The choice of authors and picturebooks indicates a clear preference for white North American and European authors and white characters and protagonists. These findings highlight the need for teacher-educators, i.e., university instructors, to rethink the nature of their learning objectives and study content and to expand their reading lists with more diverse voices that challenge the traditional models that have historically left many ethnic groups misrepresented, under-represented, or fully omitted from school and university curricula.

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