Abstract
Our long-term program of research has considered the relationships between teachers’ work and identities, literacy pedagogies and schooling, particularly in high-poverty communities. Over the past decade, we have worked with teachers to consciously explore with them the possible productive synergies between critical literacy and place-based pedagogies, and the affordances of multimodal and digital literacies for students’ engagement with the places where they live and learn. These studies have been undertaken with teachers working and living in various locales—from the urban fringe to inner suburban areas undergoing urban renewal, to rural and regional communities where poverty and the politics of place bring certain distinctive opportunities and constraints to bear on pedagogy for social justice. There is now wider recognition that “social justice” may need rethinking to foreground the nonhuman world and the relation between people and politics of places, people, and environments in terms of “eco-social justice” (Green 2010 ; Gruenewald 2003b) or spatial justice (Soja 2011).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bishop, S., 2003, “A Sense of Place,” in R. Brooke (ed.), Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing, Teachers College Press, New York.
Bowers, C. A., 2001, “Toward an Eco-Justice Pedagogy,” Educational Studies, vol. 32, no. 4: 402–416.
—, 2003, “Can Critical Pedagogy Be Greened?” Educational Studies, vol. 34, no. 1: 11–36
—, 2004, “Comments on David Gruenewald’s ‘A Foucauldian Analysis of Environmental Education,” Curriculum Inquiry, vol. 34, no. 2: 223–232.
—, 2005, “Toward a Culturally Informed Eco-justice Pedagogy,” in The False Promise of Constructivist Theories of Learning: A Global and Ecological Critique, Peter Lang, New York.
—, 2008, “Why a Critical Pedagogy of Place Is an Oxymoron,” Environmental Education Research, vol. 14, no. 3: 325–335.
Cameron, J., 2003a, “Educating for Place Responsiveness: An Australian Perspective on Ethical Practice,” Ethics, Place and Environment, vol. 6, no. 2: 99–115.
—, 2003b, “Responding to Place in a Post-colonial Era: An Australian Perspective,” in W. Adams and M. Mulligan (eds.), Decolonizing Nature: Strategies for Conservation in a Post-colonial Era, Earthscan, London.
Comber, B., 1994, “Critical Literacy: An Introduction to Australian Debates and Perspectives,” Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol. 26, no. 6: 655–668.
Comber, B., H. Nixon, and J-A. Reid, 2007, Literacies in Place: Teaching Environmental Communications, New South Wales, Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown.
Connell, R. W., 1993, Schools and Social Justice, Our Schools/Our Selves Education Foundation, Toronto.
Cormack, P. and B. Green, 2007, “Writing Place in English: How a School Subject Constitutes Children’s Relations to the Environment,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2: 85–101.
Cormack, P., B. Green, and J-A. Reid, 2007, “Children’s Understanding of Place: Discursive Constructions of the Environment in Children’s Writing and Artwork about the Murray-Darling Basin,” in F. Vanclay, M. Higgins, and A. Blackshaw (eds.), Senses of Place: Exploring Concepts and Expressions of Place Through Different Senses and Lenses, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, pp. 57–75.
Donehower, K., C. Hogg, and E. Schell, 2007, Rural Literacies, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.
Edmondson, J., 2001, “Prairie Town: Rural Life and Literacies,” Journal of Research in Rural Education, vol. 17, no. 1: 3–11.
Fairclough, N., 1989, Language and Power, Longman, London.
Fairclough, N., 1993, Discourse and Social Change, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Fairclough, N., 1995, Critical Discourse Analysis, Longman, London.
Freire, P., 1972, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Seabury, New York.
Freire, P. and D. Macedo, 1987, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CN.
Gilbert, P., 1993, “(Sub)versions: Using Sexist Language Practices to Explore Critical Literacy,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 16, no. 4: 323–331.
Gore, J., 1993, The Struggle for Pedagogies: Critical and Feminist Discourses as Regimes of Truth, Routledge, New York.
Green, B., 2010, “Education and Rural-Regional Sustainability,” paper presented at the Educational Practice and Rural Social Space Symposium, the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, Colorado, United States, April 30–May 4.
Green, B., P. Cormack, and H. Nixon, 2007, “Introduction: Literacy, Place, Environment,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2: 77–81.
Gruenewald, D., 2003a, “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place,” Educational Researcher, vol. 32, no. 4: 3–12.
Gruenewald, D., 2003b, “Foundations of Place: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Place-Conscious Education,” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 40, no. 3: 619–654.
Gruenewald, D., 2004, “A Foucauldian Analysis of Environmental Education: Toward the Socio-ecological Challenge of the Earth Charter,” Curriculum Inquiry, vol. 34, no. 1: 71–107.
Gulson, K. and C. Symes (eds.), 2007, Spatial Theories of Education: Policy and Geography Matters, Routledge, New York and London.
Hall, S., 2003, “The Work of Representation,” in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Sage, London.
Janks, H., 1993, Language and Identity, Hodder & Stoughton and Wits University Press, Johannesburg.
—, 2010, Literacy and Power, Routledge, New York and London.
Kerkham, L., 2011, “Embodied Literacies and a Poetics of Place,” English Teaching: Practice and Critique, vol. 10, no. 3: 9–25.
Kerkham, L. and B. Comber, 2007, “Literacy, Places and Identity: The Complexity of Teaching Environmental Communications,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2:. 134–148.
Lupton, R., 2005, “Social Justice and School Improvement: Improving the Quality of Schooling in the Poorest Neighbourhoods,” British Educational Research Journal, vol. 31, no. 5: 589–604.
Martusewicz, R. and J. Edmundson, 2005, “Social Foundations as Pedagogies of Responsibility and Eco-ethical Commitment,” in D. W. Butin (ed.), Teaching Social Foundations of Education: Contexts, Theories and Issues, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Mellor, B., A. Patterson, and M. O’Neill, 1991, Reading Fictions, Chalkface Press, Western Australia.
Nixon, H., 2007, “Expanding the Semiotic Repertoire: Environmental Communications in the Primary School,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2: 102–117.
Reid, J-A., 2007, “Literacy and Environmental Communications: Towards a ‘Pedagogy of Responsibility,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2: 118–133.
Seddon, T., 2003, “Framing Justice: Challenges for Research,” Journal of Education Policy, vol. 18, no. 3: 229–252.
Smith, G., 2002, “Place-Based Education: Learning to Be Where We Are,” Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 83, no. 8 (April): 584–594.
Soja, E., 2011, Seeking Spatial Justice, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Somerville, M., 2007, “Place Literacies,” Australian Journal of Langua ge and Literacy, vol. 30, no. 2: 149–164.
Stables, A., 1996, “Reading the Environment as Text: Literary Theory and Environmental Education,” Environmental Education Research, vol. 2, no. 2: 189–195.
—, 2001, “Language and Meaning in Environmental Education: An Overview,” Environmental Education Research, vol. 7, no. 2: 121–128.
—, 2004, “On Teaching and Learning the Book of the World,” in S. Mayer and G. Wilson (eds.), Ecodidactic Perspectives in English Language, Literacies and Cultures, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York.
Stables, A. and K. Bishop, 2001, “Weak and Strong Conceptions of Environmental Literacy: Implications for Environmental Education,” Environmental Education Research, vol. 7, no. 1: 89–97.
Stables, A., A. Reid, R. Soetaert, S. Stoer, K. Bishop, and M. Lencastre, 1999, “The Development of Environmental Awareness through Literature and Media Education,” a project sponsored by DGXI of the European Commission, http://www.bath.ac.uk/Departments/Education/eu/project.htm.
Watts, R., 2000, “National Awards for Innovation in Local Government, 10th November 2000,” Presentation, Canberra, http://www.loc-gov-focus.aus.net /editions/2000/may/green/award.shtml.
Weiler, K., 1991, “Freire and a Feminist Pedagogy of Difference,” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 4: 449–474.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Bill Green and Michael Corbett
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kerkham, L., Kerkham, L., Comber, B. (2013). Literacy, Place-Based Pedagogies, and Social Justice. In: Green, B., Corbett, M. (eds) Rethinking Rural Literacies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137275493_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137275493_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44622-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-27549-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Education CollectionEducation (R0)