Detra Price-Dennis, Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
Foreword by: Jabari Mahiri
Afterword by: Rebecca Rogers
Publication Date: May 14, 2021
Pages: 144
2022 Recipient of the NCTE David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English
2022 Recipient of the Literacy Research Association's Edward B. Fry Book Award
2023 Recipient of the Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research
Today’s students use their digital expertise and the power of their voice to respond to issues of inequity in society. It is essential that teacher educators develop their own racial literacies and those of their preservice and classroom teachers to support student digital activism. From talking about race and racism to resisting the harmful narratives that circulate online but impact face-to-face interactions in the classroom, teacher educators must navigate sociotechnical spaces with a critical lens and develop strategies to help their preservice teachers do the same. This book is designed to increase educators’ capacity and agency to respond to inequities that plague our educational system. The authors provide a framework to help readers rethink how curriculum and pedagogy impact classroom instruction. In Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education, Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz provide theoretical and practical entry points into a conversation about race in the digital age that aim to increase equity in schools and better prepare teachers entering the U.S. school system.
Book Features:
Detra Price-Dennis is an associate professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is an associate professor of English education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
“Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz move toward a new vision of racial literacy which must include digital literacy to be relevant to students and effective as activism. Their compelling and concrete examples push forward current scholarship at the intersection of culturally relevant pedagogy, racial literacy, and digital literacy, and successfully lay the groundwork for a new set of priorities in teacher education.”
—Teachers College Record
“Drs. Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz promote racial literacy as part of the essential knowledge base for educators alongside knowledge of content and pedagogy.”
—Illinois Reading Council Journal
“Detra Price-Dennis and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz have developed a bifocal lens on racial and digital literacies that seamlessly integrates theory and practice with cogent arguments and compelling examples from their research of multiple ways for advancing racial literacies in teacher education, particularly regarding crucially needed activism for equity in digital spaces. This definitive book convincingly reveals the necessity of centering race and digital literacies in K–12 classrooms by enacting racial literacy in teacher preparation and practices.”
—From the Foreword by Jabari Mahiri
“In this book, Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz invite us to move beyond hoping for racial justice. They set down architecture for building antiracist teacher education. The authors stretch from research to action; historicize the ongoing crisis of racism and white supremacy; and invite literacy teacher educators to redistribute power, knowledge, and expertise leveraging digital literacy tools.”
—From the Afterword by Rebecca Rogers
“Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education is a powerfully deep and robust, concise, nuanced, compelling, transformative, and empirically based book that every single teacher—preservice and inservice—should read in the fight for racial literacies in education and beyond. Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz have produced a foundational text for teachers and teacher educators as they co-construct pedagogy, curriculum, policy, systems, and institutions that center and advance racial justice in and through digital spaces. A call and a challenge to cultivate digital activism among young people, teachers, and teacher educators alike, this book teaches as it transforms.”
—H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education, Vanderbilt University; author, Start Where You Are, But Don’t Stay There
“The need to center race and digital literacies is needed now more than ever. The United States is driven by technological advances and, sadly, racism. We can watch Black death on our phones in real time via social media. Our pedagogy must not only respond to our current state but be a vessel to speak back and for social justice. Price-Dennis and Sealey-Ruiz have given us the Blackprint to do just that. Every teacher fighting for social justice needs this book.”
—Bettina L. Love, professor of teacher education, University of Georgia
Contents (Tentative)
Foreword Jabari Mahiri
Introduction
Exploring Race in Teacher Education
Exploring Race in the Digital Age
Why Do We Need to Center Race and Digital Literacies in K-12 Classrooms?
Say Their Names
Purpose of the Book
Key Terms
Organization of the Book
1. Engaging and Embracing Racial Literacy in Teacher Education
What Is Racial Literacy?
Racial Literacy and Brown v. Board of Education
The Elephant in the Room: Racial Literacy in Schools
Why Racial Literacy Now?
Three Tenets of Racial Literacy
Racial Literacy as Resistance
Archaeology of the Self in Racial Literacy Development
From Ethnic Studies to Racial Literacy Education
Racial Literacy in Teacher Education
21st Century Racism: Presenting/(Re)Presenting Race in Digital Spaces
2. How Can Racial Literacy Inform Teacher Education in the Digital Age?
Fostering Digital Literacies in Teacher Education
What Is Getting in the Way of Literacy Education in the Digital Age?
Addressing Racial and Digital Literacy in Teacher Education
#Hashtag Networks: Racial Literacy in the Digital Age
Bridging Racial and Digital Literacies
Racial Literacy for Activism (#RL4A)
Moving Forward One Step at a Time
3. Institutionalizing Racial Literacy in Teacher Education
Racial Literacy and Diverse Learners
Racial Literacy with a View: The Letter-Writing Unit
Racial Literacy Tenets as a Culturally Sustaining Practice
The Power and Liberation in Questioning Assumptions
Engaging in Critical Conversations
Practicing Reflexivity
Making Racial Literacy Work in Teacher Education
4. Engaging in Critical Multimodal Curation to Foster Racial Literacy
Critical Multimodality as a Mediator of Racial Literacy for Activism
Critical Multimodal Curation in Action
Now What?
Afterword Rebecca Rogers
References
Index
About the Authors
2023 Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research
2022 NCTE David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English
2022 Literacy Research Association's Edward B. Fry Book Award
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