Findings Meta-analysis

Findings Meta-analysis

1. Disrupt traditional ideas about what young or novice learners can do with the language to develop critical literacy practices.

   • "This new evidence pushed Camilo to move away from his belief that young students are not ready to reflect and encouraged him to design a new lesson on animal cruelty which was a theme his seventh graders were interested in. After this, his lesson planning included not only raising awareness on this matter, but encouraging students to take the issue outside the classroom so that other people in their school could be informed." (Gutierrez, 2015. p.187)
   • "All in all, during the implementation of this intervention, language was used for different purposes. This proves that even though students and even the teacher were anxious about meeting the communicative and linguistic goals of the course while engaging in critical conversations, these goals were achieved throughout the different activities." (Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.98)
   • "It is undeniable that large classes pose a challenge for teachers to be able to give each student a voice. However, this factor cannot become an excuse to continue disregarding the political role language teachers have, and it raises the issue of how to overcome it so that students from public schools, who are generally less favored by educational policies, engage in critical discussions that lead them to rethink and shape their future and the future of their communities" (Gutierrez, 2015. p.190)

2. The need to give students a voice

   • "Additionally, data indicated that 9 out of 14 learners felt moved to propose alternatives to combat problems such as gender violence and discrimination: “Due to my life experience, I have always wanted to help women who are or have suffered like I did. I would love to do something more for them” (Laura, Questionnaire). She explained that as she had been a victim of violence, she felt reluctant to remain silent or to ignore this issue. Moreover, motivation to take social action was not confined to the walls of the classroom as noted in the teacher’s field journal: One of the students, who has an active participation in social media, made a post about violence towards women. We had previously addressed this issue in class. In his post, the student let male followers know about the importance of breaking stereotypes . . . Later that week, he kept posting messages reflecting against femicide." (Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.99)
   • “All the data collected allowed me to identify that involving students into different activities, as the dialectical process they followed,gave me also the possibility of listening to my students voices regarding their positions towards socio cultural issues that are implicit in the texts we had for our classes.”(Esteban, 2014. p.38)

3. Teacher role in CL

   • "A clear example of how beliefs influence teaching was found in this study, in which the three participants believed it was pointless to take any actions to improve the unfair situations they encountered. Hence, when planning their lessons, participants decided to go as far as raising awareness in students, but not to the point of encouraging them to take action. This finding indicates that teachers’ beliefs and perceptions about the mechanisms of power in society undoubtedly shape their teaching practice and, in this case, also prevent them from encouraging students to become an active part of the transformation of their realities as advocated by Freire (1970)." (Gutierrez, 2015. p.189)
   • -"Therefore, as a teacher at the university level, she felt and still feels that she has the responsibility to educate citizens able to transform our society and ultimately, help them disrupt and interrogate multiple messages that have been presented to us as universally true... Thus, Catalina confirmed that in critical literacy, learning is bidirectional; she understood that in critical literacy teachers are called to downplay their authoritative role (Giroux, 1987), and as such they must be sensitive and attentive to different aspects, which can be identified through interaction, observation, and dialogue with learners (Nieto, 1977)." (Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.102)

4. Tensions to disrupt stereotypes and get out of the comfort zone

   • "That is, even if learners found it hard to contradict stereotypes and propose alternatives to fight stereotypical categorizations against different minority groups, she experienced the same difficulty: When we discussed stereotypes about people from other regions of the country, students and I found it difficult to refute them and offer a different perspective . . . it was frustrating for me to be unable to help them refute most of the stereotypes we have created. (Journal entry) According to Thoman (1978), disrupting a fixed stereotype is not easy because “people perceive selectively through the screen of their own particular attitudes, values, beliefs, and especially personal experience” (para. 4). Perhaps if Catalina had anticipated some arguments to help learners break out these stereotypes, this struggle would have been overcome more easily." (Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.101)
   • "Considering that some learners might be resistant to the critical components of the lessons, one sees they may find it hard to change their long-held beliefs, and ultimately exercise their social action. Thus, it is advisable for teachers not to expect total success from the first task of implementing critical literacies in their classrooms and to understand that this is a process that takes time and effort".(Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.102)

5. Challenges and struggles

   • "Teacher’s Journey: Challenges and Struggles Difficulties experienced by Catalina took place when planning and implementing the lessons. Firstly, planning was very challenging: I have the big challenge to move from the traditional role of an English teacher who instructs and promotes communicative competence among learners, to a more critical position, in which a wide range of social issues are questioned and analyzed. (Journal entry) In fact, Catalina did not know where to start, what questions to ask, what resources to use, and even what topics to address. This, considering that important social problems, for instance, are rarely present in textbooks." (Gómez Jiménez & Gutiérrez, 2019. p.100)