Integrating Imaginative, Ethical, and Citizenship Perspectives in Critical Language Education

The scholarly literature reviewed in Chap. 2 shows a variety of conceptualizations of critical thinking, enriched by views from different fields. It also presents practical suggestions for the classroom, found in the relevant bibliography too. Some of these conceptualizations and applications make an explicit connection between the development of critical thinking as a habit of mind (Benderson, 1990; Milton, 1960; Paul, 2007) and language learning.

Furthermore, the benefits of critical literacy in particular in the English class have also been put forward by a number of scholars (Banegas & Villacañas de Castro, 2016; Cobo, 2013; Cots, 2006; Dede, 2010; Devine, 1962; Madison, 1971; Porto & Barboni, 2008; Lim, 2011; Thelin, 2005; Waters, 2006, among others). It is argued that English language teaching promotes the problem-solving skills and the critical reformulation of issues that characterize critical thinking.

This book explores new dimensions of critical thinking, not usually addressed in foreign and world language classrooms. They involve imaginative, ethical, and citizenship perspectives. In some areas of the curriculum, these dimensions have traditionally been given due attention, and Wright (2002, p. 138), for example, states that ‘in social studies it has been recognized since 1916 that critical thinking is central to citizenship education.’ In all cases, as Dam and Volman (2004, p. 360) explain, ‘the central tenet is that critical thinking is a crucial aspect in the competence citizens need to participate in a plural and democratic society, and that enable them to make their own contribution to that society.’ There is a link with agency and social justice here, and it has been suggested that ‘the problems on critical thinking curricula need to both engage individuals in deliberations over issues of social good, and allow them to think of themselves in ways that fundamentally tie them to other members of society’ (Lim, 2011, p. 783). This is the basis for critical literacy and critical pedagogy and ‘critical thinking refers here to the capacity to recognize and overcome social injustice’ (Dam & Volman, 2004, p. 362).

The main argument has been that critical thinking involves more than the development of higher-order thinking skills. It also comprises citizenship, social justice, and human rights dimensions (Osler & Starkey, 2018) which are the responsibility of the language teacher too (Byram, 2008, 2014; Byram et al., 2017; Byram et al., 2020, 2021; Byram & Wagner, 2018; Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016; Porto, 2018; Porto et al., 2018; Porto & Houghton, 2021; Wagner et al., 2019). The inclusion of citizenship, social justice, and human rights concerns transforms critical thinking into critical literacy, and the social justice basis in particular articulates a direct link with critical pedagogy (Giroux, 1992). A recent Special Issue in Language Teaching Research addresses the connections among citizenship, intercultural dialogue, community engagement, the arts, and language education (Porto & Houghton, 2021), and this book has shown the ways in which the imaginative and creative dimensions of meaning making can be enacted in critical language classrooms. In addition, critical literacy and critical pedagogy have been central in the field of literacy but have received little attention in TESOL (Crookes, 2021; Crookes & Abednia, 2022; Janks, 2000; Moje, 2007). This book redresses this limitation by presenting four cases that illustrate critical literacy and critical pedagogy in action in English classrooms in contexts with difficult circumstances in Argentina using locally developed materials. The cases addressed the themes of cultural and linguistic diversity; population mobility and its impact on people and places; ecology; and local cultural and natural heritage. The children and teenagers involved were confronted with reflective tasks that challenged their attitudes, preconceptions, and representations of themselves and others. Through the proposed tasks, the teachers mediated interaction that fostered awareness of diverse perspectives around the themes in question. They invited the respectful and appropriate communication of ideas, examining and challenging ideas, values, and information. This is a critical literacy orientation in English language education.

The book went beyond critical literacy by linking criticality with a social justice basis (Banegas & Villacañas de Castro, 2016; Crookes, 2021; Crookes & Abednia, 2022), for example, by encouraging students to become involved in their communities. Community engagement involved them in the identification of a social theme of significance locally, the imagination of solutions in collaboration with others, and the taking of concrete action. The cases become exemplary of the ways in which critical pedagogy can be developed in real English language classrooms in contexts with difficult circumstances with locally produced, teacher-made materials.

The English Primer Readers for primary and secondary classrooms, written by Silvana Barboni, produced in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina, described in this book, and available freely at http://servicios2.abc.gov.ar/lainstitucion/organismos/lenguasextranjeras/plurilingue/cuadernos.html and as Electronic Supplement files, specifically foreground these imaginative, ethical, and citizenship dimensions.

For instance, in the English Primer Reader for primary school, grade 4, the imaginative, ethical, and citizenship dimensions are addressed in the following ways:

  1. (a)

    Children are asked to make a list of the languages people speak in Argentina and in South America with the aim of developing awareness of language diversity as a first step towards building ethical relations with others based on appreciation, recognition, and respect.

  2. (b)

    The familiar theme of birds is addressed by showing a protective action towards them, namely, encouraging children not to kill them (a habitual custom in rural areas in the country), fostering in this way an empathetic and ethical relationship with nature.

  3. (c)

    The ‘crazy animals’ project that encourages children to imagine and draw their amazing animals focuses on emotions, imagination, and creativity.

  4. (d)

    The exploration of amazing fauna in Argentina and South America through research skills is an instance of cross-curricular or interdisciplinary learning (CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning) applied to the local context.

Argentina has got an amazing fauna. In different parts of the country you can see wonderful animals in diverse habitats. In the northwest we can find pumas, condors, llamas and vicuñas. In the northeast there are ant eaters, tapirs, toucans, monkeys and a variety of fish. In the south there are penguins, whales and seals on the coast and deer and wild cats in the mountains.

Find out about our region. What animals are there in South America?

Stick a map of South America and identify the typical animals you can find in the countries that make up our region.

(English Primer Reader for grade 4, pp. 19–20)

  1. (e)

    The theme of chemical pollution, introduced as the book characters find an injured bird in the patio, is another example of cross-curricular or interdisciplinary learning (CLIL) aimed at developing environmental citizenship.

  2. (f)

    Children are encouraged to take local civic action in concrete ways through project work on themes of immediate social relevance. Community engagement, which means taking action in the social milieu, is one pillar of critical pedagogies (Janks, 2018) and of citizenship education in foreign/world language education (Byram et al., 2017).

Choose your classroom project. Use as many languages as you can to help people in your school community understand and participate.

  • Project 1:

Start a recycle-reduce-reuse campaign in your school. What can children do to protect nature? Design slogans, posters, leaflets. Explain younger children in your school how they can help. Talk with teachers and head teachers to decide on a school strategy to recycle-reduce-reuse.

  • Project 2:

Write a class book about our wonderful flora and fauna. Include information about endangered species. Show the book to parents and other children in your school.

  • Project 3:

Campaigning through drama. Act out the complete story in your school. Invite the people in your community to the play. Decorate the school with posters to make people aware of pollution.

  • Project 4:

Invite specialists to your school to talk about the consequences of pollution on people, animals and plants. Ask them questions to know more.

(English Primer Reader for grade 4, p. 30)

Along similar lines, in the English Primer Reader for primary school, grade 5:

  1. (a)

    The theme of linguistic and cultural diversity is introduced with an everyday school situation in which a girl from Taiwan, called A-Mei, joins a class for the first time. In an instance of translanguaging, the teacher introduces her and asks the class to greet her in English as she knows little Spanish. The Primer Reader encourages children to place themselves in A-Mei’s shoes and see through her eyes in order to foster empathy and understanding of otherness.

  2. (b)

    Departing from A-Mei’s background, the Primer Reader encourages the building of knowledge of geography by researching about Taiwan and the province of Buenos Aires (where the school is located). Using maps to locate the country and the province, children search information about location, population, capital city, geographical features, and climate, and display the collected information in comparative charts.

  3. (c)

    After learning the vocabulary of buildings, places, and spaces in a town (supermarket, bank, park, school, bookshop, hotel, cinema, baker’s, post office, town hall), children are asked to draw and describe their own town, developing in this way their creativity and imagination, spatial awareness, the semantic field of buildings and places, and language for place descriptions and directions.

  4. (d)

    To develop a genuine interest in others (Osler, 2012b), the English Primer Reader includes a conversation between A-Mei and two local children. As they share biscuits during a school break, they find out about each other’s lives. A-Mei’s family has a supermarket in town and another child has relatives living in Spain. In this way, children acknowledge the immigration tradition of the country and learn about their cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

  5. (e)

    The book characters are shown doing different activities during weekends as a springboard for discussion and reflection on children’s culturally determined habits: What do the children in this class do at weekends? Do they all do the same activities? Do habits vary? How? What can be learned from this diversity? The Primer Reader extends the theme to involve family members and a focus on eating habits. The local context is mirrored in the activities and food that serve as illustration. For example, grandma feeds the hens, and the family cook torta frita [fried pie], a local treat for tea time made with a dough (flour, butter, milk, sugar) that is fried and served warm. In this way, children identify with content that is familiar and close to their everyday lives.

  6. (f)

    The Primer Reader engages children with literature to develop their imagination, creativity, and understanding of otherness. For example, the poem ‘Grandpa the vegan cook’ adapted from Goldfish (1996) to focus on the family and eating habits; ‘In’ adapted from Michael Rose (1974) to reflect on life in a town building; and ‘Billy doesn’t like school really’ by Cookson (2007) about bullying.

  7. (g)

    Children are encouraged to take local civic action in concrete ways, essential in critical pedagogies (Janks, 2018) and in intercultural citizenship in language education (Byram et al., 2017), in this case through project work.

Projects bank

  • Project 1:

Making schools better for a better world. Develop a diversity friendly atmosphere in your school. Do all children feel represented? Draw posters with poems, rhymes, photos, pictures and any other texts that show we are all unique and beautiful. Show different activities children do in their lives. Post your productions around the school. Make sure all children in your school can feel represented in the pictures and the texts. This is not enough to make your school a diversity friendly place, but it is the first step.

  • Project 2:

Develop an anti-bullying campaign at school. Make posters for your school walls with information about bullying and bullying prevention. Design leaflets with information on bullying. Go to other courses in groups and with your teacher tell the children in other courses about bullying and distribute the leaflets. You can use as many different languages as necessary for other children to understand.

  • Project 3:

Library search for thought-provoking-drama. Go to the library with your teacher and ask the librarian for books with stories on the importance of diversity in our world. They can be stories in different languages. Develop a reading out loud session in the library. Choose the stories you like best and with your teachers, both the English and Spanish teachers, transform them into short plays. Act them out in your school for different courses in different languages.

  • Project 4:

A literary café for parents. Take up the poems in this book. Ask your teacher to bring some more poems. Rehearse them until you know them by heart. Develop a literary café in English for your parents. Prepare to recite the poems in front of your parents, you can use posters, costumes, real objects, etc. You can also include poems in Spanish or any other languages present in your school community to turn it into a plurilingual literary café. If you want you can invite your Music teacher and you can also include songs in different languages.

(English Primer Reader for grade 5, p. 28)

  1. (h)

    A whole section of the Primer Reader is devoted to the theme of bullying. The development of the topic can be seen as an instance of education about human rights and for human rights in the foreign and world language classroom (Osler, 2012a, b, c, d, 2013; Osler & Starkey, 2010; Starkey, 2002, 2008). Osler (2012d, p. 6) says (I refer to the Primer Reader between brackets): ‘Education about rights implies knowledge about their own rights and those of others [e.g. different kinds of bullying identified in the Primer Reader such as verbal, indirect and technological bullying], and about how they can respond if those rights are not recognized [‘Don’t suffer in silence’, ‘Tell an adult about it’, Primer Reader, p. 27], which necessarily includes some understanding of legal frameworks and mechanisms for seeking redress [‘If you see someone bullying another person...Tell an adult the 4 W (WHAT happened, WHEN, WHERE and to WHO)’, Primer Reader, p. 27]. Education for rights involves the development of skills and attitudes to strengthen human rights [‘Help stop bullying NOW!, Primer Reader, p. 24], which in turn implies respect for diversity, a sense of solidarity with others, particularly the oppressed [A-Mei from Taiwan, an ethnic and linguistic minority in the country], and skills to effect change and bring about greater justice [‘Report bullying to stop it’, ‘Ask the bullied person if he/she is OK’, Primer Reader, p. 27].’

Osler also clarifies the importance of taking into account not only the horizontal dimension of bullying, for instance, the expression of solidarity among peers when faced with the problem, but also its hierarchical dimension, which involves the need to hold institutions and governments responsible and seek redress. Osler (2008, pp. 13–14) states: ‘One key difference between HRE [human rights education] programs and citizenship education is that effective human rights education necessarily requires learners to be made aware of the need to hold governments to account. Governments are responsible for securing our human rights. While we may only be able to claim our rights if others are prepared to defend them, we should not see human rights as an exclusive contract between individuals. Some HRE programs in schools might be criticized for placing too much emphasis on the responsibilities we owe to each other (horizontal ties) and insufficient attention to the responsibilities which nation-states have towards their citizens and towards others living under their jurisdiction. So, for example, a program which encourages young people to address bullying, stressing the need of young people to look after each other’s interests, is emphasizing the horizontal obligations of citizens to defend each other’s rights. If the program fails to explain how specific forms of bullying are abuses of human rights and how the law has been developed to protect the individual from such abuse; how teachers, schools and other agencies have specific legal duties to protect young people from racist, sexist or homophobic bullying; and that failure to protect young people leaves authorities open to processes of legal redress; such a program would be ignoring the duties of the nation-state to protect and guarantee rights.’ The English Primer Reader aims to consider this dimension of human rights as well, initially by engaging children in project work beyond the classroom to raise awareness of the issue in their school and the community.

Finally, in the English Primer Reader for secondary school:

  1. (a)

    There is an explicit recognition of education about human rights, which involves informing students about their own rights, in this case the right to education.

More than one million teenagers go to secondary school in our Province. Secondary Education is now a right for all the teenagers in Argentina but still some young people are not going to school.

(English Primer Reader for secondary school, p. 4)

Osler (2012d, p. 6) says: ‘education about rights implies knowledge about their own [learners’] rights and those of others.’

  1. (b)

    The significance of language to national identity is addressed as youth read and listen to versions of the national anthem in Guarani and English in different rhythms such as rock. They are encouraged to think critically about nationalism and patriotism, and this is called ‘critical patriotism’ (Osler, 2008, p. 12). It involves critical analysis of the rationale behind national emblems, patriotic symbols, and festivities, away from their irrational adoption, with a sense of loyalty to the nation regarding its rights, but also specific actions to redress its wrongs.

  2. (c)

    Issues related to identities and identifications are explored using literature (stories, poems, diaries, comics), drawings, and biographical methods in language comprehension and production tasks. Diversity is welcomed by uncovering processes of comparison and contrast, and youth are encouraged to discuss their own identifications. They create their meanings using their creativity and imagination in multimodal ways, for example, turning a diary into a play, writing a magazine, designing posters, and so on.

  3. (d)

    Projects also traverse the Primer Reader as a way of involving students with their local community through civic action. On the theme of critical patriotism, the following projects are suggested:

Projects Bank

Designing patriotic symbols contest:

Our coat of arms was first designed and used in 1813 with some ideals in mind. Imagine you want to design a new coat of arms which represents our national identity 200 years after the Assembly of Year XIII. Get in groups and decide the following: What symbol would you include? Why? How does it represent our country? Do you think it is appropriate? Once you have some ideas start sketching the coat of arms. You may use the drawing programs in your computer. When you have finished, present your coat of arms to the rest of the class. Explain your design. You will need the help of your English teacher with any words you may not know. When you have all finished, decorate the class with your coats of arms.

The languages of our national anthem:

Find different versions of our national anthem and compile them in a CD. These versions can be in different types of music and in different languages. When you have completed the compilation, design a CD cover explaining the content of the CD. Remember it is important to explain the diversity of voices, languages and styles as examples of our national diversity. Give a copy of the CD to the head teacher of the school so that different versions of the national anthem can be used in patriotic ceremonies along the year in the school.

Symbols of identity athenaeum:

Many of the communities living today in our country were not born in our country, they come from foreign lands where they had their own national emblems. Find out about them in groups and then report your findings to the rest of the students in your class. Reflect all together on the similarities and differences you find between different countries. What is common to all? What do you think?

(English Primer Reader for secondary school, p. 8)

  1. (e)

    Environmental citizenship is fostered by addressing the theme of water resources. Teenagers research the theme by contacting a local research center, Instituto de Limnología Dr. Raúl Ringuelet (http://www.ilpla.edu.ar/en/institutional/limnology/), situated in their city, and interviewing a scientist. Students are encouraged to take action, in this case by going green: ‘We all need to reduce the amount of water we use and help save natural water reserves. What can you do?’ (English Primer Reader, p. 25).

In this way, the English Primer Readers address the imaginative, ethical, and citizenship dimensions of critical thinking in the foreign and world language classroom by fostering critical literacies and facilitating critical pedagogies in contexts with difficult circumstances. They were developed embracing the tenet that ‘an education in critical thinking (…) nurtures a citizenry that is empowered with the necessary faculties to address social problems and redress social wrongs, ultimately serving as the critical consciousness of, and the voice against, systems of class, race, and gender oppression’ (Lim, 2011, p. 802). In turn, this book has shown how these ideas were implemented in real classrooms in contexts that are not mainstream.

Chapter 2 by Melina Porto has presented the theoretical underpinnings and connections among critical thinking, critical literacy, and critical pedagogies.

Chapter 3 by Silvana Barboni has offered the theoretical rationale for the locally produced English Primer Readers for primary and secondary school, illustrated with key extracts, and has described the process of creation. It is an example of materials development by a local teacher that shows what a critical orientation in English language education looks like in local contexts with difficult circumstances.

Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7, co-authored between Melina Porto and local teachers (Carolina Moirano, María Emilia Arcuri, Bárbara Bezuch, and Adriana Helver, respectively), have described how the materials were used in real classrooms. Chapter 4 focused on a fourth grade English language classroom in a poor suburban context. The teacher welcomed, valued, and appreciated the use of Spanish, English, Guarani, and Quechua, developing in this way children’s awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity in this local setting. This consciousness was raised through the imaginative dimension of critical thinking, in this case art and creativity in a collaborative atmosphere (Martin et al., 2002). For instance, when asked to create and draw a character, Pedro, a child with Bolivian origin, drew a man with a Bolivian hat who spoke Quechua. Later a group of students discussed their understandings of radioactivity and used their creativity and imagination to suggest that ‘chemical wastes are like Martians’ or that ‘they are like a myth.’ They explored alternative, simultaneous, and sometimes conflicting definitions of radioactivity through collaboration, participation, and reflection – key critical thinking skills. The teacher implemented a cross-curricular approach that involved language, art, history, geography (in the exploration of the languages spoken in the school community and the languages spoken in South America), and chemistry (through the topic of chemical pollution).

In Chap. 5, fifth grade children gained awareness of different languages and cultural backgrounds drawing on geography and engaging their research skills. One child in this classroom, José, was from Paraguay and spoke Guarani, and he was encouraged to use his mother tongue in the English class. By using maps, atlas, and encyclopedias, and visiting the school library for the first time, these children expanded their knowledge of continents and countries, developed spatial awareness, and cultivated their research skills, for instance, by paying attention to book titles to predict and anticipate content, judging the suitability of a source, discerning between useful and irrelevant sources, and becoming aware of different genres and text types. Furthermore, they developed the skills of perspective-taking and decentering by being encouraged to place themselves in A-Mei’s shoes, a character in the Primer Reader who is from Taiwan.

Chapter 6 has described a rural multigrade primary classroom where one student spoke Guarani and where, in cooperation with the Social Sciences teacher, the children learned about the languages spoken in Argentina. Furthermore, in cooperation with the Natural Sciences teacher, they addressed the topic of hunting and animal protection in connection with the local custom of bird killing and slaughtering in their community. As they discussed ethical perspectives on the issue raised by the children themselves, for example, whether those children whose families practised slaughtering were in fact ‘killing,’ they decided to take action. They created bilingual posters in Spanish and English to raise awareness of the dangers of indiscriminate hunting and the importance of protecting local fauna like ostriches. In addition, they drew and described crazy animals, and they also read animal poems and created their own. In this way, they used art, imagination, and literature to develop not only their language skills but also their thinking skills.

In Chap. 7 the teacher also worked with literature, in particular the literary works by Henry Hudson, a local writer and scientist from Florencio Varela – the town where her second year secondary school classroom was located. Through a multimodal and plurilingual pedagogy, she used novels, comics, videos, and other resources about the writer to develop knowledge about and empathy for the local context, in this case appreciation of the Ecological and Cultural Park William Henry Hudson located in Florencio Varela. The project led to a school visit to this park, which is part of the local heritage and was unknown to the students.

In foreign and world language education, the ethical and citizenship dimensions of critical thinking are based on the idea that language teaching has educational as well as instrumental purposes, i.e., it can foster the development of ethical beings and a sense of citizenry (educational side) in addition to the linguistic, intercultural and other skills needed to able to use a foreign or world language appropriately for different purposes (utilitarian or instrumental side) (Byram et al., 2021; Porto, 2016, 2018; Porto & Byram, 2015). In the recently developed theory of intercultural citizenship education in foreign and world language teaching (Byram, 2008, 2010, 2014; Byram & Golubeva, 2020; Byram et al., 2017, 2020; Porto et al., 2018), one key pillar is the development of criticality and involvement with local civic action in concrete ways. It is in this criticality and civic action where intercultural citizenship articulates with critical literacy and critical pedagogy (Janks, 2018; Luke, 2018, 2019). In the four cases described in this book, this was achieved through:

  1. (a)

    Leaflets designed in collaboration among the children and intended to raise awareness of the importance of taking care of the environment. The children focused on ideas against hunting and polluting and in favor of helping protect animals and the environment, spreading information, and volunteering to take care of nature. In this way they showed a strong commitment toward the environment and took concrete actions to protect nature (Chap. 4).

  2. (b)

    A book created by the children, called It’s Okay, where they described and illustrated the various ways in which it is okay to be different. They shared the book with the school community and began an anti-bullying campaign by displaying it in a slide presentation at the end of year celebration (Chap. 5).

  3. (c)

    A campaign against indiscriminate hunting in the rural area of Verónica, where ostriches and other species are hunted without regulation and control. The children made posters and leaflets aimed at raising awareness of this local problem. For instance, one child drew a man hunting an ostrich as an explicit call to stop that action (Chap. 6).

  4. (d)

    Bilingual posters in English and Spanish focusing on children’s rights. The students’ aim was to raise awareness of the fact that each right also involves one or several responsibilities. For instance, one group introduced the right to be well fed and highlighted the need to accompany that right with the responsibility not to waste food. Furthermore, these secondary school teenagers, after the school visit to William Henry Hudson Ecological Park in Florencio Varela, decided to take responsibility for the preservation of an old tree that represents the community’s heritage, the Tarumá, for future generations. They planted one and took it to their school where they took care of it on a daily basis, developing an ethical bond with nature and a strong sense of identification with their local community (Chap. 7).

In the ways summarized in this chapter, this book has provided an answer to the educational questions that motivated and guided it in the first place: ‘how might educators work with youth and children, families and communities to both defend and prepare them for difficult and unprecedented everyday challenges and problems, and to enable them to voice and build new cultural and political, social and environmental futures?’ and how can literacies ‘be reshaped in response to these conditions’ (Luke, 2018, p. ix)? To close, if there is one conclusion that can be reached, it concerns the important role of teachers to contribute to making a significant impact on students’ lives, particularly in contexts with difficult circumstances. Their moral and ethical visions and their commitment seem to be essential to make a difference. Whether teachers have or cultivate such visions and commitment depends on many factors, of which personal integrity, ethical commitment to others (human and nonhuman, including the planet and nature), and the conceptualization of teaching as a sacred vocation are only a part. Teacher preparation in teacher education programs and support from their institutions (administrative, legal, procedural, developmental, curricular) also seem to be indispensable. This book aims to make a small contribution from an underrepresented region of the world, South America; with a focus on usually forgotten contexts such as those identified as contexts with difficult circumstances; and with locally produced, teacher-made materials which were appropriated, contextualized, re-resourced, and re-signified by each of the teachers involved in this project.

Engagement Options

This chapter integrates imaginative, ethical, and citizenship perspectives in critical language education, particularly in English language teaching in contexts with difficult circumstances using locally produced, teacher-developed materials.

  1. 1.

    Garton and Graves (2014), Masuhara et al. (2017), and Tomlinson (2003, 2011) address different aspects involved in materials writing and development for specific purposes, learners, and contexts, with attention to the needs and demands involved in teacher preparation in this respect. Banegas et al. (2020) have found that ‘engaging the university EFL teachers [in a Colombian context] as materials developers boosted their professional knowledge (linguistic, content, and pedagogical knowledge), motivation, identity, and agency as CLIL teachers and material designers.’ What kind of preparation have you received in this area as a teacher candidate? Have you been involved in materials development as a teacher? If so, what was this experience like? What dimensions, arising from the discussion in this book or from your situationality, are in need of further research in this area?

    Look at the English Primer Readers. What insights can you offer in terms of their suitability to foster a critical agenda in English language education? Could they be adapted to become appropriate to your specific context? How?

  2. 2.

    Garcia et al. (2018, p. 77) affirm that ‘[T]he current situation requires a remaking of citizenship, ethics, and a renewed social contract. This will require an ongoing ‘problematization’ (…) of these conditions [current social, cultural, economic, political, religious, and others] as focal in the curriculum, thematically crossing social studies, the arts and sciences.’ How can this remaking be achieved in practical terms in particular settings?

  3. 3.

    Luke (2018, p. xi) makes the following call:

    If ever there was a time to reconsider the nature and purposes of education and schooling in society, it is now. If ever there was a time in which a common institutional experience where the children of peoples of diverse histories, cultures, languages, standpoints and beliefs were brought together in common interest and common cause, it is now. If ever there was a need for critical literacies, for a universal, free education that includes an ongoing dialogue and conversation about how the worlds that we live in are selectively represented and portrayed, by whom, in whose interests and to what ends, it is now. If ever there was a time to debate, discuss and make problematic questions about the material effects and social consequences of texts and discourses, it is now. If ever there was a need to get a grip on the differences between the known, the real and the factual and how it can be misrepresented and distorted, it is now.

    Do you feel compelled by this call? Is it not overwhelming for the ordinary, busy, overworked, and badly paid teacher in many contexts around the globe? How can you make your piecemeal contribution? How can researchers and the field make their contribution?