Racial and Social Justice

Reading Groups as a Strategy for Teaching Justice
Author Author Affiliation Course Professor Date Reading Groups as a Strategy for Teaching Justice Introduction Courses that take a critical stance are those that address issues like social justice, feminism, post-colonialism, racism, multicultural education, and critical pedagogy, among others (Ozlem & DiAngelo, 2012). Such courses view that knowledge is a social construct and that education is a political project marred with inequality within a network of social institutions. These courses often provide unsettling information that prompts learners into resistance and a tendency to protect their familiar and comforting worldviews. Learners may become silent, immobilized, withdrawn, angered, hopeless, or even overly hopeful. These reactions may affect the educational outcomes and objectives of the courses. As a result, there is a need for constructive engagements in the courses to allow learners to reconcile with the information and react effectively to the required changes within the self and within the larger society. One method of constructive engagement is through reading groups.
Reading Groups Reading groups involve two or more learners engaging in a reading and discussion of a curricular material under a tutor's guidance. Within the classroom, such groups are critical in developing literacy skills, sharing information, and encouraging teamwork. On a larger scale, however, reading groups may consist of children and adults. Such groups may be through meetings where children and adults within a community read, talk, and learn together. Such groups' objective is to help children develop the skills required to thrive in a diverse society. The skills include how to communicate, understand our differences and what we have in common, and apprecia...