Critical Literacy: Bringing Theory to Praxis

Critical literacy theory and pedagogy is operationalized through understanding and critically engaging with the material economy of the present. Critical literacy, then, is learning to read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one’s experience as historically constructed within specific power relations. Youth organizers engage in an activist model of citizenship through grassroots organizing, partnering with other community organizers and conducting research with a focus on social responsibility. The skills involved in youth activist and organizing pursuits support the construction of sociopolitical activist identities through learning processes focused on social action. Critical literacy is built on exploring personal, sociopolitical, economic and intellectual border identities. This chapter outlines the spaces that support youth engagement in activism as a process, making social and political change in many ways that align to the working conception of critical literacy praxis.