Invited Guest Speaker | Teaching for Social Justice Through Multiliteracies Pedagogy

Come join us on November 3rd at 3pm in Hamilton 304 and on Zoom for a talk with Dr. Kate Paesani (Ph.D., Indiana University) about the intersection between Social Justice and Multiliteracies Pedagogy.

“Critical pedagogies that prepare learners to participate in multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal societies are gaining ground in language education. The multiliteracies framework (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; New London Group, 1996) is one example of a critical pedagogy that not only develops learners’ language proficiency as they engage with target language texts, but also empowers students to question and critique how language and culture embody, maintain, and challenge structural inequalities and biases. To illustrate how multiliteracies pedagogy can support social justice in language education, this talk is organized around three central questions: Why is the multiliteracies framework a viable critical pedagogy for implementing social justice in language classrooms? What facilitates and hinders teachers’ implementation of this approach?, and How can teachers be supported in carrying out this work? I begin by discussing key concepts related to social justice, critical pedagogies, and the multiliteracies framework. Then, I present teacher cognition and identity research that pinpoints the affordances and constraints that language teachers encounter when teaching social justice themes through critical pedagogies. Finally, I share resources developed at CARLA that support teachers in learning about and enacting social justice in language education.”

BIO: Kate Paesani (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) and Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on postsecondary language programs, critical pedagogies, and language teacher cognition and identity development. She has authored and co-authored numerous articles, chapters, and books, including Literacies in Language Education: A Guide for Teachers and Teacher Educators (Georgetown University Press, 2023).