Our Lady of Guadalupe at school

Picture books, preservice teachers, and the discourse of religious (il)literacy

Abstract

This article examines the way 83 predominantly white, female preservice teachers (PTs) at a large university in the U.S. Midwest and 132 predominantly white, female PTs at a large university in the Southeast respond to the religious content of The Beautiful Lady/La Hermosa Señora (Mora, 2012), a new contemporary realistic picturebook about an American family's devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe of Mexico (Guadalupe); and Abuelito Eats with His Fingers (Levy, 1999), a realistic picturebook that show's another family's engagement with religious figures. Santa Ana's (2002) theory that an Anglo-American Narrative underpins dominant U.S. Discourse (Gee, 2008) and Shulman's (1987) and Grossman's (1990) theory that personal beliefs and subject-matter knowledge influence teachers' decisions frame the study. The data set offers a glimpse of the kinds of narratives and Discourses that PTs embrace. The data indicate that even with increased subject-matter knowledge, some PTs' dispositions toward the censorship of religious content in schools could inhibit their facilitation of multicultural literacy instruction.