Pre-service teachers' negotiation of identity and figured worlds through the reading of multicultural literature

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of a multicultural literature course on pre-service teachers' abilities to examine themselves and their figured worlds through a practice and process known as perspective-taking. With implications for teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a multicultural society, the paper uses critical discourse analysis as a tool to interpret and analyze student work completed in the course. By examining students' awareness of cultural-political elements in their lives, this paper illustrates how some students may be more or less open to alternative perspectives and how new identities may emerge over the course of a class dedicated to difference and diversity.