Whitewashed Critical Perspectives: Restoring the Edge to Edgy Ideas

This volume examines revolutionary constructs in literacy education and demonstrates how they have been gentrified, whitewashed, and appropriated, losing their revolutionary edge so as to become palatable for the mainstream. Written by top scholars in literacy education, chapters cover key concepts that were originally conceived as radical theories to upset the status quo―including Third Space, Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant Pedagogies, and more. Each chapter addresses how the core theory was culturally appropriated and de-fanged to support rather than take down racial and societal hierarchies.

Critiquing the harmful impact of watering down these theories, the contributors offer ways to restore the edge to these once groundbreaking ideas, reject racist and assimilationist trends, and support the original vision behind these liberatory theories. In so doing, this volume adopts a truly radical, critical stance that is essential for researchers, scholars, and students in literacy education.

Catherine Compton-Lilly is the John C. Hungerpiller Chair in the College of Education at the University of South Carolina, USA.

Tisha Lewis Ellison is Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at The University of Georgia in Athens, USA.

Kristen H. Perry is Professor of Literacy Education and Departmental Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kentucky, USA.

Peter Smagorinsky is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at The University of Georgia, USA, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico.