ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 presents a historical and theoretical framework for critical language and literacy education. It not only maps the foundation of critical pedagogies, beginning with critical social theory, but also problematizes critical pedagogy and its assumptions and tendencies. Then, after identifying some examples of critical language and literacy approaches (e.g., four resources model), it makes the case for critical multilingual pedagogies, which leverage and extend emergent bilingual youths’ knowledge and linguistic repertoire. The chapter suggests the ways in which critical pedagogies can facilitate emergent bilinguals’ development of not only languages, literacies, and disciplinary concepts but also their sociopolitical consciousness and agentive identities.
