Literacy histories: Categories of influence

Abstract

The preparation of literacy educators is a complicated task. Many factors, some outside a teacher education program, contribute to what a teacher candidate believes about literacy and its instruction. Unfortunately, the institutionalized pedagogy that comprises the literacy component of a teacher education program too often ignores teacher candidates’ wider social and experiential arenas and the beliefs and values that emanate from them (Liston & Zeichner, 1991). Instead, these personal experiences seem to be perceived as somehow beside the point. In this study, we attempt to understand the relationship between candidates’ experiential roots and their education to be a teacher of literacy. To explore an aspect of this wider range of influence, we secured the self‐reported literacy histories of teacher candidates. This source of information about a group of teacher candidates’ literacy lives provided a context for analysis. Using them, we examined possible links between teacher candidates’ remembrances about their literacy development and their developing stances about literacy learning and its instruction. In this reporting of that study, we begin by linking our inquiry to our theoretical stance that learning to teach literacy, like literacy learning, is a social construction. Then, we relate our findings to those of others who seek to understand the relationships between personal beliefs and professional stances about literacy.