Why Critical Discourse Analysis in Literacy Research

While students in America’s schools are acquiring literacy at unprecedented rates and levels, we know that a divide grows between the literacy skills of marginalized students and the increasing literacy demands of a print- and technology-rich society (Alvermann, 2001). Those who are unable to acquire literacies of power are significantly hindered in their ability to enjoy engaged citizenship or professional membership. We also know from social theory (Morrow & Torres, 1995) and educational sociology (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Oakes, 1985) that the gap between the “haves ” and “have-nots ” is largely determined by race and class and that schools often reproduce the very inequality they might intend to eradicate (Kozol, 1992; MacLeod, 1987). Philosophers such as Bakhtin (1986) and Foucault (1972) have argued that meanings are constructed through social languages or discourse. These socially constructed meanings are not neutral and often privilege some while marginalizing or excluding others. Drawing upon the work of Foucault and Bakhtin in the context of the recent literacy crisis in schools, it becomes important for literacy researchers and educators to understand how classroom discourses shape meaning in ways that promote the social reproduction of inequality. Additionally, we need to understand how classroom discourses are situated within larger metainstitutional discourses that shape, limit, o