“We had no issues with this book at all”: affordances and challenges in fostering criticality through justice-oriented picture books

Purpose This study aims to examine how preservice teachers (PSTs) discussed and reflected on discussions of justice-oriented picturebooks in one undergraduate children’s literature course. Analyses of how and why PSTs engage or refuse to engage in critical conversations of justice-oriented picturebooks can shape teacher educator pedagogy and facilitate their ability to support PSTs in both gaining critical awareness from picturebooks and facilitating critical conversations in their future classrooms. Design/methodology/approach To analyze discourse and criticality in PSTs’ response to justice-oriented picturebooks, the authors qualitatively analyzed 27 PSTs’ whole-class discussions of three picturebooks: Separate is Never Equal, The Snowy Day and Carmela Full of Wishes. Authors also analyzed 77 PST video reflections where they discussed their reading of each text and discussion participation. Findings The authors identified 19 critical sensemaking episodes that illustrated how PSTs used critical talk moves including humanizing and problematizing an unjust past, picturebooks mediated PSTs’ learning about sociohistorical events featured in the literature, PSTs demonstrated emotional responses including outrage and empathy for characters as they discussed historical inequities, but PSTs chose silence, enacted niceness and had muted reactions when connecting texts to present-day systems of oppression. Originality/value Although past analyses of PSTs’ text-based discussions of justice-oriented picturebooks centered the content of participants’ responses and the particular discursive moves PSTs engaged in, this study combines an analysis of PSTs’ discourse during picturebook discussions with PSTs’ reflections on their participation, revealing the motivations for speaking or maintaining silence, and the fear some participants identified related to saying something that others might disagree with.