Exploring critical literacy in Victoria and Queensland: Affordances, tensions and hybridisations

Critical literacy approaches to English teaching have existed in Australia for more than two decades. Despite this, they continue to be criticised by the media, especially during times of perceived 'literacy crisis' and curriculum review. In addition, teachers and academics continue to explore their worth and meaning for English teaching contexts. This paper discusses the findings of the research project Critical literacy in Australia: affordances, tensions and hybridisations which investigated constructions of critical literacy in secondary school English curricula and teacher discourse in Australia. Three major themes emerged from the data which provided insights into the state of critical literacy in Australia today. These themes related to the following areas - curriculum affordances of and teacher engagement with critical literacy; the impact of critical literacy discourses on teachers' ideological becoming and hybridisation of critical literacy; and tensions arising from critical literacy pedagogies.