Critical Civic Literacy

The critical literacy approach to education examines the underlying assumptions of various texts encountered in academia and everyday life, such as school curricula, government legislation, corporate policies, and the media, in order to uncover the connections between power, knowledge, language, ideology, and social justice. In this collection of 37 readings, contributors in education, social studies, and public policy emphasize the importance of critical literacy in the renewal of civic education in public schools. Some topics discussed include promoting a progressive civics curriculum, the Bible Literacy Project's impact on civic engagement, the role of service learning in critical thinking, and the middle-class curriculum of teacher education. While the book is written for educators and policymakers, it is also accessible to interested citizens and students. DeVitis teaches educational foundations at Old Dominion University. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joseph L. DeVitis is Visiting Professor of Educational Foundations at Old Dominion University. Recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he is a widely published scholar and public intellectual in educational policy studies. He is a past president of the American Educational Studies Association, the Council of Learned Societies in Education, and the Society of Professors of Education. His most recent books are Character and Moral Education: A Reader (Peter Lang, 2011), edited with Tianlong Yu, and Adolescent Education: A Reader (Peter Lang, 2010), edited with Linda Irwin-DeVitis.