Jeannine Wishart

In today's complex and rapidly evolving (and, in the light of recent world events, more divisive and combative) world, learners must develop the ability to think critically and read critically. They need these skills to navigate and filter the daily tsunami of information presented by both traditional (newspaper, print sources, television, radio) and rapidly evolving technological (social media, blogs, tweets, and generative AI, (and more disturbingly its "deep fake" abilities) media sources. Critical thinking and critical literacy are crucial components of an education toolkit that seeks to enlighten "sincere ignorance" and refute "conscientious stupidity".

This paper explores the impact of edu-businesses on literacy education in schools and the implications for initial teacher education. Decades of neoliberal education policies, the valorisation of high stakes testing and consequent dataphilia, has resulted in a plethora of commercial products flooding the education market. These products promise to improve literacy data and edu-businesses have positioned themselves in a commercially lucrative relationship with education authorities. Thus they work with governments to create education policy that addresses the ‘crisis,’ and profit through selling solutions. These private companies restrict the use of their products to schools who have purchased their packages. This commodification of education de-professionalises teachers, foregrounds teachers’ time and leaves little room for critical literacy work. Moreover, this deprofessionalisation impacts teachers’ perceptions of belonging and their identities as teachers. Our research highlights the impact that branded literacy tools are having on initial education students’ pedagogy, professional practice, and perceptions of teacher identity.

This article reports on the qualitative findings of a mixed methods study that investigated primary school teachers' beliefs, practices and choices of resources for teaching written grammar. Qualitative data were collected from Primary teachers in Western Australia through semi-structured interviews (n = 10) and analysed thematically. Although all participating teachers reported that they saw the teaching of written grammar as important, it was found that they had insecure Pedagogical Content Knowledge about Grammar (PCKAG). This insecure knowledge base coincided with eclecticism in pedagogical practice and the choice and use of resources that were not optimal for building PCKAG, or for supporting best practices in the instruction of written grammar.