Dissertation committee:
Αθανάσιος Μιχάλης (επιβλέπων), Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Μαρία-Ζωή Φουντοπούλου, Καθηγήτρια, Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Νικολέττα Τσιτσανούδη-Μαλλίδη, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Νηπιαγωγών, Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Αθανάσιος Βέρδης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Διονύσιος Γούτσος, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Ελένη Κατσαρού, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Φιλοσοφικών και Κοινωνικών Σπουδών, Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης
Ευαγγελία Φρυδάκη, Καθηγήτρια, Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
This dissertation is a contribution to the scientific field of critical reading under the umbrella of critical literacy’s philosophy and pedagogy in Secondary Education. It is grounded on the cultivation of Critical Reading Strategies (CRS) based on critical literacy to second class pupils of an Experimental School (Lyceum) of Athens and aims to the improvement of their collaborative critical reading.
The CRS based on critical literacy are pedagogical tools, which consist not only of reading technics (i.e. underlining, annotating, outlining etc.) but also of critical reading procedures (i.e. reviewing, contextualizing, evaluating etc.) (Barnet & Bedau, 2014, pp. 34-42∙ Harvard University, 2015∙ Mather & McCarthy, 2016∙ Salisbury University, 2009∙ Spears, 2013∙ Varaprasad,1997) and are organized in 4 groups: a) the research of publication means and the writer-designer’s identity, b) the research of perspectives and groups of people, c) the research of informative material and d) the research of emotional impact towards readers. The construction of these strategies incorporates with critical literacy dimensions (critical thinking, emotional influence and social action) and characteristics – mainly focusing on the analysis of relations between language/semiosis and power in every kind of texts (monomodal and multimodal) and on the emergence of pupil’s/critical readers’ agency (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, p. 118∙ Giroux, 1993, p. 367∙ Rogers & Wetzel, 2014, p. 101∙ Janks, 2010, pp. 212-213). It is aimed for critical pupils or readers of text discourses to be in the position to stand critically or stand opposite the texts which they read, to denaturalize the reality which is being constructed and to interpret ideological issues of discriminations or polarization (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 271∙ Mousavi, 2012, pp. 24-27∙ Wodak, 2001a, p. 2∙ Wodak, 2001b, pp. 72-77∙ Wallace, 2012, p. 267).
Through this mixed research of convergent designing, which is based on case study philosophy, qualitative and quantitative data is collected and co-interpreted in order to provide answers to searching questions, which are related to the usage of critical reading strategies and the evaluation of their effectiveness in collaborative critical reading of texts.
The findings of the research demonstrate the significant profits of CRS in relation to critical literacy in pupils’ collaborative critical reading and also examines the participation and the collaboration – fundamental characteristics of new literacies’ new ethos – in reading communities or communities of practice, such as school classes. Moreover, the systemic perspective of literacy emerges, not only because the proposed model of strategies pedagogically comprises various literacy perspectives (behavioristic, cognitive, sociocultural, semiotic and critical) but also through the promoted differentiated orchestration of CRS based on critical literacy from pupils, so that on the one hand a project for reading critically texts is being fulfilled and on the other hand a collaborative point of view is being constructed through procedures of reciprocal exchange of critical approaches (Baker, 2010, pp. 300-306∙ Wenger,1998∙ Lankshear & Knobel, 2011, p. 7, 29). This collaborative perspective of pupils is not only an amalgama of separate individual critical readings but also an interactive synthesis, which cultivates reflective procedures in critical readers and contributes to their critical awareness.
