My grandma never lived in Gooligulch : exploring gender and national identity in a critical literacy classroom

Media representations of Muslims in Australia can be considered highly gendered and skewed. The stereotypes of patriarchal oppressive males and oppressed passive females are presented as natural. Controversies around critical literacy and values in public and independent schools have framed recent media debates about schooling in Australia. This article describes an attempt to utilise one of the identified principles of critical literacy - that is the need to problematise classroom and public texts - as a way to work with students in the middle years. Through close analysis of the representations of gender and culture in a range of texts pitched at young children, students in a Muslim independent school explored and repositioned themselves in relation to these elements of Australian identity. Knowledge was presented as provisional, providing students with opportunities for critical readings of the world, and equipping them to effect positive social change.