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A Decade of Critical Information Literacy

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A Decade of Critical Information Literacy Volume 9, Issue 1, 2015 [ARTICLE] A DECADE OF CRITICAL INFORMATION LITERACY A review of the literature Eamon Tewell As information literacy continues in its Long Island University centrality to many academic libraries’ missions, a line of inquiry has developed in response to ACRL’s charge to develop information literate citizens. The literature of critical information literacy questions widely held assumptions about information literacy and considers in what ways librarians may encourage students to engage with and act upon information’s complex and inherently political nature. This review explores the research into critical information literacy, including critical pedagogy and critiques of information literacy, in order to provide an entry point for this emerging approach to information literacy. 24 Tewell, A Decade of Critical Information Literacy Communications in Information Literacy 9(1), 2015 INTRODUCTION substantial amount has been written on topics concerning critical information Since first entering the professional literacy in the past decade, and this body of discourse in the 1970s, the concept of work is likely to hold particular significance information literacy (IL) has created a for librarians seeking to reflect upon or massive amount of discussion regarding its reconsider their approaches to instruction definition and implications for learners and and librarianship in general. Critical librarians in an ever-changing information information literacy is an approach to IL environment. Librarians across the world that acknowledges and emboldens the have quickly adopted various information learner’s agency in the educational process. literacy policies and guidelines, eager to It is a teaching perspective that does not provide students with the training necessary focus on student acquisition of skills, as to access and evaluate information. The information literacy definitions and major transformation that information standards consistently do, and instead literacy has brought to the profession has encourages a critical and discursive not gone unexamined. The literature of approach to information (Simmons, 2005). critical information literacy questions many It is critical information literacy’s intent that widely held assumptions about IL and the students will ultimately “take control of very nature of education in library settings, their lives and their own learning to become broaching such topics as the impossibility of active agents, asking and answering pedagogical neutrality and the questions that matter to them and to the incompatibility of skills-based instruction world around them” (Elmborg, 2006, p. with student engagement in the learning 193). In these ways critical IL has a great process. Critical information literacy deal to offer librarians interested in considers in what ways librarians may developing a deeper engagement with their encourage students to engage with and act work and its implications, as well as the upon the power structures underpinning potential to shift the focus of information information’s production and dissemination. literacy instruction to an authentically It is this critical appraisal of information student-centered mode. literacy’s conventions and norms—from a lack of involvement with the sociopolitical Opposed to the increasingly corporatized dynamics that shape student learning and operation of higher education institutions, scholarly information to the notion that IL is critical information literacy provides a an educational obstacle that can be useful perspective with which to interrogate conquered—that in part distinguishes and contend with this job- and skills-based critical information literacy from traditional schooling and argues that education should conceptions of IL and makes it an important fulfill a purpose other than that of creating perspective to consider. efficient workers. Educators have a responsibility to students to ensure that they This article reviews the literature on critical can interact with complicated issues, and information literacy, including the main critical information literacy and critical tenets of critical pedagogy and critical pedagogy equip librarians to meet this approaches to information literacy. A challenge. Critical IL ultimately helps the [ARTICLE] 25 Tewell, A Decade of Critical Information Literacy Communications in Information Literacy 9(1), 2015 profession to question and resist the about, negotiating, and transforming the damaging effects of capital-centered relationship among classroom teaching, the education on learners, teachers, and society, production of knowledge, the institutional and encourages librarians to develop an structures of the school, and the social and information literacy theory and practice that material relationships of the wider recognizes students’ personal agency and community” (2005, p. 26). One issue of attempts to create positive personal and keen interest to critical pedagogy that is social change. central to the core tenets of librarianship, in particular that of information access and The intent of this review is not to normalize retrieval, is the construction of knowledge, the discourse of critical information literacy, including how and why the dominant but to instead draw attention to the many culture reinforces certain discourses and thought-provoking works within this body marginalizes others. Jonathan Cope suggests of literature and provide a starting point for that “one of the key insights of critical librarians interested in critical approaches to pedagogy is that there is no such thing as an information literacy pedagogy. While this ‘apolitical’ educational exchange” (2010, p. review seeks to appraise the topic 24). Critical pedagogy is in essence a comprehensively, some sources determined project that positions education as a catalyst to be outside the scope of critical IL, such as for social justice, and no writer better those applying non-critical theoretical communicates this goal than Paulo Freire. frameworks to information literacy, were not reviewed. It is possible that the author Freire, a radical Brazilian educator, is did not discover all pertinent resources, thus widely credited with sparking the critical resulting in their inadvertent omission. A pedagogy movement with his foundational majority of the sources are positioned within work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, first higher education, which for the purposes of published in 1968. Freire powerfully this article is the assumed environment describes the societal justification of authors are basing their work with the oppression, the “banking” concept of exception of the critical pedagogy section. education, and the importance of dialogue As the basis for much of critical information and “generative themes” in creating literacy, critical pedagogy and its empowering educational opportunities. In inspirational texts will serve as a place to describing the banking concept, Freire begin. states: CRITICAL PEDAGOGY Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are While there is no one singular critical the depositories and the teacher is pedagogy, the scholarship related to this the depositor. Instead of educational theory and framework contains communicating, the teacher issues themes that contribute to a definition. Joan communiqués and makes deposits in Wink offers these words towards locating which the students patiently receive, critical pedagogy’s primary concerns: memorize, and repeat…the scope of “Critical pedagogy is a way of thinking action allowed to the students [ARTICLE] 26 Tewell, A Decade of Critical Information Literacy Communications in Information Literacy 9(1), 2015 extends only so far as receiving, considering the many applications of filing, and storing the deposits. Giroux’s work to libraries, in particular the (2000, p. 72). recognition of higher education and libraries as sites of cultural struggle and what Giroux In order to move away from the traditional terms “the war against youth” (2004, p. 68). banking system educators must create opportunities for students to engage in For an introduction to the wider field of dialogic co-investigations alongside the critical pedagogy, a variety of excellent teacher, and study problems identified by works exist. bell hooks’ collection of essays and of consequence to the learners (2000, p. Teaching to Transgress (1994) is a text of 81). Freire ignited a great deal of dialogue key importance to the development of and thinking on the part of educators across critical pedagogy, as is Peter McLaren’s the world, with one of the most prominent Life in Schools (1989). hooks reflects on authors following Freire’s message of “education as the practice of freedom” (p. education’s liberatory potential being Henry 207) from a personal perspective, and Giroux. discusses building a sense of community in classrooms, the importance of recognizing Over the span of dozens of books Giroux each student’s individual voice, and feminist has considered the nature of power, pedagogy, among many other topics. Ira education, and social change. Giroux claims Shor’s When Students Have Power (1996) that institutional power in the educational describes the “Siberian Syndrome,” based realm has the potential for both oppression on the author’s observation of students’ and positive transformation. Critical “learned habit of automatically filling the pedagogy therefore “draws attention to distant corners [of the classroom] first, questions concerning who has control over representing
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