Critiquing portrayals of race, class, gender, and sexuality in literature.  PTs can also help students reflect on their notions of cultural constructions of differences in race, class, gender, and sexuality by having them examine representations of these differences in literature and the media.  In doing so, PTs examine how these constructions reflect cultural and ideological beliefs operating in texts, for example, how race is constructed in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in terms of institutionalizes conceptions of whiteness as an ideal norm.  

    Rather than treating "multicultural literature" as a separate entity, PTs are therefore learning to critically examine how cultural differences related to race, class, gender, and sexuality are portrayed in texts reflecting different cultural contexts.  They can then develop teaching activities that will encourage their students to understand how notions of race, class, gender, and sexual differences are cultural constructions.  And, PTs can explore how literature portrays hybrid versions of these differences in ways that challenge stereotypical constructions of identity difference (Grobman, 2006).

Further reading on portrayals of race, class, gender, and sexuality in literature:

Beach, R., Thein, A. H., & Parks, D. L. (2007). High school students' competing social worlds: Negotiating identities and

    allegiances in response to multicultural literature. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Boyd, F.  B.  (2002).  Conditions, concessions, and the many tender mercies of learning through multicultural literature. 

    Reading Research and Instruction, 42(1).  58-92.

Christensen, L.  (2000).  Reading, writing, and rising up: Teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. 

    Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

Connor, J. J.  (2003).  "The textbooks never said anything about...." Adolescents respond to the Middle Passage: White

    Ships/Black Cargo.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(3), 240 – 247.

Dressel, J. H. (2005). Personal response and social responsibility: Responses of middle school students to multicultural

    literature. The Reading Teacher, 58(8), 750-764.

Eagleton, T. (2006). Criticism and ideology: A study in Marxist literary theory, new edition. London: Verso.

Edelsky, C.  (2006). With literacy and justice for all: Rethinking the social in language and education.  Mahwah, NJ:

    Erlbaum.

Fecho, B. (2004). “Is this English?”: Race, language, and culture in the classroom.  New York: Teachers College Press.

Hicks, D.  (2005).  Class readings: Story and discourse among girls in working-poor America.  Anthropology and Education

    Quarterly, 36(3), 212-229.

Pace, B. G.  (2006).  Between response and interpretation: Ideological becoming and literacy events in critical readings of

    literature.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(7), 584 – 594.

Sumara, D., Davis, B., & Iftody, T.  (2006).  Normalizing literary responses in the teacher education classroom. Changing

    English, 13(1), 55 – 67.