Desafíos para la enseñanza de la lectura crítica: un acercamiento etnográfico a la práctica docente en el bachillerato ecuatoriano

Abstract

The Ecuadorian official curriculum includes training objectives related to reading and criticality; however, some reading indicators with standardized tests show that students barely achieve basic reading comprehension skills, below the demands of critical reading. This work adopted the objective of analyzing how critical reading is taught in high school classrooms, acknowledging the role of teachers as mediators between the educational objectives and students' learning outcomes. Following a theoretical framework that conceives reading and teaching as social practices, an ethnographic approach was carried out with eight language and literature teachers, comprising participant observation in classrooms, interviews, and the collection of teaching plans and student products. The data analysis consisted of coding and categorization following an inductive logic. The results expose a gap between curricular objectives and teaching practices: the teachers provided limited learning experiences to foster students' criticality. In addition, teachers' conceptions of criticality were also limited, reducing it to the ability to argue, understand a text, make judgments or opinions, or engage in literary review. Finally, it is argued that students' reading performance is due to limited teaching and that this could be strengthened by means of a pedagogical theory that guides teachers in the promotion of critical reading: critical literacy.