In my exploration of critical literacies as a means to create the conditions for decolonial possibility with student teachers, I draw on the concepts of safe, brave, and contested spaces (Atiya et al., 2013). The discursive construction of these spaces across a professional graduate diploma in English education reveals how the student teachers and I consistently have to “name, critique, and challenge” (Johnson, 2022, p. 90) the entangled discourses of power that make the colonial matrix (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), whilst also ensuring that these spaces are humanizing and contextually responsive to diversity. In this presentation, I offer insights into the design and management of these spaces across one teacher education programme as well as examples of the contested responses that have taken place as student teachers engage with issues of diversity, inclusion, and power.

Atiya, S., Davis, S. W., Green, K., Howley, E., Pollack, S., Roswell, B. S., Turenne, E., Werts, T. & Wilson, L. (2013). From safe space to brave space: Strategies for the anti-oppression classroom. In S. W. Davis & B. S. Roswell (Eds.) Turning teaching inside out: A pedagogy of transformation for community-based education. Palgrave Macmillan. P. 105-112. Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press. Johnson, L. L. (2022). Critical race English education: New visions, new possibilities. Routledge.