Bridging Policy and Practice: Balancing Structured Literacy Mandates with Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Pedagogy

Abstract

This qualitative practitioner inquiry examines how preservice teachers (PSTs) and a course instructor navigated California's structured literacy mandates, particularly SB 488's emphasis on explicit, systematic foundational reading instruction, within an elementary credential literacy methods course grounded in culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy (CLSP). Drawing on qualitative surveys ( n  = 26), pedagogical documentation, focus groups ( n  = 8), and instructor analytic memos, the study examines how PSTs made sense of effective literacy instruction within a policy-aligned course and how equity commitments were negotiated alongside compliance expectations. Guided by decolonial theory, culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy, and sociocultural policy analysis, findings indicate that PSTs increasingly adopted structured literacy discourse as markers of instructional competence, while culturally and linguistically sustaining practices remained peripheral unless explicitly embedded through assignments, rubrics, and clinical modeling. Clinical placements emerged as a key mediating space, shaping what PSTs came to recognize as legitimate literacy teaching. Instructor self-study further surfaced the emotional and pedagogical labor involved in sustaining CLSP within compliance-driven preparation contexts. This study contributes to literacy teacher education scholarship by illustrating how policy is enacted through everyday program structures, including coursework, assessment expectations, and clinical practice, shaping PST instructional identities. Implications point to the need for intentional program design that integrates CLSP into foundational literacy instruction, strengthens university–school partnerships, and supports teacher educators in aligning structured literacy practices with students’ cultural and linguistic assets.