Preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a reading methods course learn how literacy instruction is a political act that can affect children's opportunities. Through discussions and readings, they learn how the ways in which they teach reading to children make a difference in their subsequent access to knowledge. Through a practicum experience in an urban elementary school with mainly African American and low SES children, these predominantly middle class White students apply their knowledge of reading practices and their developing dispositions toward educational equity. Their oral accounts and written work demonstrate developing understandings of equity. (Contains 1 table.)