scholarly journals Critical Issues: Preparation for New Literacy Researchers in Multi-Epistemological, Multi-Methodological Times

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nell K. Duke ◽  
Marla H. Mallette
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Ecological Balance ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Literacy Research

In this Critical Issues, we argue that the preparation of novice literacy researchers should change in response to the growing diversification of epistemologies and methods employed in literacy research. We assert that the preparation of novice literacy researchers should be aimed at developing students who understand and appreciate a broad range of research epistemologies and methods. We suggest ways in which coursework related to research methods and epistemologies, research apprenticeships and mentoring, and the reading and writing of literacy research might intensify and adjust to meet this aim. We contend that whether our field will be characterized by methodological fragmentation or ecological balance will depend in large part on how we prepare future literacy researchers.

scholarly journals Critical Issues: What Counts When Context Counts?: The Uncommon “Common” Language of Literacy Research

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Rex ◽  
Judith Green ◽  
Carol Dixon ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
English Education ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Confounding Effect ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Common Term ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The One ◽  
Literacy Research

Research into literacy published in journals such as the Journal of Literacy Research spans a range of disciplines and areas of study (e.g., reading, English education, composition). Even individual studies frequently take up interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., anthropological, sociological, linguistic, educational, textual). The results are journals far ranging in their reach and rich in the knowledge they bring to literacy issues. However, such diversity of theoretical perspectives, research methods, and analytical methodologies also contributes to a confounding effect. In this article, we explore one such effect that occurs when a common term is used with different meanings. Although this may appear on the surface to be a problem easily remedied or even a rather trivial issue, in this article, we show just how consequential this practice can be when the goal is building knowledge from research that can inform practice, policy, and theory. This critical issue can be posed as a set of interrelated questions: Are we all talking about the same thing when we use words like literacy, reading, and even seemingly less resonant ones like context, the one addressed in this commentary? If we are, how do we know? And if we are not, what price are we paying for not considering the issue?

Literacy in Monolingual Societies

1983 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Tej K. Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Multilingual Societies ◽  
Literacy Research

The multidimensional and interdisciplinary research on literacy has progressed so rapidly that researchers have responded to its growth in a number of ways which includes the occasional production of bibliographies. The most recent book-length bibliography by Graff stresses the multifaceted aspect of the research, admitting at the same time that approaches to literacy are too ubiquitous to enumerate (1981b:8). Among the important approaches to literacy, the following are noteworthy: historical, anthropological, sociological, economic, demographic, developmental, psychological, and linguistic. All of these approaches have two properties in common: first, they directly or indirectly address themselves to the questions of acquisition of reading and writing skills in pre-literate and semi-illiterate societies; and second, they study literacy without any significant reference to the monolingual (henceforth, ML) or multilingual structure of a speech community. The second reason thus explains the dearth of studies. Literature focusing on literacy in ML or multilingual societies is negligible. With advances in the field of sociolinguistics, this aspect of literacy research is no longer virgin territory.

Studying visual literacy: Research methods and the use of visual evidence

IFLA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-181
Author(s):  
Krystyna K. Matusiak
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Visual Literacy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Library Instruction ◽  
Teaching Approaches ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Literacy Research

The proliferation of images and their increased use in academic and everyday information practices has sparked an interest in visual literacy as an area of research and library instruction. Teaching approaches and student learning are examined using a variety of research methods and utilizing images in the research process. This paper provides a review of research methodology adopted in empirical studies of visual literacy that were published in academic journals between 2011 and 2017. The results indicate that one third (33%) of the examined studies adopted a quantitative approach with surveys being the most popular strategy. Qualitative and mixed-methods studies were a minority but represented a greater variety of strategies and data collection techniques. One third (33%) of the studies in the sample did not report any research methodology. Most of the studies (87%) used visual evidence in the research process.

Critical Issues: Literacy and Educational Policy: Part Three

1996 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emerson J. Elliott ◽  
Gary K. Hart ◽  
Marshall S. Smith ◽  
Joanne E. Cianci ◽  
Jessica Levin
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Future Publication ◽  
Policy Communities ◽  
Literacy Research ◽  
Do So

This installment of JLR's Critical Issues section is the final part of a three-part series on literacy and educational policy. We are especially pleased to publish the following responses, by three highly qualified policymakers, to the views expressed in Part 1 of this series (see Volume 28, Number 2). In Part 1, Judith Green with Carol Dixon, David Pearson, and Sharon Quint commented respectively on the ideas they believed to be crucial for policymakers to know about literacy from their perspectives as literacy researchers. At the same time, we published Donna Alvermann's reaction to the views of the three researchers, also from her perspective as a literacy researcher. As substantiated by their brief biographies at the beginning of this issue, Emerson J. Elliott, Gary K. Hart, and Marshall S. Smith are imminently qualified to write a response to the researchers' views from the perspective of those who are intimately involved with educational policy at the highest levels. We are especially gratified that these busy public officials consented to share their views in a forum of interest primarily to literacy researchers. We believe their willingness to do so bodes well for the future of a constructive dialogue between the literacy research and educational policy communities. Combined with Patrick Shannon's consideration of literacy and poverty in Part 2 of this series (see Volume 28, Number 3), we hope that this series has stimulated more attention about issues related to literacy research and educational policy. We encourage readers to ponder the perspectives and ideas presented in this series and to consider adding their own insights by submitting letters to the editor, which will be considered for future publication.

scholarly journals LITERACIES AMONG YOUTH FROM CAMPO (RURAL) COMMUNITIES: WHAT IS REVEALED DURING VIDEO PRODUCTION

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-172
Author(s):  
Maria Zélia Versiani Machado ◽  
Gilcinei Teodoro Carvalho ◽  
Carlos Augusto Novais ◽  
Ana Paula da Silva Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Rural Youth ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Video Production ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Reading And Writing

ABSTRACT This article presents the results of the research study, “Literacies in rural communities: social practices of reading and writing in school and non-school situations”, conducted from 2015 to 2017. This study investigated how forms of sociability and communicative circuits in the daily lives of the rural youth constitute social practices of reading and writing. Initially, the use of the word “literacies” in the plural is justified. The context for this research is the Araçuaí Family Agroecological School in Vale do Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Analyses are based in the New Literacy Studies (STREET, 2014) and the methodology assumes a qualitative approach from an ethnographic perspective (HEATH; STREET, 2008) in which students collaborated in the production of videos with themes related to their communities. Video production was adopted as a methodological strategy to achieve literacies involved in the collective actions of the process. The results show that the use/non-use of digital technologies does not stand as a factor of differentiation between rural youth and urban youth, definitively breaking with the idea that rural communities are social spaces that lack literacy practices or that are disconnected from the virtual world, which shows that schools should broaden their concepts of literacy, not only by pluralizing practices, but mainly by incorporating them as a constitutive element of their teaching and learning project.

Toward Equity and Diversity in Literacy Research, Policy, and Practice: A Critical, Global Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Morrell
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
New Literacy ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Multimodal Compositions ◽  
Literacy Research

Can growing inequities between rich and poor and massive manifestations of hatred and intolerance amid rising tides of global populism inspire a focus on equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice? Can such calls for change be collaborative rather than competitive? Can we envision self-love, wellness, and intercultural understanding as compelling ends of a reimagined literacy pedagogy? Toward these ends, this essay offers demographic, moral, and economic imperatives for fundamentally reconsidering literacy policy and practice. It then presents five “big” ideas. We must ask different questions, we must identify and problematize our notions of success, we must advocate for the equitable distribution of material resources, we must fight for bottom-up accountability practices, and we must envision new literacy practices that reflect our new global reality. Finally it advocates a global postcolonial critical literacies framework where teachers are positioned as intellectuals and agents of change, where students have opportunities to collaboratively produce and distribute multimodal compositions, where children have access to a wider array of literary texts that enable them to become powerful, reflexive readers of the word and the world, and where parents and communities are partners in the project of nurturing powerful readers, authors, and speaker.

Language of Literacy Dialogues: Facing the Future or Reproducing the Past

1996 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Green ◽  
Carol Dixon ◽  
P. David Pearson ◽  
Sharon Quint ◽  
Donna E. Alvermann
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Advisory Board ◽  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
Socially Disadvantaged ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Future Publication ◽  
Literacy Research

For the remainder of Volume 23, the Critical Issues section of JLR will be devoted to a discussion of literacy and educational policy. A survey of our editorial advisory board indicated that this topic was one of the critical issues facing the field. Likewise, a survey of the entire membership of the NRC, JLR's sponsoring organization, indicated that members hold strong feelings about whether the organization should “become more proactive on policy issues” (NRC Newsletter, Sept., 1995, p. 10). To further a dialogue about literacy and educational policy, we began by inviting three literacy researchers with diverse perspectives to address the topic of literacy and educational policy (Judith Green, who writes here with her colleague Carol Dixon, P. David Pearson, and Sharon Quint). We asked them to comment on the ideas they believe to be most crucial for policymakers to know about literacy. We also invited Donna Alvermann to read and to react to the three responses. Those familiar with the field will immediately surmise that these individuals represent not only diverse perspectives on literacy research, but that they are imminently qualified to reflect on what implications their research perspectives have for educational policy. Their responses are published here as Part 1 of a three-part series. For the next two issues of JLR, we have invited several individuals who have played a key role in developing and implementing state and national agenda for educational policy to respond to the literacy researchers' views. In addition, because any discussion of literacy and educational policy must eventually attend to the issue of poverty and the socially disadvantaged, we have invited Patrick Shannon to comment on how this issue relates to literacy research. We hope that this series of “Critical Issues” pieces will stimulate increased dialogue about educational policy among researchers interested in literacy and between researchers and policymakers. Toward that end, we encourage readers to ponder the perspectives and ideas presented in this series and to add their own insights by submitting letters to the editor, which will be considered for future publication.

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