Moving Forward With Literacy Research

Abstract

Moving Forward With Literacy ResearchAs we publish the last issue in our anniversary volume, we pause to reflect on the vast amount of knowledge about literacy, literacy education, and literacy research that is represented across the 200 issues that are the Journal of Literacy Research (JLR). As we read (and reread) the statements written by earlier editors and editorial teams, we remained humble to serve as the current editorial team. We have worked hard this year to make sure JLR readers have access to literacy research that moves our field forward. We thank our authors, our current editorial review board, and ad hoc reviewers for supporting us in our efforts with JLR.We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest members on our editorial team. Dr. Fenice Boyd is now serving as a coeditor. Dr. Boyd is a professor and department chair at the University of South Carolina. She brings to our team expertise in literacy learning opportunities for adolescents who struggle with reading, writing, and traditional schooling practices; responses and reactions to multiethnic and multicultural literature; and principled practices of literacy instruction. We also welcome Dr. Pelusa Orellana. Dr. Orellana is a professor and associate dean for research at the Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile. Her expertise in early literacy, motivation, and literacy assessment (in both English and Spanish) completes our team. We are excited both agreed to work with us as coeditors of JLR.We are equally excited about the studies that appear in this issue. Individually and collectively, they contribute important findings that can inform the field of literacy, literacy education, and literacy research. Take, for example, Tierney's anniversary article. In this interdisciplinary essay, Tierney proposes a model of cross-cultural meaning-making as a foundation for what he terms "global epistemological eclecticism" in our scholarly pursuits, including our research and teaching. He calls for scholarly pursuits that are cooperative, collaborative, contrastive, and always respectful and reciprocal. It is through his work that we can see beyond policies and practices that propagate insularity and divisiveness.Mirra, Coffey, and Englander used a sociocritical approach to explore the ways in which two high school English teachers leveraged disciplinary literacy practices in a high school classroom. Using a figured worlds framework, the team documented the ways in which teachers engaged youth in what the authors call "civic literacy learning." This study has implications for how our field considers the intersection of race, literacy, and citizenship in order to disrupt social inequities.In their study, Frankel, Fields, Kimball, and Murphy applied positioning theory in their collaboration with 12th-grade literacy mentors to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with their 10th-grade mentees. Using social design methodologies, the team documented the various ways the positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up, sometime...