Review and Scholarly Syntheses as Anti-Racist Action

Abstract

At the final session of the 2022 Literacy Research Association Conference, Catherine Compton-Lilly, Marcus Croom, Mary McVee, and Allison Skerrett presented critical work related to equity, representation, and race in literacy scholarship. Panelists shared concerns and pursued a shared goal. Specifically, as literacy scholars, they recognized that like the empirical research conducted in classrooms and communities, review scholarship—scholarship that aspires to make sense of large bodies of available research—is always subject to systemic biases, privileging, and racism. In this panel session, we intentionally sought to dismantle biases through four review-oriented projects that—each in its own way—attempts to counter the systemic whitewashing that has characterized review scholarship in literacy. The collective synthetic, counter-narrative that we presented is significant to literacy education. As we explained, the historical omission of scholarly reviews conducted by Scholars of Color requires a reclaiming of the field. Significantly, the omission is not a minor oversight. Scholarly reviews have long-term effects on scholarly communities; reviews provide novice and established scholars with macro views of the literacy field; in short, reviews identify what is important and worthy of scholarly attention and it is with this history in mind that the Integrative Review Panel for LRA 2022—and this current set of articles—were organized. Across our papers, we explore silences and obfuscations relative to the voices of Scholars of Color, the experiences of Communities of Color, and the education of all children. We view our public presentation of these syntheses as intentionally anti-racist acts designed to name, describe, and recognize the contributions of BIPOC (an acronym for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) scholars and communities. We are confident that the LRA community will continue to find this work impressive, inspiring, and important.

Reimagining LRA in the Spirit of a Transcendent Approach to Literacy

“…As her 2022 Oscar Causey Address has demonstrated, Willis' (2023) approach is historically grounded, theoretically sound, empirically supported, and politically relevant. Furthermore, a transcendent approach to literacy is at the cutting edge of advancing multiple literacies, especially racial literacies (Compton-Lilly et al, 2023). What I have previously argued regarding racial literacies also applies to a transcendent approach to literacy:…”

“…She invites each of us to recognize our interbeing and to move to be in right relationship with those to whom we are answerable. As I promised in Compton-Lilly et al (2023), this article briefly describes the relationship between the post-White orientation to literacy and a transcendent approach to literacy as considered after Arlette Willis' Oscar Causey Address at the 72nd annual gathering of LRA in Phoenix, Arizona. My initial "Post-White Thoughts on a Transcendent Approach to Literacy" were read during the unexpectedly added plenary panel discussion in which I was invited to participate on Friday, December 2, 2022:…”

“…As a result of immediately embracing Willis' work, I added the term "transcendent approach" to my integrative literature review of racial literacies scholarship (Compton-Lilly et al, 2023) during the 72nd LRA annual gathering. I made this addition to refine the broader term that was initially used in my review, "post-White orientation" (Croom, 2016(Croom, , 2020.…”