International Handbook of Research on Children's Literacy, Learning and Culture E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1500

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The International Handbook of Research in Children's Literacy, Learning and Culture presents an authoritative distillation of current global knowledge related to the field of primary years literacy studies.

• Features chapters that conceptualize, interpret, and synthesize relevant research
• Critically reviews past and current research in order to influence future directions in the field of literacy
• Offers literacy scholars an international perspective that recognizes and anticipates increasing diversity in literacy practices and cultures

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Notes on Contributors

The Editors

Contributors

List of Reviewers

Foreword

Notes

References

Editors’ Introduction

Part I: Society, Culture, and Community

Chapter 1: Literacies in Homes and Communities

Introduction

Mapping the Field

Conceptualizing Context in Relation to Home and Community Literacies

Multimodality in Relation to Home and Community Literacies

Material Cultural Studies Perspectives on Home and Community Literacies

Spatial Perspectives in Conceptualizing Home and Community Literacies

New Directions in Home and Community Literacies Research

References

Chapter 2: Critical Multimodal Literacies

Introduction

An Analytical Framework

Background Issues

Synergy, the Picture Book, and the Larger Multimodal Universe

The Complexities of Reception and Participation

Developing Critical Understanding

Conclusions

References

Chapter 3: Books, Toys, and Tablets

Introduction

Political Economies of ‘Edutainment’ Media for Children

The Rise of Mobile Media ‘Toys’

Digital Mobile Media Toys for Literacy Learning: The Case of LeapFrog™

Playing as Reading on the iPad: The Case of Little Golden Books

Concluding Comments

References

Chapter 4: Literacy Education in the Age of New Media

Introduction

Changing Literacy Education

New Literacies, New Media; or, What Constitutes the ‘New’?

Prospects and Problematics: Curriculum, Literacy, (New) Media

Notes

References

Chapter 5: Connecting with Parents and the Community in an Urban Primary School

Introduction

Thinking about Parents and Communities: Our Theoretical Lens

Introducing Allens Croft Primary School

The First Phase of the Project

The Second Phase of the Project 2010–2011

Affordances from the Story-making Project

Working with Creative Practitioners

Conclusion

References

Chapter 6: At Home and at School

Introduction

Ethnographic Reading Books: Children’s Perspective in Books

At Oscarcito’s House: A Program to Promote Family Literacy

Reading among Children: A Child Literacy Tutors Program

Some Final Considerations

Notes

References

Chapter 7: Temporality, Trajectory, and Early Literacy Learning

Introduction

Time as Context

Conceptualizations of Time

Time, Trajectories, and Schooling

Time in Early Literacy Classrooms

Conclusions

References

Chapter 8: ‘This is a Job for Hazmat Guy!’

Introduction

Constructing an Object Ethnography

LEGO® as an Artifact

The Social Life of LEGO®

Myth Making with a Global Media Brand

Conclusion: LEGO® and the Mythology of Creativity, Learning, and Literacy

References

Chapter 9: Literacy as Shared Consciousness

Introduction

Consciousness as the Appearance of a World

The Genetics of Culture – Agents, Activities, and Worlds

Behind the Smoke and Mirrors

Literacy: Where Are We Now? – From Synapse to Society

Note

References

Chapter 10: An Ethnographic Long Look

Introduction

A Brief History

Achieving Academic Literacy: Overcoming Stigma with Persistence, Activism and Leadership (Gilmore)

Linguistic Survivance, Endangerment, Activism and Appropriation (Wyman)

Conclusion

References

Chapter 11: Understanding English Language Learners’ Literacy from a Cultural Lens

Introduction

Asian ELL Learners: Straddling Two Literacy Cultures

Culture and Asian ELL Literacy Development

The Need for a Culture Pedagogy

References

Chapter 12: Exploring Multiple Literacies from Homes and Communities

Introduction

Literacy Practices across Cultures and Contexts

Case Studies from Multiple Contexts

Multiple Literacies in Supporting Community Settings

Conclusion and Implications for Future Research and Practice

References

Chapter 13: Funds of Knowledge in Changing Communities

Introduction

A Changing Understanding of Families: Vulnerability and Livelihood

The Case Examples

Discussion

Note

References

Chapter 14: The Hand of Play in Literacy Learning

Introduction

The Recent History of Play in Families

School, the Internet, and Child-selected Entertainment

Contributions from Cognitive Neuroscience

Play in Art and Science

Conclusion: Metaphors of the Thinking Hand

Notes

References

Part II: School, Culture, and Pedagogy

Chapter 15" Building Word and World Knowledge in the Early Years

Introduction

The Building Blocks of Word Learning

The Building Blocks of World Knowledge

Summary

Environmental Influences on Literacy Development

Enhancing Word and World Knowledge for Low-income Pre-schoolers: The World of Words

Conclusion

References

Chapter 16: The Unfulfilled Pedagogical Promise of the Dialogic in Writing

Introduction

Culture and Effective Pedagogy

The Teaching of Writing

Intertextuality/Writing as Dialogue

Conclusion: Intertextual Promises and Future Directions

References

Chapter 17: Reading Engagement Research

Introduction

Measures of Literacy Engagement

Cognitive and Socio-cognitive Perspectives on Reading Engagement

Reading Engagement in the School Curriculum

Cultural and Socio-cultural Perspectives on Reading Engagement

Reading Engagement beyond Schools: Families and Homes

Reading Engagement Research: A Final Question

References

Chapter 18: Opening the Classroom Door to Children’s Literature

Introduction: Mapping the Research Field

The Evolving Role of Children’s Literature in the Classroom: A Brief History

Crossing the Threshold

Continuing the Dialogue between Readers and Texts

The Road Ahead: Consolidating Pedagogy and Practice

Concluding Comments

References

Chapter 19: Writing in Childhood Cultures

Introduction

A Theoretical Stage for ‘Children Who Compose’ versus ‘Child Composers’

Writing Childhoods: Processes and Conditions

Making the World Anew: Children Appropriating and Recontextualizing Cultural Texts

Composing Child Cultures: The Formation of Unofficial Literary Practices

Making Connections: The Interplay between Unofficial and Official School Worlds

References

Chapter 20: Children’s and Teachers’ Creativity In and Through Language

Introduction

Children’s Naturally Occurring Language Creativity

The Creative Potentialities of the Official Language and Literacy Curriculum

Teachers’ Creativity In and Through Language

References

Chapter 21: Educational Dialogues

Introduction

Socio-cultural Theory and the Functions of Language

Teacher-led Whole Class Interaction

Small Group Work

Exploratory Talk

Promoting Effective Educational Dialogues

Onward Research: Developing Situationally Sensitive Accounts of Productive Educational Dialogues

Concluding Remarks

References

Chapter 22: Literacy and Curriculum

Introduction: Literacy In and For School

Literacy in the Curriculum, Across and Within

Interaction Analysis

A Linguistic Approach

Conclusions: ‘A Curriculum for the Adults in the Room’

Appendix: Transcription conventions used in this chapter

References

Chapter 23: The Digital Challenge

Introduction

Literacy and Digital Learning: An Evolution

Examining the Data through Our Framework: Issues that Arise

Gaps in the Data: Recommendations for Future Research

References

Chapter 24: Digital Literacies in the Primary Classroom

Introduction

Use of Web 2.0 in Primary Classrooms

Use of Film, Television, and Animation in Classrooms

Use of Computer Games in the Classroom

Conclusion

References

Chapter 25: Developing Online Reading Comprehension

Introduction

Changes Brought About to Literacy with the Advent of the Internet and other ICTs

Challenges for Students and their Teachers in an Online Environment

Challenges for Teachers in an Online Environment

Consequences for the Development of Classroom Curriculum, Pedagogies, and Learning with the Internet and other ICTs

Conclusion

References

Chapter 26: Hybrid Literacies in a Post-hybrid World

Introduction

Theories of Hybridity

Re-theorizing Hybrid Literacies: The Case for Navigating

How Should Navigations be Studied?

Conclusions: My Own Navigating Work

Note

References

Chapter 27: Official Literacy Practices Co-construct Racialized Bodies

Introduction: The Social Regulation Function of Official Literacy

Cultural and Critical Perspectives: From Funds of Knowledge to Whiteness Studies

Toward a more Critical Focus on Racism: Literacy as White Property

Explaining Race Culturally: Bodies as Repeatedly Co-constituted with Literacies

Changing the Logic of Analytic Representation: Post structural Thinking

Conclusion: Practice makes Practice in Creating Racially Literate Analyses

Notes

References

Chapter 28: Emotional Investments and Crises of Truth

Introduction

On Children’s Texts, Discursive Practices, and the Feltness of Literacies

On Working-Class Mothers, Daughters, and Emotions

Reading Girls’ Texts for Crises of Truth

Literacies, Emotions, and Children’s Textual Productions

References

Chapter 29: What Does Human Geography Have To Do With Classrooms?

Introduction

A Glimpse at Some Macro Processes that Shape School Literacy Practices

A Glimpse at Articulating Standards in Two Different Schools: The Significance of Place

The Promise in Margins and Migrations

How to Study Migration

Conclusion

References

Chapter 30: Space, Place, and Power

Introduction

The Politics of Place and Literacy in Classrooms

Place-Conscious Pedagogies

Place and Digital Spaces in Globalized Communication Networks

New Spatial Analysis Tools for Literacy

Conclusion

References

Part III: Teachers, Culture, and Identity

Chapter 31: On Becoming Teachers

Introduction

Research Perspectives: Knowing and Believing

Instruction that Fosters Knowing and Believing

Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

References

Chapter 32: Reforming How We Prepare Teachers to Teach Literacy

Introduction

Background Context

Why Reform How We Prepare Teachers To Teach Literacy?

What Aspects of this Preparation need Reforming?

How Can Such Reforms Be Implemented?

Details of the Conceptual Infrastructure Wollongong Created

Embedding Literacy 101 within this Organizational and Conceptual Infrastructure

How Wollongong Met This Challenge

References

Chapter 33: Teachers’ Literate Identities

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Do Teachers Need to be Models of Reading and Writing?

What is the Relationship between the Curriculum, Policy and Teacher Identity?

How Should Literacy be Taught to Students who Come to Class with Diverse Funds of Knowledge?

What Digital Practices do Literacy Teachers Engage In and How Should They Engage with these Practices?

What are the Implications for Teacher Training?

Conclusion

References

Chapter 34: Constructing a Collective Identity

Introduction

Types of Knowledge Teachers Need to Prepare Twenty-first Century Learners

Teachers’ Individual Literacy Identities

Research on Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs

Theory of Teacher Change

Collective Identity as an Integrated Professional Development Approach

Concluding Comments

References

Chapter 35: Raising Literacy Achievement Levels through Collaborative Professional Development

Introduction

Defining Professional Development

Forms of Professional Development in Literacy

Characteristics of Professional Development that Can Bridge the Gap

Impact of Professional Development on Teachers and Students

Conclusions

Notes

References

Chapter 36: Teacher Research on Literacy

Introduction

Teacher Research, Democracy, and Social Justice

Teacher Research on Children’s Literacy

Teachers ‘Turning Around’ to Technology

Teachers ‘Turning Around’ To Students as Researchers

A Future Agenda for Teacher Research?

References

Index

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Notes on Contributors

The Editors

Kathy Hall is Professor and Head of the School of Education at University College, Cork. She researches and publishes in the areas of learning, literacy, and assessment and has co-edited and authored several books and research papers on these topics. She has recently co-edited two books on socio-cultural perspectives on learning: Learning and Practice: Culture and Identities (2008, Murphy and Soler); Pedagogy and Practice: Agency and Identities (2008, with Murphy) and edited a book arising from an ESRC-funded exploration of interdisciplinary perspectives on reading: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Learning to Read: Culture, Cognition and Pedagogy (2010, with Goswami, Harrison, Ellis, and Soler). She is currently leading a knowledge exchange project on inclusion and pedagogy funded by the Irish Research Council and is working on a book with Curtin and Rutherford entitled Networks of the Mind: A Critical Neurocultural Perspective on Learning, to be published by Routledge in 2013.

Teresa Cremin is a Professor of Education (Literacy) at the Open University. She is a past President of the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) and a current Trustee and Board Member of Booktrust and the Poetry Archive in the UK. She is also joint coordinator of the British Educational Research Association Special Interest Group on Creativity, a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and currently Chair of the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award committee. Teresa’s socio-cultural research focuses on creativity in literacy teaching and learning, teachers’ literate identities and practices as readers and writers, and the pedagogy and practice of reading and writing for pleasure. She is currently leading a project exploring storytelling and story acting in the early years and another examining young people’s literary reading discussions in the context of extracurricular reading groups. Teresa has written and edited over 25 books and numerous research papers and professional texts, most recently Writing Voices: Creating Communities of Writers (2012, with Debra Myhill).

Barbara Comber is a Research Professor in the Faculty of Education at Queensland University of Technology. Her interests include literacy education and social justice, teachers’ work and identities, place and space, and practitioner inquiry. She has recently co-edited two books: The Hawke Legacy: Towards a Sustainable Society (2009, with McKinnon) and Literacies in Place: Teaching Environmental Communication (2007, with Comber, Nixon, and Reid). She is currently conducting three Australian Research Council funded projects: ‘Mandated literacy assessment and the reorganization of teachers’ work’; ‘New literacy demands in the middle years: Learning from design experiments’; and ‘Educational leadership and turnaround literacy pedagogy’.

Luis C. Moll is Professor in the Language, Reading and Culture Program of the Department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies, College of Education, The University of Arizona. His main research interest is the connection between culture, psychology, and education, especially as it relates to the education of children in at-risk conditions. His co-edited volume, Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms (2005), received the 2006 Critics’ Choice Award of the American Educational Studies Association. He was elected to membership of the (US) National Academy of Education (1998).

Contributors

Sandra Schamroth Abrams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at St John’s University in New York. Her interest in digital literacies and dynamic pedagogy fuels her research on virtual spaces and the identities and practices developed, maintained, and modified in online and offline social and academic contexts. Though Abrams primarily focuses on video games and learning, she recognizes the often symbiotic relationship among literacy practices, and, thus, examines digital narratives and multimodal representations to understand nuanced meaning-making at the seemingly irregular borders of digital and place-based environments. Along with Jennifer Rowsell, Abrams co-edited the NSSE volume, Rethinking Identity and Literacy Education in the 21st Century (2011), and she has published journal articles and book chapters that continue to explore the elements of behavior and learning, and the power and pedagogy shaping student understanding.

Florencia Alam received a BA in Language from the University of Buenos Aires. She is currently working on Master’s and PhD degrees in Discourse Analysis at the University of Buenos Aires and has obtained a doctoral scholarship from the CONICET (National Council of Scientific Research of Argentina). Her research is focused on interactions between children.

Evelyn Arizpe is a Lecturer in Children’s Literature at the School of Education, University of Glasgow. She is program leader for the MEd in Children’s Literature and Literacies and has taught and published widely in the areas of literacies, reader response to picture books, and children’s literature. She is co-author, with Morag Styles, of Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts (2003) and Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts (2006). Also with Morag Styles, she has co-edited Acts of Reading: Teachers, Texts and Childhood (2009). She has a particular interest in Mexican children’s books and children’s literature about Latin America. She is project leader for ‘Visual Journeys’, an international project based on research in Spain, Australia, and the United States that investigates immigrant children’s responses to wordless picture books. In the UK, the research was funded by a grant from the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA); the follow-up project was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Georgina Barton is a Lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, Australia. For over 20 years Dr Barton has been a classroom teacher and literacy educator in schools. She has worked with teachers, particularly in socio-disadvantaged areas, in developing literacy programs to improve students’ outcomes. She is also an Arts teacher, a researcher, and a practitioner, having performed both nationally and internationally in various music ensembles. She is currently researching in the area of Arts literacy and aesthetics education. Her other work focuses on multiliteracies, modalities, arts and music education, ethnomusicology, and teacher education.

Catherine Beavis is a Professor of Education at Griffith University, Australia. She teaches and researches in the areas of English and literacy curricula, and around digital culture, young people, and new media. Her work has a particular focus on the changing nature of text and literacy, and the implications of young people’s experience of the online world for contemporary English and Literacy curricula. Her research looks particularly at computer or video games and young people’s engagement with them, exploring the ways in which games work as new textual worlds for players, embodying and extending ‘new’ literate and multimodal literacies and stretching and changing expectations about ‘reading,’ narrative, and participation. Her work explores the role of game-play in young people’s lives, connections between game-play and constructions of identity and community, and games as the spaces within which young people play. She has a keen interest in what might be learned about students’ experience of digital texts such as video games in their out-of-school lives that might in turn enrich contemporary classroom curriculum and pedagogy. Publications include Teaching the English Subjects: Essays on English Curriculum History and Australian schooling (edited with Bill Green), P(ICT)ures of English: Teachers, Learners and Technology (edited with Cal Durant), and Doing Literacy Online: Teaching, Learning and Playing in an Electronic World (edited with Ilana Snyder). Publications in press include Digital Games: Literacy in Action (edited with Joanne O’Mara and Lisa McNeice) and Literacy in 3D (edited with Bill Green).

Shirley Brice Heath, Margery Bailey Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and Professor of Linguistics, Emerita, Stanford University, studies learning environments within families and under-resourced communities. A linguistic anthropologist, she is best known for her longitudinal research on language socialization within families and community settings. She also studies situations in which project work by artists and scientists is taking place. This research, carried out in studios, rehearsal zones, and laboratories, has demonstrated the importance of sustained visual attentiveness, embodiment, and the envisionment of a future outcome to project work. Her recent research is informed by cognitive neuroscience research that can supplement explanations of learning documented through observations and recordings of behavior. She is the author of the classic Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms (Cambridge University Press, 1983/1996) and the sequel volume, Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community Life (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Cathy Burnett is Senior Lecturer in Primary English at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, where she leads the Language and Literacy Research and Scholarship Group and co-leads the Teacher Education Research and Scholarship Group. Her research focuses on relationships between literacies within and beyond formal educational contexts, with a particular emphasis on the social practices emerging around new technologies in classrooms. She is interested in how children negotiate meaning through and around digital texts, using theories of space to explore meaning making across on/offline contexts. Her published work has also explored the continuities and discontinuities between pre-service teachers’ literacy practices in different domains of their lives and considered the barriers and possibilities that teachers associate with using new texts in schools. She is co-editor of the United Kingdom Literacy Association journal, Literacy.

Brian Cambourne is a Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Since 1980 Brian has been researching how learning, especially literacy learning, occurs. His current research interests have continued this tradition, and center on the re-examination of the concept of ‘learning’ through a ‘biological-cum-evolutionary’ lens rather than the traditional psychological lens. One outcome of this has been the reframing of ‘knowledge’ as ‘the sum total of all the meanings constructed using a range of abstract symbol systems.’ He is currently engaged in several schools, helping teachers develop discourse that reflects this way of framing ‘learning’ and monitoring how this discourse affects their pedagogies and their students’ knowledge building. Recent publications that reflect these interests include chapters in: Changing Literacies for Changing Times (2009); Defying Convention, Inventing the Future in Literacy Research and Practice (2010); and Reading Researchers in Search of Common Ground (2012).

Victoria Carrington took up a Chair in Education in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia in March 2010. Before joining UEA, she held a Research SA Chair at the University of South Australia and has held posts at the University of Plymouth, the University of Queensland, and the University of Tasmania. Victoria writes extensively in the fields of sociology of literacy and education and has a particular interest in the impact of new digital media on literacy practices. She is co-editor of the international journal Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education and sits on the editorial boards of a number of international journals. With Associate Professor Aaron Koh, she is the editor of a new book series Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education. Recent publications include: ‘Literacy-lite in BarbieGirls’ (2010) in the British Journal of Sociology of Education (with K. Hodgetts); Digital literacies: Social Learning and Classroom Practice (2009, with M. Robinson); and ‘The contemporary gothic: Literacy and childhood in unsettled times’ in the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy (2012).

Eveline Chan is a Senior Lecturer in English and Literacies Education in the School of Education, Australia. Eveline has worked in language education for over two decades, in teacher preparation programs in the areas of language and literacy development and TESOL, and in teaching students from non-English speaking backgrounds in school and tertiary contexts. Her research interests include literacy pedagogy and assessment, classroom discourse analysis, multimodal representations of curriculum knowledge, image-language interaction in multimodal texts, and reading in hypertext environments. She has served as the assistant editor of English for Specific Purposes: An International Research Journal and continues to review articles submitted to various peer-reviewed, scholarly publications in her areas of expertise. Eveline’s recent publications include a chapter in: Semiotic margins: Meaning in Multimodalities (2011), and ‘Image-language interaction in online reading environments: Challenges for students’ reading comprehension’ in The Australian Educational Researcher (2011, with Len Unsworth).

Johanne Clifton was, until recently, Head teacher at Allens Croft Primary School. She was appointed in 2006, and has a passionate commitment to the use of literature in raising standards in literacy. On arriving at Allens Croft, she found that the school had a strong sense of community values but was struggling with raising standards of achievement. Through working with creative practitioners, staff and parents, the school developed a clear ethos of creative learning and partnership in order to develop an engaging and relevant curriculum through which children were excited by learning and so able to achieve high standards in writing. She has since moved to Billesley Primary school, also in Birmingham.

Cassandra S. Coddington, PhD, is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park with a degree in Human Development Education. She has worked with the Reading Engagement Project, Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), and Reading Engagement for Adolescent Learners (REAL) at the University of Maryland; the Center for Research on Atypical Development and Learning (CRADL) at Georgia State University; and the Mobile Youth Survey (MYS) at the University of Alabama. She has co-authored research on reading and engagement published in Reading Psychology, the Journal of Learning Disabilities, and the Journal of Literacy Research, and has edited three handbook chapters. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in the College of Human Environmental Sciences, working on the Mobile Youth Survey. The MYS is a 14-year longitudinal survey study of 10- to 18-year-old low-income African-American youth’s behaviors and affects. She is currently studying predictors and contextual factors associated with academic resiliency in African-American adolescents from high-poverty communities. Of particular interest is the relationship between early reading success and later academic success and the role of engagement in that association.

Catherine Compton-Lilly is an Associate Professor in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Dr Compton-Lilly teaches courses in literacy studies and works with professional development schools in Madison. She is the author of Reading Families: The Literate Lives of Urban Children (2003), Rereading Families (2007), and Reading Time: The Literate Lives of Urban Secondary Students and their Families (2012). In these books she describes her experiences in following eight of her former first grade students through middle school. She is currently writing about the high school experiences of these same students. Dr Compton-Lilly has authored articles in the Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, and Language Arts. She engages in longitudinal research projects. Her interests include examining how time operates as a contextual factor in children’s lives as they progress through school and construct their identities as students and readers. In an ongoing study, Dr Compton-Lilly is working with a team of graduate students to follow 15 children from immigrant families from primary school through high school. She is currently the editor-in-chief of Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research.

Alicia Curtin is a Lecturer in the School of Education, University College, Cork. Her research interests center on adolescent literacies and identities in both school and non-school contexts. Her research also explores socio-cultural and neuroscientific understandings of learning and the implications of these understandings for everyday practice. She is currently working on a knowledge exchange project on inclusion and pedagogy funded by the Irish Research Council and is co-authoring a book entitled Networks of the Mind: A Critical Neurocultural Perspective on Learning, to be published in 2013.

Sophie Dewayani graduated in 2011 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she completed her dissertation on the literacy practices of street children in Bandung, Indonesia. She will continue her research on the literacy practices of under-represented children in Indonesia, especially those related to the use of popular culture. Currently, she is an Adjunct Lecturer in Bandung Institute of Technology and Indonesia University of Education.

Clare Dowdall is a Lecturer in Education at Plymouth University where she works mainly with PGCE students in the areas of language and literacy. She has published several articles and book chapters on children’s use of social networking sites as platforms to perform identity through textual artifact construction. Her key research interests include children’s text production and design in the digital age, and the tensions that can be perceived between the formal curriculum for young children’s education and their creation of and engagement with texts in their own online spaces. Currently she is involved in a joint project researching urban textual landscapes with Victoria Carrington. Recent publications include: ‘Impressions, improvisations and compositions: Reframing children’s text production in the digital age,’ in Literacy – Literacy and Identity Special Issue (2009); chapters in Digital Literacies, Social Learning and Classroom Practices (2009, with M. Robinson) and Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures (2008); and (2006) ‘Dissonance between the digitally created words of school and home’, in Literacy (2006).

Bernadette Dwyer is a Lecturer in Literacy Studies in Education at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University. Bernadette currently teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Education Department of the college. She is also involved in a range of continuing professional development courses with teachers. Previously a classroom teacher, with over 23 years of teaching experience, she has taught at all levels of the primary school, including in Learning Support. She has also taught in a variety of school settings including in high-poverty districts. She earned her PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2010. Her doctoral dissertation: ‘Scaffolding Internet reading: A study of a disadvantaged school community in Ireland’, focused on the integration of the new literacies of the Internet within an inquiry-based classroom curriculum in a disadvantaged school setting. Her research work currently focuses on the development of new literacies, particularly online reading comprehension processes; digital tools that support the development of reading, writing, communication, and deep learning across the content areas; and supporting struggling readers from disadvantaged communities in an online environment.

Anne Haas Dyson is currently a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She studies the childhood cultures and literacy learning of young schoolchildren. Among her publications are Social Worlds of Children Learning to Write in an Urban Primary School, which was awarded NCTE’s David Russell Award for Distinguished Research, Writing Superheroes, The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write: Popular Literacies in Childhood and School Cultures, and, with Celia Genishi, Children, Language, and Literacy: Diverse Learners in Diverse Times.

Sue Ellis studied Linguistics and Language Pathology at the University of Essex and is currently Reader in Education at the University of Strathclyde, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on literacy development and literacy pedagogy. Her research interests are in literacy and literacy policy implementation. Recent funded projects have focused on support models for children with language impairment in mainstream classrooms; formative assessment in the writing curriculum; and on developing genre pedagogies in primary and secondary schools. She is interested in the ways in which different epistemological understandings of language and literacy can enhance teachers’ empirical knowledge base for making decisions about literacy teaching and learning in schools. She is a member of the editorial boards of Child Language Teaching and Therapy and the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) journal, Literacy, and sits on the publications committee of the International Reading Association. She coordinates the Language and Literacy Special Interest Group of the British Educational Research Association and is the UKLA representative on the International Development in Europe Committee and on the Committee for Linguistics in Education. Her most recent book is Applied Linguistics and Primary Teaching (2001, with Elspeth McCartney).

Moisés Esteban-Guitart is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Girona (Spain). He received his doctorate from the University of Barcelona and did pre-doctoral visits at the Intercultural University of Chiapas (México) and Leeds University. He conducted postdoctoral studies at the Institute for Cultural Research and Education (California) and has been a visiting scholar in the Department of  Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. His research addresses the connections between culture, identity, and education, especially in relation to the construction of identity in multicultural settings such as in Chiapas (indigenous and mestizos students) and in Catalonia, Spain (immigrant populations). He has studied how identity processes take place in the broader social contexts of school, family, and community life, and attempted to establish pedagogical relationships between these settings. He is a member of the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research.

Maureen Farrell is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, School of Education. She has been a researcher and teacher, working in schools and FE colleges for 12 years before becoming a teacher educator. She has been a program leader and Associate Dean with responsibility for all Initial Teacher Education programs and is on the teaching team for the MEd in Children’s Literature and Literacies. She gained her PhD in Scottish Children’s Literature in 2008. Her research interests and publications are mainly in that field, though recently she has also worked on both the ‘Visual Journeys’ and ‘Journeys from Images to Words’ projects with Evelyn Arizpe and Julie McAdam.

Peter Freebody is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, and is based in the Faculty of Education and Social Work. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. His research and teaching interests are literacy education, educational disadvantage, classroom interaction, and research methodology. He has authored and edited books, journal articles, and chapters on these topics, including invited entries in international handbooks and encyclopedias. He has served on Australian regional, state, and national advisory groups in the areas of literacy education and curriculum design. He was evaluator of the Australian national online curriculum initiative conducted by the Australian Curriculum Corporation, and a co-founder of the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. He is currently a member of the New South Wales State Ministerial Advisory Group for Literacy and Numeracy, the Australian Commonwealth Government’s National Literacy and Numeracy Expert Group, and the International Reading Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Recent publications include chapters in The Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts (2010); Literacy and Social Responsibility: Multiple Perspectives (2010); and The International Handbook of Reading Research (2011).

Toni Gennrich teaches in the School of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Her teaching and research are in the areas of media literacy, academic literacy, teacher identity, and drama teaching. She has written material for educational supplements in newspapers and has presented material for students on television. She is currently working on a PhD on teachers’ literate habits.

Perry Gilmore, PhD, a sociolinguist and educational anthropologist, is Professor of Language, Reading and Culture and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching faculty at the University of Arizona. She is also Professor Emerita at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks where she maintains an affiliate faculty position at the Alaska Native Language Center. She has conducted communication, language, and literacy research in a wide variety of urban and rural settings in the US, Russia, Africa, and Australia. Interest in language and communication has led her to explore a wide range of questions on the origin, nature, and development of interaction and communication, including: field studies of nonhuman primate communication in the West Indies and East Africa; pidginization and creolization of languages; social aspects of literacy acquisition; and Indigenous language and culture regenesis. She is the author of numerous ethnographic studies and co-editor of several major ethnography collections including Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education; The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives; and Indigenous Epistemologies and Education: Self-Determination, Anthropology and Human Rights. Gilmore is a past President of the Council on Anthropology and Education.

Bill Green is Professor of Education in the School of Teacher Education and Strategic Research Professor in the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE) at Charles Sturt University, Australia. His research interests are focused on curriculum inquiry and literacy studies, English teaching and curriculum history, doctoral research education, education for rural-regional sustainability, and practice theory and professional education. He has a longstanding interest, in particular, in literacy and technology, and more generally in technocultural studies in education. His publications include a number of significant edited volumes, including The Insistence of the Letter: Literacy Studies and Curriculum Theorizing (1993), Teaching the English Subjects: Essays on English Curriculum History and Australian Schooling (1996, with Catherine Beavis), and more recently Understanding and Researching Professional Practice (2009). He also co-authored with Colin Lankshear and Ilana Snyder Teachers and Technoliteracy: Managing Literacy, Technology and Learning in Schools (2000). Publications in press and forthcoming include Literacy in 3D: A Multidimensional Perspective in Literacy Education (co-edited with Catherine Beavis) and Rethinking Rural Literacies: Transnational Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), co-edited with Michael Corbett. He is co-editor of the UK-based journal Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, and among his recent activities is a Special Issue of English Teaching; Practice and Critique entitled ‘English(es) and the Sense of Place’, co-edited with Urszula Clark.

Erica Hateley teaches and researches children’s and adolescent literature in the School of Cultural and Language Studies in Education at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She is the author of Shakespeare in Children’s Literature: Gender and Cultural Capital (2009) and is currently undertaking research into Australian children’s book awards.

Jennifer I. Hathaway is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Reading and Elementary Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches elementary reading methods courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She received her PhD at Vanderbilt University after teaching in elementary schools for several years. Her research interests include teachers’ beliefs, teacher education, and professional development for teachers. She is also interested in supporting struggling readers’ learning and is part of a research team working to improve young readers’ comprehension. She has served as the chairperson of the Disabled Reader Special Interest Group of the International Reading Association since 2009.

Hilary Janks is a Professor in the School of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is the editor and an author of the Critical Language Awareness series of workbooks and the author of Literacy and Power (2009). Her teaching and research are in the areas of language education in multilingual classrooms, language policy, and critical literacy. Her work is committed to a search for equity and social justice in contexts of poverty.

Rebecca Jesson is a Research Fellow in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of Auckland, and is a Senior Researcher with the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. Her research focuses on raising achievement in literacy in diverse communities in New Zealand. A specific focus is the pedagogy of writing and building teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for writing using the theories of intertextuality and transfer as the impetus for refinements to writing instruction.

Stephanie Jones is concerned about women disciplining one another in service of a neoliberal state that excludes and exploits women. She is also Associate Professor at the University of Georgia where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on ethnographic and place-based teaching for social change, feminist theory and pedagogy, social class and poverty, early childhood education, and literacy. She is co-director of the Red Clay Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project, and of the CLASSroom project for assembling class-sensitive pedagogies and ending classism in schools. Stephanie’s scholarly interests sit at the intersections of social class, gender, place, bodies, and critical literacies, and she is currently working with the comics medium to transform a three-year study of feminist pedagogy in teacher education into a graphic book. Recent publications include: ‘Negotiating mothering identities: Ethnographic and intergenerational insights to social class and gender in a high-poverty US context’, in Gender and Education; ‘Making sense of injustices in a classed world: Working-poor girls’ discursive practices and critical literacies’, in Pedagogies: An International Journal; ‘Speaking of bodies in justice-oriented, feminist teacher education’ (with Hilary Hughes-Decatur), in the Journal of Teacher Education; and ‘The precarious nature of social class-sensitivity in literacy: A social, autobiographic, and pedagogical project’ (with Mark Vagle), in Curriculum Inquiry. She serves on the editorial review boards for: Language Arts; English Teaching: Practice and Critique; Reading and Writing Quarterly; and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.

Tanya Kaefer is Research Fellow at the University of Michigan. Dr Kaefer earned her doctoral degree in developmental psychology from Duke University in 2009. She studies reading development and the influence of content knowledge on early literacy skills.

Barbara Kamler is Emeritus Professor at Deakin University, Melbourne and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. She has researched extensively on the theory and practice of writing across the life span, from early childhood to old age, in primary, secondary, university, and community contexts. Her work with teacher researchers has used writing as a form of social action and identity formation to achieve socially just literacy outcomes. She currently runs Writing Designs, a program that offers seminars, workshops, and writing retreats to help doctoral and early career academics develop authoritative writing and a robust publication record. Recent book publications include Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies for Supervision (with Pat Thomson, 2006); Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and Beyond (co-edited with Claire Aitchison and Alison Lee, 2010) and; Writing for Peer Refereed Journals: Strategies for Success (with Pat Thomson, 2012.)

Eithne Kennedy is a teacher educator at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, where she teaches on a range of literacy courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Prior to joining the college faculty, she was a classroom teacher for many years in Dublin and the US. Her doctoral research, which focused on raising literacy achievement in disadvantaged schools, was awarded the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2010. As the director of the Write to Read research initiative, a St Patrick’s College, School and Community Literacy project, she works collaboratively with schools and communities to design and implement research-based approaches to literacy instruction aimed at raising achievement in ways that motivate and engage children as readers, writers, and thinkers. She has authored and co-authored several publications in the field including policy papers on literacy, articles for The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, and her first book, Raising Literacy Achievement in High-Poverty Schools: An Evidence-Based Approach (2012). She regularly presents at national and international conferences including RAI, UKLA, LRA, and IRA. She is a past President and current executive committee member of the Reading Association of Ireland.

Julie Kiggins is Sub Dean in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. She is an experienced senior lecturer with high-level involvement in and coordination of mainstream teacher education and an alternative teacher education program – the Knowledge Building Community program (KBC). The KBC program achieved recognition via national and international conference presentations, book chapters, and journal publications as well as favorable reviews in the Ramsey Report: Quality Matters (2000) and the NSW Inquiry into Public Education conducted by Professor Tony Vinson (2001). It was tabled in the NSW Parliamentary Enquiry into the Recruitment and Training of Teachers (2005) and the National Inquiry into Teacher Education (2006). In 2006, she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Early Career Academic Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning. Together with Brian Cambourne she won a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and a Carrick Australian University Teaching Award for a program that Enhances Student Learning in the Innovation in Curricula, Learning, and Teaching category for the Knowledge Building Community Program.

Karl Kitching is a Lecturer in the School of Education, University College, Cork. From his experiences of primary schools he developed his research interests in literacy, migrant education, and the politics of racism, schooling, and nation-building. He has published recent pieces on these themes in the journals Race Ethnicity and Education, Power and Education, Irish Educational Studies, and the books Race and Intersectionality in Education (with Bhopal and Preston, 2012), Pedagogy, Oppression and Transformation in a ‘Post-Critical’ Climate (O’Shea and O’Brien, 2011) and The Changing Faces of Ireland (with Darmody, Tyrrell, and Song, 2010). He is currently finishing a paper titled ‘Where is she from if she’s not making her Communion?’, which examines the politics of religion, secularism, childhood, and nation-building in the Irish public school system.

Rachael Levy is Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Sheffield. She directs and teaches on the Early Childhood Education strand of the University’s EdD program and is Course Director for the MA in Educational Studies, which is run in Malta. Rachael’s research interests focus on the factors that influence young children’s attitudes and beliefs about literacy. She is especially interested in understanding how constructions of reading are influenced by children’s home and school discourses, including the impact of technological change within communication practices in society. Issues of confidence and motivation for learning are also inherent factors within Rachael’s research. In particular, she is concerned with developing an understanding of the factors that influence young children’s confidence and attitudes toward themselves as learners. Rachael is also interested in gender studies and has explored young boys’ and girls’ attitudes toward aspects of literacy. She has recently published Young Children Reading at Home and at School (2011), which reports extensive research that challenges existing approaches to the teaching of reading and encourages the reader to reflect on the ways in which practice needs to be developed to promote young children’s confidence and motivation for reading. She has also published a variety of journal articles and book chapters. Rachael reviews articles for several journals and is currently the editor for the UKLA minibook series.

Guofang Li is an Associate Professor of Second Language and Literacy Education in the Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University. Li’s research focuses on immigrant students’ home literacy practices and their relationships to schooling framed around issues of culture, race, class, and gender; Asian immigrants’ education, their social processes of learning, and the impact of the ‘model minority’ myth on language and literacy development; and research-based practices in ESL/EFL education. Li has published nine books and over 60 journal articles and book chapters. Her recent works include: Best Practices in ELL Instruction (2010, with P. Edwards); Multicultural Families, Home Literacies, and Mainstream Schooling (2009); Model Minority Myths Revisited: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Demystifying Asian American Education Experiences (2008); and Culturally Contested Literacies: America’s ‘Rainbow Underclass’ and Urban Schools (2008). Li is the recipient of the 2011 Publication Award of the Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences in the US (ACPSS), the 2010 Early Career Award at the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the 2008 Division G Early Career Award of AERA, and the 2006 Ed Fry Book Award of the National Reading Conference.

Karen Littleton is Professor of Psychology in Education at the Open University, where she directs the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology. Her research addresses the complex interrelationship between context and cognition and highlights that ways of thinking are embedded in the use of language in social context. She has a particular interest in the use of language in the classroom. In collaboration with colleagues (notably Professor Neil Mercer, University of Cambridge, UK; Dr Lyn Dawes, University of Northampton, UK; and Professor Rupert Wegerif, University of Exeter, UK) she has developed a distinctive line of research concerned with understanding how classroom dialogue contributes to children’s intellectual development. A former editor of the International Journal of Educational Research and the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction’s book series, Karen is currently editor of the Routledge Psychology of Education book series. She serves on the editorial boards of Educational Research Review, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, and International Journal of Educational Research. Her most recent books are Educational Dialogues (2010, with Christine Howe), International Handbook of Psychology in Education (2010, with Clare Wood and Judith Kleine Staarman), and Orchestrating Inquiry Learning (2012, with Eileen Scanlon and Mike Sharples).

Margaret Mackey is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. She teaches, researches, and publishes widely in the area of multimodal literacies and youth culture. Her most recent book is Narrative Pleasures in Young Adult Novels, Films, and Video Games (2011).

Jackie Marsh is Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests center on the role and nature of popular culture, media, and new technologies in young children’s literacy development, both in- and out-of-school. She is also interested in how teachers can develop literacy curricula and pedagogy appropriate for the digital age. Jackie has been involved in a number of research projects that have explored these issues, funded by bodies such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), British Academy, BBC, and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Jackie is currently involved in research on the history of childhood and play, based on the archive of material that the folklorists Iona and Peter Opie deposited at the Bodleian Library. Her recent publications include Children, Media and Playground Cultures: Ethnographic Studies of School Playtimes (with Willett, Richards, Burn, and Bishop, in press), Children’s Virtual Play Worlds: Culture, Learning and Participation (co-edited with J. Burke, in press), and Virtual Literacies: Interactive Spaces for Children and Young People (co-edited with Merchant, Gillen, and Davies, in press). She is also currently involved in editing, with Joanne Larson, a second edition of the Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy. Jackie is an editor of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy.

Janet Maybin is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Communication at the Open University. Originally trained as a social anthropologist, she has written extensively for Open University courses and also researches and writes on children’s and adults’ informal language and literacy practices, focusing currently on voice and creativity. Recent publications include Children’s Voices: Talk, Knowledge and Identity (2006), The Art of English: Everyday Texts and Practices (edited with J. Swann, 2006), Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories (edited with N.J. Watson, 2009) and The Routledge Companion to English Language Studies (edited with J. Swann, 2009).

Julie McAdam is a University Teacher at the University of Glasgow, School of Education. She has been involved in literacy teaching and establishing teacher education programs in international settings, such as Egypt, Portugal, Hungary, UAE, and Scotland. She has worked as a researcher on funded projects on teacher identity, mentoring, and visual literacy. Her most recent work has been with children newly arrived in Scotland in both the ‘Visual Journeys’ and ‘Journeys from Images to Words’ projects with Evelyn Arizpe and Maureen Farrell.

Stuart McNaughton is Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland. His research focuses on literacy and language development, including the design of effective instruction and educational programs for culturally and linguistically diverse populations. His current research focuses on the properties of effective teaching of literacy and language in the context of research-based interventions with clusters of schools, including a focus on literacy across and within content areas.

Neil Mercer is Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Chair of the Psychology and Education Group and Vice President of the college Hughes Hall. Previously, he was Professor of Language and Communications at the Open University. He is a psychologist with particular interests in the development of children’s language and reasoning, classroom talk, and the application of digital technology in schools. His research with colleagues generated the ‘Thinking Together’ practical approach to talk for learning, and he has worked extensively with teachers, researchers, and educational policy makers on its application in schools. Formerly editor of the journals Learning and Instruction and The International Journal of Educational Research, he is now an editor of the journal Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. His most recent books are Exploring Talk in School (with Steve Hodgkinson, 2008) and Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking (with Karen Littleton, 2007).

Guy Merchant is Professor of Literacy in Education, and research lead for the Department of Teacher Education at Sheffield Hallam University. His research focuses on the relationship between children and young people, new technology and literacy, and he has published widely in this area. Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation (2009), co-written with Julia Davies, has been influential in charting the way forward for new literacies in education. Guy is also lead editor of Virtual Literacies: Interactive Spaces for Children and Young People (2012), a collection that includes recent empirical research on virtual worlds and online spaces in and beyond educational institutions, and contains international studies from the UK, North America, and Australasia. He is a founding editor of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, and a member of the editorial board of Literacy. He is also active in literacy education and professional work, including writing curriculum materials and professional publications. He is research convener for the United Kingdom Literacy Association and a member of the association’s Executive Committee and National Council.

Kathy A. Mills is involved in language and literacy education at the Queensland University of Technology. Dr Mills has published educational research widely in multiliteracies, multimodality, reading comprehension, new pedagogies, critical ethnography, and literacy assessment. Dr Mills is currently part of a research team investigating a print and digital literacy educational reform funded by the Australian Research Council for students from low socio-economic and Indigenous backgrounds. Mills is the author of four books, most recently The Multiliteracies Classroom. She has published in international journals that include Review of Educational Research, Linguistics and Education, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and the Australian Educational Researcher. Dr Mills serves internationally on the executive committee of the AERA Writing and Literacies SIG, and is a review board member of The Reading Teacher.

Elizabeth Birr Moje is Associate Dean for Research and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Moje also serves as a Faculty Associate in the University’s Institute for Social Research, Latino/a Studies, and the Joint Program in English and Education. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary and adolescent literacy, literacy and cultural theory, and qualitative and mixed research methods. Her research interests focus on the intersection between the literacies and texts youth are asked to learn in the disciplines and the literacies and texts they experience outside school. In addition, Moje studies how youth make cultures and enact identities from their home and community literacies, and from ethnic cultures, popular cultures, and school cultures. These research interests stem from the start of her career when she taught history, biology, and drama at high schools in Colorado and Michigan. Her current research focuses on communities and schools in Detroit, Michigan. She also engages in literacy professional development with teachers in Detroit and around the world.

Susan B. Neuman is a Professor in Educational Studies specializing in early literacy development. Previously, she served as the US Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Early Reading First program, developed the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program and was responsible for all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act. Along with Linda Gambrell, she is the incoming editor of Reading Research Quarterly, the most prestigious journal in reading research. Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction for pre-Kindergarten through Grade 3 children who live in poverty. She has written over 100 articles, and authored and edited 11 books, including the Handbook of Early Literacy Research (vols I, II, III) with David Dickinson, Changing the Odds for Children at Risk (2009), Educating the Other America (2008), and Multimedia and Literacy Development (2008).

Helen Nixon is Associate Professor of Education in the Children and Youth Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include young people’s relationships with place, their meaning-making using new media, and the implications of the changing landscape of communication for literacy curricula and pedagogy. A recent book co-authored with Sue Nichols, Jennifer Rowsell, and Sophia Rainbird is Resourcing Early Learners: New Networks, New Actors (2012) published by Routledge.

Kate Pahl is a Reader in Literacies in Education at the University of Sheffield. Her work focuses on literacy in home and community contexts. She has conducted a number of research projects that focus on the nature of home writing practices, drawing on collaborative methodologies. She has increasingly focused on the co-production of research with communities, for example, through her research projects, including Language as Talisman funded by the AHRC’s Connected Communities program. She is the Deputy Director of the Research Exchange for the Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield, with a focus on community university partnerships. Kate has written widely in the field of arts practice, literacy and language in communities, and ethnography. She is the author of Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom (with Jennifer Rowsell, 2nd edn, 2012) as well as Artifactual Literacies: Every Object Tells a Story (2010, with Jennifer Rowsell). Kate is the Director of the EdD in Literacy and Language at the University of Sheffield. Her book The Uses of Literacy Revisited: Materialising Literacies in Communities is to be published in 2014.

Judy Parr is Professor of Education at the University of Auckland. Within literacy, her particular expertise is in writing, encompassing how writing develops, the cultural tools of written literacy, considerations of instructional issues like teacher knowledge and practice and, in particular, assessment of written language. A major focus of her research concerns school change and improvement in order to ensure effective practice and raise achievement in literacy for under-served students.

Ashley M. Pinkham is a Research Fellow at the University of Michigan. Dr Pinkham completed her doctoral studies in cognitive-developmental psychology at the University of Virginia in 2009. Her research focuses on sources of children’s knowledge acquisition and conceptual development, including observational learning, adult–child conversations, and book-reading experiences.

Taffy E. Raphael, PhD, is Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and President of SchoolRise LLC. Her research includes strategy instruction in comprehension and writing, and frameworks for literacy curriculum and instruction (e.g., QAR, Book Club Plus). She directed Partnership READ (2002–2011), a school–university partnership to improve literacy instruction through professional development, recognized by the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education’s 2006 Best Practices Award for Effective Partnerships. She has published several books and over 100 articles and chapters. She received the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award in 1997, the 2007 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Distinguished Alumni Award, the 2011 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2008 National Reading Conference Oscar Causey Award for Lifetime Contributions to Literacy Research. She has been a Fellow of the National Council of Research in Language and Literacy since 1996 and member of the Reading Hall of Fame since 2002. She served on the Board of Directors of International Reading Association (2007–2010) and on the Board of Directors (1987–1989), as Treasurer (1989–1992), and as President (1999–2000) of the Literacy Research Association (formerly National Reading Conference).

Iliana Reyes (PhD, UC Berkeley) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. She is also a faculty member in the following programs: Language, Reading and Culture, Early Childhood Education, SLAT (Second Language and Acquisition Teaching), and the Center for Latin American Studies. She is the Director of the Early Childhood LiBRO (Literacy and Biliteracy Resource Office) project, a resource collection that provides undergraduate and graduate students and teachers with updated research materials and early literacy development bilingual books to be used in the classroom with preschool and elementary educators and children. Her research encompasses a range of key issues in the areas of early childhood, early language and literacy development, biliteracy, and, more recently, the Reggio Emilia approach and inquiry in young children. Dr Reyes has also examined family and student engagement with immigrant families and their learning experiences outside the classroom and how these provide opportunities for young children to explore their 100 Languages (Malaguzzi, 1993) and use these to express their knowledge and theories about their worlds.

Victoria J. Risko is Professor Emerita, Vanderbilt University and the 2011–2012 President of the International Reading Association. She is a former classroom teacher and reading specialist and for years has collaborated with classroom teachers and curriculum specialists to provide literacy instruction that makes a difference for students, especially students who experience reading difficulties. She has taught prospective teachers, and Master’s and doctoral students, at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on teacher education, reading comprehension and meaningful learning, and uses of cases and multimedia environments to enhance learning, especially the learning of diverse and struggling learners. She has received teaching and research awards and in May 2011 was inducted into the Hall of Fame, International Reading Association. She is co-author of Declaration of Readers’ Rights (2007, with JoAnn Bass, Sheryl Dasinger, Laurie Elish-Piper, and Mona Matthews); Collaboration for Diverse Learners (2001, with Karen Bromley); and Be that Teacher! Breaking the Cycle for Struggling Readers (2012, with Doris Walker-Dalhouse).

Celia R. Rosemberg is a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET) and a Professor in the School of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. She was awarded her PhD in Education from the University of Buenos Aires and specializes in early literacy development. Her work, carried out within a psycholinguistic and socio-cultural framework, aims to study and promote literacy in children living in different socio-cultural contexts.

Lisa Schwartz is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has worked with youth from diverse racial, working-class, and immigrant backgrounds. Currently, she works with Dr Kris Gutiérrez and a team on the Connected Learning Research Network (CLRN). Her dissertation research reflects the accumulation of her experience as a researcher, educator, and designer of digital learning environments. She has presented numerous papers and has journal articles in preparation as well as a chapter in Time and Space in Literacy Research (with Nogueron-Liu and González, forthcoming).