TY - JOUR

T1 - Literacy Research and Its Relationship with Policy

T2 - What and Who Informs Policy and Why Is Some Research Ignored?

AU - Papen, Uta

PY - 2023/8/1

Y1 - 2023/8/1

N2 - Socio-cultural and practice-based approaches to literacy, associated with the (New) Literacy Studies, having emerged in the 1980s, nowadays are an established research field. Based on in-depth research, in many contexts and countries, the (New) Literacy Studies has much tooffer to teachers and policymakers. And yet this impressive body of work has had little impact on policy. Taking as my example England, I ask what research has shaped policy in the past 30 years and why socio-cultural and practice-based studies have been ignored. Thus, I address the question of where the field has been and where it should go to from the point of view of its relationship with policy. My focus is on the initial teaching of literacy in primary (elementary)schools. I discuss three factors which I believe contribute to our struggles to influence policy: the policy environment itself and how it has changed; the wider economy of literacy research and what knowledge counts in the interface between research and policy; and, finally, the role of the media and public discourse in the relationship between research and policy. I end withquestions about what we may have missed and where the field might want to go.

AB - Socio-cultural and practice-based approaches to literacy, associated with the (New) Literacy Studies, having emerged in the 1980s, nowadays are an established research field. Based on in-depth research, in many contexts and countries, the (New) Literacy Studies has much tooffer to teachers and policymakers. And yet this impressive body of work has had little impact on policy. Taking as my example England, I ask what research has shaped policy in the past 30 years and why socio-cultural and practice-based studies have been ignored. Thus, I address the question of where the field has been and where it should go to from the point of view of its relationship with policy. My focus is on the initial teaching of literacy in primary (elementary)schools. I discuss three factors which I believe contribute to our struggles to influence policy: the policy environment itself and how it has changed; the wider economy of literacy research and what knowledge counts in the interface between research and policy; and, finally, the role of the media and public discourse in the relationship between research and policy. I end withquestions about what we may have missed and where the field might want to go.

U2 - 10.58680/rte202332611

DO - 10.58680/rte202332611

M3 - Journal article

VL - 58

SP - 63

EP - 80

JO - Research in the Teaching of English

JF - Research in the Teaching of English

SN - 0034-527X

IS - 1

M1 - 3

ER -