In this essay, I share how my own readings and understandings of Islam brought me closer to wider concepts of literacy. I use these views to guide my own research in literacy education to situate what literacy can be for youth in and around schools, knowing that literacy is still taught, assessed, and measured in singular ways.

Donna E. Alvermann, Distinguished Research Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia in Athens, received recognitions and honors as a scholar/leader in adolescent literacy. Her thoughts about contexts for literacy learning challenge that the divide between in- and out-of-school literacy learning is real and needs…

In this article, the authors present reasons why it is easy to get lost when it comes to teaching literacy. Instead of a "best practices" approach in which educators are advised to implement programs because they worked for others, the authors advocate a teacher-researcher paradigm that provides a set of social practices for outgrowing our current…

Increased use of practitioner research in literacy education is opening new vistas for grassroots knowledge. Such research affords new possibilities for professional growth, an improved image of literacy, and the potential to reduce illiteracy to minimal levels. (JOW)

Adult basic and literacy education (ABLE) is governed by political processes that impede practice. New trends that may help move ABLE toward democracy include the Internet as a site of policy debates and advocacy and use of the findings of practitioner action research. (Contains 16 references.) (SK)

This bilingual exploration of program-based research discusses research in the everyday life of literacy programs and is also an account of one practitioner's personal experience. The first part explains the concept of program-based research. The second part reports on the relative lack of research in this area and gives a brief analysis of the…

The creation of a teacher-researcher community among educators developing a literacy curriculum for students with mild disabilities in the primary grades is discussed. Six categories of discourse among the teachers and researchers are considered, and findings that might usefully guide collaborative research are discussed. (SW)

This publication contains nine articles about the process of doing research by literacy practitioners and volunteers in several areas of the Ontario (Canada) literacy field. "Implementing a Workplace Program: A Look Back" (Maria Ioannou-Makrakis) describes the process followed and the learning outcomes from planning, implementing, and…

This document presents the personal narrative of an adult literacy practitioner who has worked with Literacy Volunteers of America and a reading center in Connecticut and who signed up for the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) Teacher Research Project on Learner Motivation, Retention, and Persistence in 1998.…

Two activist teacher educators discuss the ravages of global capitalism, abandonment of American cities, breakdown of Keynesian economics, dismantling of the welfare state, and resulting dissolution of identities and entire lives. Schools must fight social injustice and racism. Teachers should pursue classroom-based research that investigates the…

Staff members of a state literary resource center surveyed their practitioner clients to determine how they viewed research and the kinds of uses they made of it. Mail surveys were sent to all of the 404 adult education and English as a second language program directors in the state, and followup telephone interviews were conducted with 16 of the…

This document, which is described by its author as a "critical autobiography", traces one adult educator's 15-year journey from graduate school and into the field of adult literacy and the process of his development into what he calls "an American scholar." The autobiographical narrative is developed against the backdrop of the…