Session Information
31 SES 14 A, Innovative Methodological Approaches to Investigate Literacies and Languages Learning in Education
Symposium
Contribution
In this symposium we bring together representations of innovative methodological research methods, to provide insight to language and literacy research as a social, cultural and material practice. We argue that foregrounding the material dimensions of learning language and literacy expands understandings of how language and literacy are learnt as we consider the material, temporal and spatial elements of human action, events and occurrences (Fenwick & Landri, 2012). Our interest is in everyday practices, and we recognize that understanding these everyday practices must take account of how people intra-act with tools, resources and technologies to achieve particular goals (Fenwick, Edwards & Sawchuk, 2011).
The point is to foreground ways of researching that allow us to ‘plug in’ (Kuby, Rucker and Kirchhofer, 2015) to understandings of language and literacy as social and material practices as we engage in the processes of collecting, producing and analyzing research data.
We answer the question:
What are the implications of understanding literacy and language learning as a social and material process for how research is conducted?
The suite of papers and ensuing discussion will reveal and explore innovative research practices employed toward understanding literate practices across a diverse range of literacy learning contexts, enabling investigation of theoretical, methodological and practical dimensions of current language and literacy education and research. The papers draw on recent international scholarship in this field, with the symposium bringing together research from four different international contexts. All researchers have been informed by innovative work in this field and the symposium will be structured to ensure continuing discussions across European and international contexts are fore grounded. We consider intra-action of humans, tools, resources, technologies and texts in material cultures such as classrooms, and understand that this requires new ways to approach the production and analysis of research data. Foregrounding the types of experiences had, as material, spatial, temporal and human intra-act, requires new ways of seeing, hearing and ‘thinking with’ (Haraway, 2015) research participants and spaces.
The symposium will include an introduction to sociomaterial understandings of literacy; the presentation of four papers; a commentary by the discussant; and a final open discussion with all attending the symposium on the issues raised. The introduction section will contextualise the research projects within new understandings of learning language and literacy as social and material practices. Each of the four papers will then highlight innovative approaches to engaging sociomaterial understandings of literacy. Paper one brings a sociomaterial lens to maps produced by children as they explain to interested adults, how, where, with what, and with whom they are learning to write. Paper two draws upon meta-ethnography to investigate how research texts become artefacts that capture ways of understanding and thinking about family literacy and language practices through metaphors that are used, reused, revised and changed over time. Paper three focuses on the spatialities and embodiments of childhood in play drawing on post-qualitative research methods to position researcher and child as playmates and participatory researchers engaging in ethnographic techniques to understand their worlds. Paper four analyses video tours produced by teachers when asked to provide details of how their classrooms were set up to support learning language. The purpose is to illuminate teachers’ perspectives on classroom learning spaces and materials. The discussant will then provide a commentary that will fore ground conceptualizations of literacy, as well as comment on the innovations to established research practices if we are to engage these new ways of thinking about language and literacy. Finally the chair will lead an open discussion which focuses on the innovative methodologies discussed and the insights for languages and literacies education that they provide.
References
Fenwick, T. Edwards, R. & Sawchuk, P. (2011). Emerging approaches to educational research: Tracing the socio-material. London: Routledge. Fenwick, T., & Landri, P. (2012). Materialities, textures and pedagogies: Socio-material assemblages in education. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 20 (1), 1-7. Kuby, C., Rucker, T., & Kirchofer, J., (2015). Go be a writer: Intra-activity with materials,time and space in literacy learning. Journal of Early Childhood Liteacy 15(3), 394-419. Haraway, D. (2015). A curious practice. Angelaki, 20(2), 5-14
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