Abstract
Improving Theory in Literacy Research
Researchers’ theoretical and epistemological assumptions are at the basis of any intellectual inquiry (e.g., Hanson, 1958; Kuhn, 1962/1996; Lakatos & Musgrave, 1970; Popper, 1968). More recently, Gould (2003) has written, “How could we ever discern a pattern, or see anything coherent amid an infinitude of potential perceptions, unless we employed some theoretical expectation to guide our penetration of this plethora”? (p. 34). Similarly, according to Vygotsky (1997),
In a very disguised form, imperceptible to the investigator himself, the theoretical presuppositions fully determine the whole method of processing the empirical data. And the facts gathered in observation, too, are interpreted in accordance with the theory which this or that author holds. (p. 270)
Furthermore, Bateson (2002) has noted that not only is it “clearly desirable for the scientist to know consciously and be able to state his/her own suppositions; it is also necessary for scientific judgment to know the presuppositions of colleagues working in the same field” (p. 27). This conscious “knowing” of one’s own theoretical suppositions or assumptions and aspects of their axiological, epistemological, and ontological underpinnings is crucial to a cogent and plausible interpretation of any data.
That said, if we as Journal of Literacy Research (JLR) editors were to summarize the number one concern of our review board regarding the nearly 600 manuscripts, which have been submitted during our term, it would be the need for literacy researchers to more clearly explicate the conceptual foundations of the theories invoked and subsequent impact of those theoretical frameworks upon design, analysis, and interpretation of the studies conducted. What we look for are statements about the epistemological underpinnings of the positions advanced; what we find often in their place, however, are oversimplified labels and metaphors (e.g., autonomous vs. ideological literacies, traditional vs. postfoundationalist theories, qualitative vs. quantitative, in-the-head vs. sociocultural theories).
One of Vygotsky’s scholarly virtues was his insight into contributions of even those who he took to task. Regarding Piaget, for example, Vygotsky (1987) commented, “Piaget owes this gold mine of empirical data to his clinical method, a method whose power and unique character has advanced him to the front ranks of contributors to the development of research methods in psychology” (p. 55). Thus, despite the fact that Vygotsky critiqued Piaget as an “idealist,” his criticism did not erase the former’s appreciation of Piaget’s seminal contributions to the field of research into children’s thinking.
In our term as editors of JLR, we have appreciated those manuscripts that analyze competing theory and use that analysis to reframe their own conceptual, methodological, and theoretical choices. It is notable, we think, that Brian Street’s (1984) classic Literacy in Theory and Practice does a very careful exegesis of a portion of Jack Goody’s and others’ work in the development of his two now widely used argots of literacy as “autonomous” and “ideological,” even though Street makes it clear in the introduction that all approaches to literacy study are rooted in the ideologies of individual researchers—some of which are recognized, but most are not (p. 1).
We have posed a sticky issue in the publication of literacy studies: How can we adequately express and position the theoretical issues in our scholarship in a brief enough way that we can meet the page restraints of publication? Nonetheless, we can sympathize with Bateson’s (2002) suggestion that “there are better and worse ways of constructing scientific theories, and in insisting on the articulate statement of presuppositions so that they may be improved” (p. 29). Better, improved theory; better explanations of it—these are goals toward which we think all literacy researchers should aim.