Abstract
We begin our term as editors by introducing a new cover for the journal, inspired by the artwork of Margaret Rose Hilburn, a doctoral candidate in interdisciplinary learning and teaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). We were drawn to Hilburn’s art because of her boldness with the use of colors, lines, and spaces. Hilburn was inspired to create “Piece by Piece” on one of her many flights into and out of the Lubbock airport during her master’s program at Texas Tech University. The landscape of West Texas (which is very similar to other areas in the world that support agricultural communities) has lines and shapes that form a cohesive space where plants grow and thrive under ideal conditions. As one gazes at Hilburn’s image, the eye is drawn from the loamy soil, upward to the green stalks, to the yellow underside and reddish-brown blazing heads of the grain sorghum, and to the blue sky that looms over the crops. One cannot help but notice the twinkling stars and the individual rows of plants detailed within the expansive and breathtaking image.
However, in its upward movement, the eye cannot ignore the triangular and square shapes that disrupt, forcing the eye to break the vertical glance and view the individual shapes that fracture the context. In mock kaleidoscope-like fashion, Hilburn re-presents the historical and sociopolitical context of the agricultural U.S. southern and western states. It is almost as if she dropped pieces of the Texas panhandle into an object box and invited us to look through the viewing tube, seeing not only the colors of the area but also how the economies of cotton, wheat, and grain sorghum fractured the land and people on whose lives those economies were built. In her re-presentation of the landscape, Hilburn defied the expected symmetry often found in kaleidoscopes. It is through our interpretation of Hilburn’s interruptions of the “beauty” of the West Texas landscape that we explicate our goals for the Journal of Literacy Research (JLR) under our editorship.
Kaleidoscopes and Rational Amusement
The kaleidoscope engages one’s gaze in the reflection of light waves as those waves enter into a tube structure and come into contact with objects. Devised for “rational amusement” (Brewster, 1858, p. 6), the kaleidoscope was a scientific feat when it was invented in the early 19th century. Relatively easy to make, the kaleidoscope usually contains three long, thin mirrors that are set inside a round, hollow material so that the mirrors face each other, forming a triangle. The tube has at one end an eyepiece and at the other, an object box. The object box is a thin, flat box made of two glass discs; fragments of colored materials are found between the glass discs. If the objects in the object box are translucent, light waves pass through the glass discs easily; the object absorbs some of the light waves while other light waves continue on their path, bending as they exit the object and are refracted. If the objects are opaque, light cannot pass through them.
According to Brewster, the carefully selected materials for the object box soften “harsh tints” of transmitted light (p. 65). As the light waves leave the objects, they scatter in many angles by the mirrors and are reflected. These reflections produce “symmetrical . . . pictures, by converting simple (forms) into compound . . . forms, and arranging them, by successive reflexions, into one perfect whole” (p. 18).
To obtain this “perfect whole,” “radical and essential principal[s]” include the position of the eye (p. 45), the light source (p. 51), the length of the mirrors (p. 58), and the selection of transparent objects (p. 68). In other words, the kaleidoscope represents that which is “beautiful and orderly” as long as it is “properly constructed, and rightfully applied” (p. 137). Furthermore, one can obtain a “superior effect . . . by the exclusion of all colors except those [that] harmonize with each other” (p. 71-72).
Although there is an endless combination of patterns created when an object box is turned or tapped, the mirrors and objects create a sort of echo chamber as the colors and shapes are in a closed environment. Thus, this environment allows the viewer to experience only those colors and shapes produced by objects the artist deemed important, beautiful, or harmonized. And, while the viewer can change the tint of the colors by pointing the kaleidoscope at a different light source (a brighter window or light, for example), the allowable patterns and colors remain the same. That is, the designer of the kaleidoscope has a strong influence and maintains a “what you see” sense of control over the viewer. Without questioning the larger context that surrounds the kaleidoscope—Why did the designer choose the number and length of mirrors to use? Why were those objects placed between the glass discs? For whom was the kaleidoscope created?—the viewer is forever only gazing at that which was created for them. And, if the viewer is “rationally amused” by the patterns within the kaleidoscope, there is very little reason for them to questions that which is seen.
Similarly, literacy research may be (in its current state) “rationally amused” by its own patterns of design and findings.
(Re)fracturing Literacy Research
From its inception in 1969, the JLR has been committed to disseminating quality research that informs educational researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. It is in this spirit that we energetically take up our 3-year term as editors. We see our editorship, in part, as a charge to maintain the spirit of the journal (high-quality research that leaves a lasting impact on the field) but also as a call to action. This call to action was sparked by the 2014 presidential address of Dr. Arlette Willis at the annual meeting of the Literacy Research Association (LRA). Dr. Willis challenged our organization to “BE COURAGEOUS and acknowledge . . . BE COURAGEOUS and engage . . . and BE COURAGEOUS and challenge” (Willis, 2015, p. 27). At the time of her presidential address, our team, housed at UTSA, a Hispanic-serving institution, was considering our application to serve as editors of JLR. Dr. Willis’s call for courage led to our ultimate decision to apply and the subsequnt path we have taken as editors.
Since we assumed the role as editors, we have come to a clearer articulation of our goal for JLR: disseminating research that disrupts traditional notions of literacy, literacy instruction, and literacy research. We have come to realize the role of “making the road by walking” (Horton & Freire, 1990). These acts require courage, and we invite our editorial board, ad hoc reviewers, authors, and readers to join us in walking the road of courageousness with us.
We used a postcolonial stance as we reviewed previous issues of JLR to understand the history and nature of the journal; our review highlighted the hegemonic nature of many studies. For example, many research designs (deemed rigorous) used medical models (who “suffers” from the “gap”) and agricultural models (what innovations more likely “yield” better results) of research. Likewise, our field continues to largely ignore topics that are timely and politically important, such as research related to teacher education (both initial teacher preparation and in-service teacher education). And, our field continues to use hegemonic language that dehumanizes people, such as “struggling reader,” “high-poverty schools,” and “incarcerated fathers.” Our concern is that the use of deficit language perpetuates the reproduction of coloniality.
Unchecked, literacy research will continue to play a “deleterious role in perpetuating and refreshing colonial relationships among people” (Patel, 2016, p. 12). Our role as editors is to interrupt these grand narratives (and the methodological designs and sociolinguistic patterns that give rise to them) in order to disrupt the colonial nature of literacy research. As such, we invite authors to reconsider all aspects of the kaleidoscope that is literacy research, including the colors placed between the glass discs, the length and number of mirrors, the way our eyes are positioned as we peer into the viewing tube, and who is allowed to participate in the creation of the kaleidoscope. This will create spaces where we can examine the root causes of inequity and the role literacy plays in the reshaping of equity within our globalized society. Without such a disruption, the kaleidoscope of literacy research will continue to maintain a “rational amusement” and will not enact the kind of change in educational research and pragmatic application that leads to social change.
Features of Our Editorship
As part of our commitment to disruption, each issue of JLR (beginning with volume 49) will host an Insights column that will address critical policy issues important to disrupting traditional notions of literacy and literacy education. The column will include a range of topics and formats, such as policy critiques, perspectives on policy and practice, responses to published research, and commentaries on research findings. Intended to be a consideration of long-term issues within current literacy frameworks, the column will discuss policies associated with larger educational constructs (e.g., teacher education and assessment). In our inaugural issue, Dr. Marcelle Haddix writes about the ways in which rhetoric related to teacher education might become a reality rather than remain only rhetoric. We hope you consider entering into this innovative space with us. For further information about Insights, contact co-editor, Virginia Goatley (
Additionally, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of JLR. Each issue in Volume 50 will include a retrospective article that offers multiple perspectives and shares historical accomplishments, challenges, and contributions of JLR to literacy research. We encourage authors to identify the ways that literacy research of the past has influenced the present, to explicate how current literacy research impacts our work, and to envisage the role of literacy research in the future. For further information, contact associate editor, Arlette Willis (
We are working with SAGE, LRA Board of Directors, and LRA committees to harness the power of social media to raise the visibility of the journal (and LRA) and reach a wider range of readership. We are also adding video abstracts as a feature of our editorship. Upon release of articles on Online First, we will release an accompanying video abstract on the LRA YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/LiteracyResearch) via our Twitter (@JLiteracyRes) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/JLiteracyRes/) accounts. We will continue to work with Voices of Literacy (http://www.voiceofliteracy.org) in producing podcasts of work published in JLR.
In addition to these spaces, we hope you will consider JLR as an ongoing venue for your research. We invite the submission of manuscripts that represent diverse research paradigms and theoretical orientations and that use a variety of methodologies and modes of inquiry. Through this, we hope to illustrate the humanity of the young people, professionals, and communities with whom we work and to disrupt the grand narratives that are told in functionalist literacy research. In doing so, we engage in decolonizing our field.
To submit a manuscript, visit the SAGE website, http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jlr, or contact us at