Abstract
In 2018, teacher education programs are innovative, but they also face challenges. Opportunities for innovations include areas such as critical literacies, reading foundations, disciplinary literacies, and digital literacies. Challenges include increasing the diversity of teacher candidates, offering more and higher quality literacy courses to meet the increasing definitions of literacy, and reduced enrollment. Although something seismic happened to the field when teacher education found its way into the National Reading Conference/Literacy Research Association (Dixey Massey, personal communication, December 21, 2017), it remains a topic that is grossly underrepresented in editorial statements and in literacy research across the life span of the Journal of Literacy Research (JLR, previously known as the Journal of Reading Behavior, or JRB). Because of our commitment to the topic, we focus this editorial statement on the topic of teacher education. As we have done in our preceding statements in this volume, we reviewed the editorial statements of our predecessors, looking specifically to see if and how they addressed notions of teacher education. Out of the JRB/JLR previous editorial statements we reviewed, only 11 statements included attention to teacher education (inclusive of pre- and in-service teacher education). In the spirit of re-presenting the work of earlier editors, we have organized this statement around three areas addressed by our predecessors: the contexts for teacher preparation programs, features of literacy coursework, and policy influences on teacher education.
Contexts for Teacher Preparation Programs
As we read through the editorial statements from the past 49 volumes of JRB/JLR, we thought of some of the questions asked about teacher education today: What are the expectations for content-area teachers to teach literacy skills? What is the role of the reading teacher, and how does that role inform the appropriate preparation for specialized teaching? How do we prepare literacy teachers to meet the needs of students who have been historically marginalized? Although these current questions may be more sophisticated than those asked in the past, we appreciated the movement toward these types of questions since the inception of the JRB/JLR in 1969.
For example, as early as 1970 and 1972, Hafner made clear the need for what he called teacher training/preparation. He suggested researchers needed to work “with teachers as colleagues” (Hafner, 1970-1971a, p. 3) and identified upgrading the training of teachers as a key goal. He stated, Content area teachers are responsible for guiding the thinking of students in their particular subject matter, and since reading is a thinking (related) process, they need to be able to teach the reading-thinking skills that are specific to their subject matter areas and help the students apply the general reading skills in those areas. (Hafner, 1970-1971b, p. iii)
A year later, Hafner (1971-1972) wrote a historical statement on subject–matter secondary teachers in which he stated, “Today there is at least more of an opportunity for the secondary school teacher to be well trained in teaching reading skills. However, very few states require secondary teachers to receive such training. Pity!” (p. iii). A few years later, guest editor Brady (1976)argued for better teacher training and improved continuity between “reading researchers” and “teacher behavior researchers” to identify and validate practices of effective teachers during reading instruction.
Guest editor Mason (1972-1973) described the changing role of reading teachers in the early 1970s and the implications for their preparation. He stated, A fifth development is the tremendous popularity of the reading teacher’s role as a supervisor rather than as a remediator. A rapidly decreasing number of schools employ remedial reading specialists. Most ex-remedial teachers have a new status (without a new pay raise) and greatly increased responsibilities. They have a variety of titles: lead reading teacher, reading resource teacher, reading specialist, helping teacher and/or lead teacher. Surprisingly, most have risen to the challenge and have learned to perform the frightening job of peer leadership, but some have failed. (Mason, 1972-1973, p. iii)
Questions about the roles and responsibilities of reading teachers/literacy specialists (although with very different language surrounding them) and how to prepare them for such roles are consistent with current trends (Bean et al., 2015).
Features of Literacy Coursework
Several editorial statements focused on the coursework in teacher preparation programs, including the quantity and quality of courses and the shifting nature of content. For example, Hafner (1970-1971b) reported that many states required teacher candidates to take two courses in reading: one course to focus on building knowledge (e.g., methods, materials, reading processes), and another to apply knowledge while working with learners. Hafner (1970-1971b) claimed that it was not possible to acquire enough knowledge in a single course and then be expected to apply it during a practicum. He recommended that teachers take at least three courses in reading. A few years later, Mason (1972-1973) indicated that “some states [were] increasing the reading course requirements for certification” by mandating at least two reading courses for all elementary and secondary English teachers as well as at least one reading course for all secondary teachers (p. iv). In addition to comments on how many courses preservice teachers should take, the editorial statements in this era also addressed teacher assessment and instruction. For example, Mason (1972-1973) noted that states were “changing to behaviorally stated performance criteria as the basis for certification” (p. iv). Brady (1976) suggested that researchers need to examine “teacher process variables during reading instruction. . . [because] teachers are the delivery systems for instructional materials in reading and, no doubt, will continue to be” (p. 126).
The field shifted its stance toward teacher education a few decades later, as evident in a themed issue on preservice literacy education. Guest editors Barr, Watts-Taffe, Yokota, Ventura, and Caputi (2000) selected two contexts for the issue: educational and sociopolitical. In the educational context, Barr et al. stated that it is not the quantity of courses preservice teachers take but rather the quality of their coursework. Barr’s team drew on Kennedy’s (1999) argument to suggest there are many models of teacher preparation programs (e.g., 4-year undergraduate models, 5-year postbaccalaureate models, internship models), yet, they argued, the content of the model matters most. Barr’s team argued teacher preparation programs must provide preservice teachers with opportunities to build the knowledge and skills needed to be effective in-service teachers. The editorial team posed several questions to guide the field in learning more about how to help effectively prepare preservice teachers, including the following: What are preservice teachers experiencing as students in teacher education programs? What are they learning to do with [K–12] students? What are they learning about what it means to “teach”? What are they learning about what it means to “be literate”? How are they learning to identify, think about, reflect on, and make instructional decisions based on the complexities of teaching? (Barr et al., 2000, p. 465). While Barr’s team clearly saw the need for our field to address research on literacy teacher education, JLR has historically not been the place in which research on literacy teacher education is disseminated.
Policy Influences on Teacher Education
Another set of editorial statements discussed policy and political issues around teacher education. Situated in a decade when other educators were addressing similar questions about teacher education (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 2005), the Barr et al. (2000)-themed issue suggested that “in today’s social and political climate, teachers are under attack, and teacher accountability is a popular phrase” (p. 463). Furthermore, they noted teacher shortages were leading to the hiring of noncredentialed teachers. The editors argued that research on pre- and in-service teaching was vital to better understand how new literacy research could be incorporated into teacher education.
A couple of years later, editors Linek, Padak, Rasinski, and Sturtevant (2002) issued a call for action for literacy associations to create a united plan to inform legislation and policy. A year later, the same team raised questions about research in literacy teacher education: One [question] has recently gained greater visibility through the rhetoric reported on Capitol Hill—What is the best way to prepare teachers? And the embedded question, what is the best way to prepare teachers of literacy?. . . Clearly, teacher education, including literacy teacher education, will be in the spotlight in the coming months in Washington and around the country. Do we have research that allows us to answer the question, what are the best ways to prepare teachers to teach reading? (Rasinski, Sturtevant, Linek, & Padak, 2003, pp. xv–xvi)
These questions were connected to calls for advocacy to inform legislators.
Status of Submissions on Teacher Education to JLR
In the spirit of disruptions, we will let the small number of statements that addressed teacher education speak for itself. Likewise, we want to be clear: It is not that there are no studies in JLR about teacher education—there are. But they are few and far between. We wonder why there are so few studies in JLR about teacher education when clearly teacher education is a topic under study by many. For example, at the writing of this statement, there are currently 952 studies on preservice education (alone) in the CITE-ITEL (n.d.) database disseminated since 2000. Although we acknowledge that it is not that our field is not studying teacher preparation (both preservice and in-service), JLR does not seem to be a venue in which studies on teacher education are disseminated (historically and traditionally). We remain curious as to why that is. As such, we continue to actively seek out submissions related to teacher education.
Contributions in This Issue
In that spirit, we invited Peter Smagorinsky to contribute a piece on teacher education for our anniversary article. In his article, Smagorinsky argues that teaching and learning are context-specific and emphasizes the importance of understanding local contexts to provide appropriate education for teachers about literacy instruction. Smagorinsky uses his own experiences as a visiting teacher educator in Mexico—and how his experiences challenged his own thinking about the role of context—to draw the field’s attention to the need for more nuanced ways of thinking about international literacy teacher education.
Although not focused on teacher education, the remaining articles in this issue contribute important findings to the field of literacy education. In their article, Kiili, Leu, Utraininen, Coiro, Kannlainen, Tolvanen, Lohyansuu, and Leppanen discuss theory, assessment, and instruction relative to a factor structure for online reading. They examined sixth-graders’ ability to learn from and understand online texts and subsequently developed a six-factor model of online research and comprehension. The model includes (a) locating information with a search engine, (b) questioning credibility of information, (c) confirming credibility of information, (d) identifying main ideas from a single resource, (e) synthesizing information across multiple online resources, and (f) communicating a justified, source-based position.
Blackburn and Schey describe a coresearched study examining collaborative composition practices during a semester-long lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ)-themed literature course they cotaught for high school juniors and seniors. Focused on compositions for public audiences, their findings highlight the role of vulnerability in opportunities to interrogate oppressive values. They note the importance of students and teachers sharing responsibility during collaborative compositions.
Worthy, Syrcek, Daly-Lesch, and Tily explore the confidence of intervention specialists related to their knowledge of dyslexia. Using a Bakhtinian perspective, the team illustrates the authoritarian discourse used by the interventionists. The authors call for broader and more inclusive conversations about dyslexia in the field, in research, and in policy.
Finally, in the Insights essay, Ndimande addresses this question: What should literacy researchers keep in mind when reading, reviewing, and engaging in studies using indigenous research methods? He offers recommendations on how to embody the elements of decolonization to interrupt colonial discourse in literacy research and shares his ideas on the importance of having awareness of and acting on the language and the sociocultural and historical awareness of people in the communities in which our research takes place. In doing so, he argues, communities are elevated to the role of “knowers.”