This Is Us: Discourses of Community Within and Beyond Literacy Research

Abstract

In this 2019 presidential address, I reflect on the significance of community across four areas: with youth and in school communities, within literacy teacher education, in community-engaged theories and methodologies, and within the professional organization. How do we define and understand community? Who and what is included and excluded? As a literacy research community, who are we becoming and who do we want to be? Drawing from historical and contemporary examples within and beyond literacy research, I take a look back and at the present to examine discourses of community and imagine possibilities for the future.