Author: Parinita Shetty

Reflections on working with an artist

December 2023

Gill Adams, Parinita Shetty, Cathy Burnett

Since the field of primary literacy research in England (and elsewhere) brings together so many different communities, we are constantly looking for creative new ways to communicate our research findings to diverse audiences. In this podcast episode, Layla Gharib talks to Cathy about how she visualised the findings of a scoping review of literacy research that Cathy produced.

About a year and a half into the project, when we’d generated data on teachers’ encounters with research in primary literacy and were deeply engaged in analysis, we wanted to work with an artist to represent the complexity of teachers’ encounters with research and the way these were entangled in their work and their personal lives. We were fortunate that Lo Tierney was able to take on this work.

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Different ways of looking: Exploring interdisciplinary collaborations and multiple approaches to literacy research

This post is a transcript of the second episode of our podcast Research Mobilities. It looks at how researchers can collaborate with designers to visually represent their research to new audiences. Professor Cathy Burnett chats with designer/researcher Layla Gharib about how the process of developing the images together resulted in new ways of thinking and working. They also explore how these images provide space to invite different interpretations, questions and conversations.

You can listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts by looking for Research Mobilities. 

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Developing a culture of research engagement in education – webinar recording

September 2023

Last week, the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) invited Cathy Burnett, principal investigator of our project, to participate in a panel discussion “An evidence-informed education: Empowering schools and policy institutions through a culture of research engagement”. The panel and subsequent Q&A session explored the challenges and opportunities of engaging with research in schools.

Cathy drew on our interviews with primary school teachers in England about their encounters with literacy research to respond to the following questions:

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What can corpus linguistics tell us about primary literacy research in England?

April 2023

This post is a transcript of the first episode of our new podcast Research Mobilities. It introduces what corpus linguistics actually is and how we’re using the method in our project. Dr Anna Lindroos Cermakova explains what analysing newspapers and Twitter conversations can tell us about how people understand and talk about literacy in primary schools in England.

You can listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts by looking for Research Mobilities. 

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Exploring the movements of research in the wild

January 2023

Cathy Burnett 

When we try to explain the focus for the Research Mobilities in Primary Literacy Education project, we often say that we are interested in ‘how research moves to, from and among teachers’.  At this point in the project it is worth expanding on what we mean by this as we have found that this statement can be interpreted slightly differently from how we’ve intended it.

First of all, when we refer to ‘research’ we adopt an inclusive definition. In other posts I have made the point that we are interested in literacy research associated with a wide range of methodologies and topics. Here I want to emphasise that we are not just interested in research that originates in universities or other institutions but also in teacher-led research and enquiry and in research that is coproduced by academics and teachers[1] .

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Reflections from Literacy Research Association’s annual conference

December 2022

Julia Gillen

I was extremely privileged to attend this year’s Literacy Research Association’s annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona from November 29th – December 3rd.  With the title: Crossing Boundaries and Borders – in pursuit of equity, solidarity, and social justice, it promised to be an amazingly interesting conference and so it proved.

I will first outline this project’s contribution and reactions and then add a few reflections on the conference overall.

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