Individuals often have misconceptions about education policy issues. Prior research has shown that refutation texts can address misconceptions in other areas (e.g., climate change, GMOs); this study is the first to explore whether participants' views on controversial education policies--the Common Core State Standards and charter schools--are…

Since joining The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Indonesia has been actively shaping its education policy following the recommendations derived from the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). In response to the consistently low PISA reading scores, in 2015 the Indonesian Ministry of…

Purpose: Scholars who advocate for equity-oriented educational practices have argued that the accountability era in the USA, now in place for two decades, has failed in its intended goal to improve student performance for traditionally marginalized student populations. This study aims to use a sociocultural lens to trace how a century-old…

This article takes as its focus Lefebvre's trialectic of conceived, perceived and lived spaces as a lens through which to scrutinise the 2013 English Literature Curriculum, and to explore the extent to which creative spaces might exist within that curriculum. The article analyses how the curriculum is envisaged by policymakers and how it might be…

This paper examines the report of the "Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy" (Department of Education, Science & Training (DEST) 2005) and explores the claims it makes about reading pedagogy and the centrality of particular "methods" or "approaches" to teaching backed by "scientific" evidence. Discourse…

Describes theoretical and practical problems facing the field of early reading, examining: readers and texts (reader processes, text difficulty, linguistic and cultural knowledge, and unique learners); home and school (home-school match, communities and reading, preschools as contexts for reading acquisition, and best practices); and policy and…

The author uses the diverse role of scribes in different periods of time and different places as a lens through which to understand both literacy and illiteracy. Examples from fiction, film, social history, and interviews with various individuals, including adult literacy teachers, are used to support the following arguments: (1) moments of…

This volume presents the 53rd Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (NRC). The papers in this Yearbook reflect NRC's practice of pursuing not only traditionally important topics in literacy but also many issues that may not be deemed worthy of funding and government attention. Rather than a narrowing of the field, the submitted manuscripts,…