A Content Analysis of Five NCTE Journals

Written Communication Feb 2026 Open Access

A Content Analysis of Five NCTE Journals

Jonathan Marine Stephen F. Austin State University ; Jason Grant George Mason University ; Paul Rogers University of California, Santa Barbara

Abstract

This article presents findings from a content analysis of 707 articles appearing between 2011 and 2020 in five journals issued by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), a major teaching and research organization in North America. We examined topics and theoretical frameworks, finding that while core topics such as academic writing, curriculum, cultural studies, literacy, and teacher development remained stable, the latter part of the previous decade (2016–2020) showed increased attention to labor, diversity, social justice, and writing program administration, alongside declines in work focused on history, educational policy, ESL, and community writing. Many articles lacked explicit theoretical grounding, often using broad labels like “critical theory,” though use of specified frameworks (e.g., feminist and postcolonial theory) has grown. We identify differences among the journals and discuss the implications of these findings for NCTE, for content analysis as a method and for scholars’ efforts to navigate a complex and expanding field.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2026-02-21
DOI: 10.1177/07410883251410170
Open Access: OA PDF Hybrid
Topics: writing program administration multilingual writers

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