A Journey through Nine Decades of NCTE-Published Research in Elementary Literacy

Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2011

A Journey through Nine Decades of NCTE-Published Research in Elementary Literacy

Elizabeth Dutro University of Colorado Boulder ; Kathleen Collins

Abstract

In this article, we share findings from our process of “reading the past, writing the future” of elementary research in NCTE’s journals. Our analysis focused on major domains of the field, including literature, writing, reading, language, and multimodal literacies, and spanned Elementary English Review, which first appeared in 1924, was renamed Elementary English in 1947, and became Language Arts in 1975; Primary Voices, which ran from 1993 to 2002; and Research in the Teaching of English (RTE), which began in 1967. Findings revealed both surprising continuities across decades as well as clear and important social and cultural shifts that influenced theory, methods, and practice in the field, emphasizing the importance of 1) recognizing the level of historical and political influences in elementary literacy research, 2) paying explicit attention to how the cultural-historical zeitgeist shapes our work as scholars, and 3) interrogating how our representations of research problems may contribute to the continuance of social and cultural inequities.

Journal: Research in the Teaching of English
Published: 2011-11-01
DOI: 10.58680/rte201118262
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality multilingual writers voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Marine et al. (2026)

A Content Analysis of Five NCTE Journals

Written Communication

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