Editorial
Research as Principled, Pluralistic Argument Ian A.G. Wilkinson, David Bloome
W
e have been working for about a year now in preparation for our first issue. Seated around the table in our editorial office are Ian Wilkinson and David Bloome, the two editors; Ruth Friedman, our editorial associate; and Marlene Beierle, our editorial assistant (and a doctoral student). Also assisting us are several doctoral students in reading and literacy who rotate in and out of the team each quarter as their schedules permit. With us in spirit, and sometimes in person, is the journal’s new essay book review editor, Rose-Marie Weber (a faculty member at the University at Albany, State University of New York). From our third-floor office in Arps Hall, we can see that it is a beautiful autumn day. But we are inside reading yet another set of manuscripts and reviews, seeking the best way to be supportive regardless of whether a manuscript will eventually be published. By the time you read this editorial, however, there will be snow on the ground, and we will be working on issues 3 and 4 of volume 43. Although some of our ideas about the journal have evolved since we began about a year ago, the core ideas have remained constant. We want to share with you these core ideas. But first, please allow us to introduce ourselves as the new editors of Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ).
Who We Are Ian Wilkinson is an Australian whose career has taken him to the United States, New Zealand, and parts of Europe. Ian’s research and scholarship are grounded in psychological studies in education. His interests are cognition, instruction, and research methodology related to the study of literacy and learning. His work has focused on social-constructivist views of learning, group and classroom processes, and conceptual and statistical models that take into account the social context of instruction. Much of his work is classroom based and involves the application of different methods of inquiry—descriptive, correlational, experimental, time-series, research synthesis (including meta-analysis), and case study—to address
6
substantive issues in the learning and teaching of literacy at the elementary level. Since taking up his appointment at The Ohio State University, his research has focused on school and classroom contexts for literacy learning with particular focus on grouping, group work, and discussion practices designed to promote literate thinking and high-level comprehension of text. David Bloome is an American who collaborates with researchers across the Americas and Europe. Dave’s research and scholarship are grounded in interactional sociolinguistics, cultural anthropology, and literary theory as applied to the study of reading, writing, and learning in classroom and nonclassroom settings. His work has focused on epistemological and methodological issues involved in the use of ethnography and discourse analysis in education. Recent studies have concerned the nature of intertextual processes in the teaching and learning of and through reading. In addition, recent studies have included collaborative, multidisciplinary, and multimethod studies of young children’s spoken and written narrative development and the social and cultural processes implicated in classroom reading instruction. Methodologically, he has a deep background in discourse analysis, microethnography, the ethnographic study of education, case-study research, text analysis, and interactional analysis. As part of his scholarly work, he has been concerned with the ethics of educational research and with the inclusion of diverse cultural and critical perspectives and theories.
Core Ideas RRQ is an international research journal. The journal publishes the highest quality literacy research for and by scholars throughout the world of diverse geographic, cultural, ethnic, racial, linguistic, and disciplinary backgrounds. As such, the journal fosters connections among researchers to build a coherent knowledge base in literacy across geographic and intellectual borders. The emphasis of the journal on the highest quality research is not just a tradition across editorial teams since the inception of the journal, it
Reading Research Quarterly • 43(1) • pp. 6–8 • dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.1.1 • © 2008 International Reading Association
also represents the optimism of people everywhere that insights into the human condition and solutions to some of the most intractable problems of our times can be productively addressed through the intellectual endeavors of individuals and communities. At a time when science itself is under attack, there is no more important responsibility than protecting the longstanding commitment of this journal to the highest quality research. Our goal for RRQ is that the journal continue to assert itself as one of the top intellectual and research resources in the fields of literacy, educational, and social science research. We want RRQ to be regarded by all literacy researchers as the natural home for their best work. The journal welcomes laboratory studies, fieldbased (classroom and nonclassroom) studies, text analyses, theoretical analyses, research syntheses, and other forms of scholarly inquiry, irrespective of paradigm, method, or ideology. To achieve this goal, we have four guiding visions.
Research as Principled Argument The bulk of the journal will be devoted to original reports of research. Where necessary, manuscripts will be of extended length in order to make clear their logic of inquiry and their evidentiary warrants. Where appropriate with regard to content and ethics, we will encourage authors to make use of informational technology to provide readers of the journal with access to key parts of their corpus of data (e.g., video, transcripts) in order to enhance the trustworthiness of their warrants and to encourage dialogue. We view research as principled argument (cf. Abelson, 1995). At its core, research involves the making of assertions, hypotheses, conjectures, or theories— knowledge claims—on the basis of theory and evidence (Shavelson & Towne, 2002). Knowledge claims must be linked to theory and evidence through a clear, public chain of reasoning that constitutes the warrant for the claims. Arguments are principled in the sense that the work follows a systematic line of inquiry that is accessible to the scrutiny of others in the research community. There is also another sense in which arguments are principled: The logic of inquiry should adhere to the rules of evidence particular to the disciplinary perspective (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology) being brought to bear on the research question(s) (Shulman, 1997). These rules of evidence are not followed blindly, but they do need to be responsive to the researchers’ questions, within the limits of the dynamic interplay between theory, method, and findings (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990). Viewing research in these terms renders us oblivious to the momentary dictates of state and federal policy in the selection of best work. For our purposes, distinctions among qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, basic, and applied research are outmoded (cf. Shavelson & Towne,
Research as Principled, Pluralistic Argument
2002). Similarly, what constitutes the highest quality research is not defined by the category of its intellectual tradition. What matters in the evaluation of the worth of a piece of research, of any paradigm or intellectual tradition, is the manner in which researchers locate their inquiry against a background of extant knowledge and assumptions, the goodness of fit between research questions and methodologies, the quality of the data collection and analysis, and the integrity of the overall warrant for the claims (Howe & Eisenhart, 1990). Despite the proliferation of research methodologies, our “worry about warrant will not wane” (Phillips, 1987, p. 9). In the final analysis, a piece of research is only as good as the quality of the chain of reasoning by which the researchers organize the extant knowledge and assumptions, their observations and analyses, and their knowledge claims “to create a cogent, persuasive argument” (Shulman, 1997, p. 26).
An International Perspective Progress in understanding literacy not only requires principled argument, it also requires a pluralism of perspectives from which scholars can engage in healthy debate. One aspect of this pluralism involves scholarship from across the globe. Literacy research of the highest quality is carried on throughout the world. Both with regard to publication of manuscripts and with regard to the citations included in published manuscripts, our vision asserts that the incorporation of research across borders affords opportunities to understand problems from different perspectives. To realize this vision, we have constituted an editorial board with over 25% of members located outside the United States and Canada. We hope to increase this percentage over the tenure of our editorship. When we assign reviewers for manuscripts submitted to the journal, we seek to include researchers from different countries. It is our hope that authors will recognize that the readership of the journal is international.
Engaging Diverse Research Communities Another aspect of this pluralism derives from the diversity of researchers who do work in literacy. Research in literacy now involves an increasingly broad range of disciplines and fields. We want to reach out to scholars in disciplinary communities that have not traditionally viewed RRQ as a home for their work. We want the journal to be seen as a vehicle for dissemination of research by all researchers who choose to do work in literacy. As importantly, we want the journal to be viewed as a resource for all researchers engaged in literacy scholarship. To realize this vision, we have constituted an editorial board that includes both well-known literacy researchers and a large number of scholars who belong to disciplinary communities that have not been associated
7
traditionally with RRQ. We welcome submissions from scholars working both within and outside the traditional arenas of reading and literacy research.
RRQ as a Force for Coherence We want the journal to be a force for forging coherence in the field. Like others (e.g., Duke & Mallette, 2004), we worry that the proliferation of topics and methodologies and their alignment have led to fragmentation of the field. In our view, intellectual diversity does not stand in opposition to a coherent knowledge base in the field but instead requires concerted intellectual and scholarly efforts by a broad range of scholars committed to making connections in a principled manner between otherwise disparate literatures. To this end, we will use the journal to foster connections—“connections through writing” and “connections through mentoring” (Herber, 1994). When assigning reviewers for manuscripts, we seek to include researchers who bring different yet complementary perspectives. We hope this will assist authors as they make connections to relevant research and will inform them as to how others might interpret their manuscript. We also want to engage members of the editorial board, and others in the field with such an interest, in conversations about the ways in which connections across intellectual borders can be made in a principled manner (e.g., online conversations and sessions at the annual International Reading Association convention and elsewhere). Also to further this end, on occasion we will solicit and publish high-quality reviews of research on key topics in the field that are in need of synthesis. We will appoint senior scholars from complementary disciplinary perspectives to serve as consulting editors for these invited reviews (following a practice that has been successfully used by other research journals to enhance the quality of published manuscripts). The consulting editors will serve as a resource to authors of the invited reviews of research, as well as to the editors. We believe that such a process will help bring coherence to the field of reading
8
and literacy research while still appreciating the field’s increasing diversity of perspectives and topics of inquiry. We conclude by thanking the many authors, reviewers, staff members at the International Reading Association, and others who have been instrumental in the construction of this first issue. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Donna Alvermann and David Reinking, our immediate predecessors, who continued the journal’s tradition of excellence over the past six years and assisted us in making the transition to the new editorial team. We also wish to acknowledge the earlier editorial teams who have cared for and crafted the journal since its inception in 1965. RRQ has a rich intellectual history and heritage, and we strive to continue that tradition. We look forward to engaging with you in principled, pluralistic debate in the interests of furthering the field. We can be reached at
[email protected].
Ian A.G. Wilkinson
David Bloome
References Abelson, R.P. (1995). Statistics as principled argument. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Duke, N.K., & Mallette, M.H. (2004). Conclusion. In N.K. Duke & M.H. Mallette (Eds.), Literacy research methodologies (pp. 347–354). New York: Guilford. Herber, H.L. (1994). Professional connections: Pioneers and contemporaries in reading. In R.B. Ruddell, M.R. Ruddell, & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (4th ed., pp. 4–21). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Howe, K., & Eisenhart, M. (1990). Standards for qualitative (and quantitative) research: A prolegomenon. Educational Researcher, 19(4), 2–9. Phillips, D.C. (1987). Validity in qualitative research: Why the worry about warrant will not wane. Education and Urban Society, 20, 9–24. Shavelson, R.J., & Towne, L. (Eds.). (2002). Scientific research in education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Shulman, L.S. (1997). Disciplines of inquiry in education: A new overview. In R.M. Jaeger (Ed.), Complementary methods for research in education (2nd ed., pp. 3–29). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Reading Research Quarterly • 43(1)
