Veronica Gardiner PhD

What do we really know about the literacies teaching and learning experiences of early career teachers (ECTs)? In Western Australia, as in other Australian states, ECTs are impacted by neoliberal policy reforms pursuing standardised and didactic literacy teaching and learning. Many scholars argue that such reforms impoverish literacies learning for both teachers and students. To explore how ECTs perceive and shape literacies teaching and learning in these policy conditions, the present author facilitated a series of café based discussions. During interactions, ECTs reflected on their professional work over two calendar years, in metropolitan, regional and remote schools. Adopting a comparative case study approach, ECT meaning making was framed by interweaving the content and pedagogical Design focus of Multiliteracies Theory (Bull & Anstey, 2010; Cope & Kalantzis, 2013; Garcia, Luke & Seglem, 2018; New London Group, 2000), and the expansive learning schema derived from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engestrom, 2001, 2011). The interpretive approach integrated visual topic mapping, critical discourse analysis, and identification of emergent correspondences between pedagogical Design and expansive learning processes. Key findings highlight, that across the groups, possibilities for ECTs' teaching and learning for literacies in schools were constrained by pervasive promotion of routinised and componential approaches to reading and writing, and commercially driven professional development and literacy resourcing. Becoming increasingly insightful about limitations in these policy aligned priorities and conditions, the ECTs responded over time by questioning, resisting and in some cases innovating Available Designs in lieu of contradictory professional goals. In the main, this innovation took place in the absence of systemic or school based support. Such results conflict with deficit readings of ECT learning articulated in current policies. Implications may be of interest to school leaders, policy writers, teacher educators and other teachers wishing to support participatory teaching and learning for literacies.

This study aimed to explore and influence how Australian public primary school teachers evolve literacy understandings and perspectives, in relation to rapidly changing twenty-first century communication. Acknowledging a variety of theoretical commentary and research literature, the study argues that Australian literacy teaching and learning is currently oriented towards standardised and print-focused approaches, inscribed on teachers' pedagogies through transmissive professional learning and print-oriented curriculum reform. As an alternative, the present research drew on a theoretical framework incorporating multiliteracies theory, community of practice theory and critical perspectives on professional learning, to explore how discourses of multiliteracies can be fostered in a teacher book club involving multimodal texts. A qualitative case study explored a small group of seven public primary school teachers' voiced perspectives about literacy and professional learning, and how they participated in facilitated multiliteracies knowledge processes, during five monthly book club meetings. To interpret teachers' evolving perspectives and knowledge/s and changing social participation in the book club, critical discourse analysis was applied to chronological transcripts of discursive data. The analysis highlighted how these seven teachers identified constraints on multiliteracies pedagogy in the wider educational context, and engaged in recursive and collaborative negotiation of multiliteracies discourse. In particular, analysis showcased four teachers' emerging orientation to self-sourced digital texts and shifts to peer-led collaborative inquiry. During final reflective discussion, three teachers associated responsive opportunities in the book club with their expanded conception of literacy and interest-driven professional learning. Findings of this study support theorised relationships between multiliteracies and community of practice processes. Additionally, interpretive discussion elaborates how these teachers shaped book club experiences around peer-relevant needs and interests, by recruiting intercontextual resources. Together, results indicate that the book club format fosters teachers' participatory professional learning for multiliteracies.