Professor Jennifer Rowsell
BA (Hons), TEFL, MA, PhD
School of Education
Professor of Digital Literacy
Director of Research and Innovation
J.Rowsell@sheffield.ac.uk
The Wave
Full contact details
Professor Jennifer Rowsell
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
-
I am an interdisciplinary researcher who started out my scholarly career studying literacy from an ethnographic-multimodal lens that continues today. Having conducted many research studies for over 20 years with a range in ages from young children and their parents all the way to older adults, I investigate the ways that people engage in literacy practices across all aspects of their lives. I have had the privilege of researching in many primary and secondary schools in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom and across a range of informal and formal contexts such as art galleries, addiction outreach centres, malls and shopping centres, churches, and pop-up makerspaces. For over a decade, I have focused more on digital literacy and, most recently on the notion of the post-digital. At the heart of my work is an enduring curiosity and passion for people’s stories about their lived literacy practices.
I had the honour of being a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair at Brock University which set me on a course of research to expand notions of literacy and learning beyond narrow definitions and tighter framings. I have written and co-written books, journal articles, chapters, and co-edited special issues on this line of inquiry.
- Research interests
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Post-digital spaces and practices; Affect and sensory approaches to research; Disruptive and craftivist pedagogies; Multimodality; Digital literacy; Digital pedagogies education; Algorithmic Reading Practices; Data literacies; Multimodal composition; Arts-based approaches to literacy research; Posthumanism and Sociomaterial theorising of literacy and learning.
- Publications
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Books
- Teacher Professionalism in the Global South A Decolonial Perspective.
- Teacher Professionalism in the Global South. Bristol University Press.
- Teacher Professionalism in the Global South. Bristol University Press.
- Introduction to part 2: Situating multimodality in the landscape of language research.
- Introduction: Unsettling Literacies.
- Series editor introduction.
- Living Literacies Literacy for Social Change. MIT Press.
- Meso perspectives: Making it work on the margins.
- Artifactual Literacies Every Object Tells a Story. Teachers College Press.
- Introduction.
- The Balancing Act. SensePublishers.
- Literacy Teacher Educators. SensePublishers.
- Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu. New York: Routledge.
- Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age.
- The Literacy Principle. Pembroke Publishers Limited.
- The Literacy Principal, 2nd Edition Leading, Supporting, and Assessing Reading and Writing Initiatives. Pembroke Publishers Limited.
- Introduction.
- Introduction.
- Family Literacy Experiences: Creating Reading and Writing Opportunities that Support Classroom Learning. Pembroke Publishers Limited.
- Literacy and Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom. SAGE Publications Ltd.
- The Comfort of Screens: Literacy in Post-Digital Times.
- The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood. Routledge.
- Literacy Lives in Transcultural Times. Routledge.
- The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies. Routledge.
- Working with Multimodality: Rethinking Literacy in a Digital Age. Routledge.
- Resourcing Early Learners: New Networks, New Actors. Routledge.
Edited books
- Postdevelopmental Approaches to Pedagogical Observation in Childhood..
- Unsettling Literacies: Directions for Literacy Research in Precarious Times..
- Maker Literacies and Maker Identities in the Digital Age: Learning and Playing through Modes and Media..
- The Art and Craft of Literacy Pedagogy: Profiling Community Arts Zone..
- The Bloomsbury Handbook of Reading Perspectives and Practices..
- Stories from inequity to justice in literacy education: confronting digital divides. Routledge. View this article in WRRO
- Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides..
- The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood..
- Re-Theorizing Literacy Practices: Complex Social and Cultural Context..
- Generation Z: Zombies, Popular Culture, and Educating Youth..
- The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies. Routledge.
- New Literacies around the Globe: Policy and Pedagogy. Routledge.
- Literacy Teacher Educators: Preparing Student Teachers for a Changing World..
- Major Works in Early Childhood Literacy..
- Rethinking Identity and Literacy Education in the 21st Century. National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook..
- Travel notes from the new literacy studies: Instances of practice..
- Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: Instances of Practice..
- Learning and Literacy over Time. Routledge.
Journal articles
- The hard work of reparative futures: Exploring the potential of creative and convivial practices in post-conflict Uganda. Futures, 153, 103224-103224.
- Déstabiliser la multimodalité : réinventer et revisiter de nouveaux futurs sémiotiques. Revue de recherches en littératie médiatique multimodale, 17, 106-106.
- Introduction. Postdevelopmental Approaches to Pedagogical Observation in Childhood, 1-8.
- Living with digital materialisations of self. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(3), 305-309.
- Alone-together: intergenerational mapping of digital and analogue spaces of self. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(3), 310-327.
- Methodological imperatives and perplexities for literacy research in uncertain times. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 31(1-2), 1-4.
- Artifacts with Feelings/Feeling Artifacts: Toward a Notion of Tacit Modalities to Support and Propel Anthropological Research. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 53(3), 280-297.
- Literacy, Affect, and Uncontrollability. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(2), 201-206.
- On the relational autonomy of materials: entanglements in maker literacies research. Literacy, 54(3), 144-152.
- Editorial: Advancing posthumanist perspectives on technology‐rich learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 51(4), 1240-1245.
- Child and youth engagement: civic literacies and digital ecologies. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(5), 667-672.
- Parents’ beliefs about and associations to their elementary children’s home technology usage. Education and Information Technologies, 25(5), 4557-4574.
- Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. FACETS, 5(1), 138-165.
- Transcultural-affective flows and multimodal engagements: reimagining pedagogy and assessment with adult language learners. Language and Education, 34(2), 173-191.
- “How Emotional Do I Make It?”: Making a Stance in Multimodal Compositions. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 63(6), 627-637.
- Stories of Digital Lives and Digital Divides: Newcomer Families and Their Thoughts on Digital Literacy. The Reading Teacher, 72(6), 774-778.
- The craftivists: Pushing for affective, materially informed pedagogy. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(4), 1544-1559.
- Virtual Convergence: Exploring Culture and Meaning in Playscapes. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 119(12), 1-16.
- Early literacy and the posthuman: Pedagogies and methodologies. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 17(3), 285-296.
- Readings and Experiences of Multimodality. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 66(1), 95-116.
- A reason to respond: Finding agency through the arts. International Journal of Education and the Arts, 18, 1-23.
- Confronting the Digital Divide: Debunking Brave New World Discourses. The Reading Teacher, 71(2), 157-165.
- Passing through: reflecting on the journey through community arts zone. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 12(1), 1-3.
- Moving parts in imagined spaces: community arts zone’s movement project. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 12(1), 74-89.
- Embracing the unknown in community arts zone visual arts. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 12(1), 90-107.
- Humanizing Digital Literacies: A Road Trip in Search of Wisdom and Insight. The Reading Teacher, 70(1), 121-129.
- Free Play or Tight Spaces? Mapping Participatory Literacies in Apps. The Reading Teacher, 70(2), 197-205.
- Call for abstract submissions to a special issue of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 16(1), 3-7.
- What professionals can teach us about education: a call for change. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46(1), 81-96.
- International Perspectives on Literacy Learning with iPads. Journal of Education, 195(3), 15-25.
- Seen and unseen: using video data in ethnographic fieldwork. Qualitative Research Journal, 15(4), 430-444. View this article in WRRO
- “Let It Go”: Exploring the Image of the Child as a Producer, Consumer, and Inventor. Theory Into Practice, 54(2), 136-146.
- Imagining Writing Futures: Photography, Writing, and Technology. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 31(2), 102-118.
- Toward a phenomenology of contemporary reading. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37(2), 117-127.
- Bill Green and Catherine Beavis (eds.), Literacy in 3D: An integrated perspective in theory and practice.. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 14(2), 286-287.
- “The mood is in the shot”: the challenge of moving-image texts to multimodality. Text & Talk, 34(3).
- Playing as a mutant in a virtual world: understanding overlapping story worlds in popular culture video games. Literacy, 48(1), 47-53.
- The (im)materiality of literacy: the significance of subjectivity to new literacies research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35(1), 90-103.
- The digital reading path: researching modes and multidirectionality with iPads. Literacy, 47(3), 123-130.
- Boys’ Hidden Literacies: The Critical Need for the Visual. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(7), 587-599.
- (Re)designing literacy teacher education: a call for change. Teaching Education, 24(1), 1-26.
- Visual optics: interpreting body art, three ways. Visual Communication, 12(1), 97-122.
- Digital literacies as placed resources in the globalised periphery. Language and Education, 26(4), 271-277.
- (Re)designing writing in English class: a multimodal approach to teaching writing. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 7(3), 246-260.
- Maureen Walsh, Multimodal Literacy: Researching Classroom Practice. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 12(2), 223-227.
- Envisioning New Literacies Through a Lens of Teaching and Learning. The Reading Teacher, 65(6), 367-377.
- Visual Literacy as a Classroom Approach. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(5), 444-447.
- Tupaq, katy perry, and schindler's list in the secondary English classroom: Assessing English in new times. English in Australia, 46(3), 6-20.
- Researching early childhood literacy in place. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11(2), 107-113.
- ‘Literacy nooks’: Geosemiotics and domains of literacy in home spaces. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11(2), 214-231.
- Carrying my family with me: artifacts as emic perspectives. Qualitative Research, 11(3), 331-346.
- Consumers as Learners/Learners as Consumers. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 113(13), 244-262.
- (Re)conceptualizing I/identity: An Introduction. Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 113(13), 1-16.
- Tupaq, Katy Perry, and Schindler's List in the Secondary English Classroom: Assessing English in New Times. ENGLISH IN AUSTRALIA, 46(3), 9-20.
- Reading by Design: Two Case Studies of Digital Reading Practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(2), 106-118.
- Call for Papers for a special issue of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy on The Geo-semiotics of early childhood literacy. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 9(3), 367-368.
- Shifting frames: Inside the pathways and obstacles of two teachers’ literacy instruction. Linguistics and Education, 20(4), 311-327.
- The ‘good’ parent in relation to early childhood literacy: symbolic terrain and lived practice. Literacy, 43(2), 65-74.
- Screen Pedagogy: Challenging Perceptions of Digital Reading Practice. Changing English, 15(4), 445-456.
- Book review. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8(3), 328-329.
- Fostering multiliteracies pedagogy through preservice teacher education. Teaching Education, 19(2), 109-122.
- Assessing Multimodal Learning Practices. E-Learning and Digital Media, 4(3), 329-342.
- Sedimented identities in texts: Instances of practice. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(3), 388-404.
- Losing Strangeness: Using Culture to Mediate ESL Teaching. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 20(2), 140-154.
- Preparation for the First Year of Teaching: Beginning Teachers' Views about Their Needs. The New Educator, 3(1), 51-73.
- The Production-Reception Continuum: Activating publishing practices during literacy events. Changing English, 10(1), 59-72.
- Crystalising Maker Moments: Postdigital Storying Across Contexts. Postdigital Science and Education.
- Towards Disruptive Maker Literacies Beyond Neurotypical, Gendered Mindsets. Reading Research Quarterly.
- What sits, what sticks: moving into lived, disruptive, co-produced filmmaking practices in literacy classrooms. Education 3-13, 1-14.
- Seeking languagelessness: Maker literacies mindsets to disrupt normative practices. Reading Research Quarterly.
- Affecting Photos: Photographs as shared, affective ethnographic spaces. Qualitative Research.
- From boundaries to entangled story lines: untangling young people’s material and immaterial storied practices. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-17.
- Towards literacies of immanence: Getting closer to sensory multimodal perspectives on research. Multimodality & Society, 263497952311587-263497952311587.
- Imagining futures/future imaginings: creative heritage work with young people in Uganda. Journal of the British Academy, 11s3, 225-247.
- Magic(al)ing in a time of COVID-19: becoming literacies and new inquiry practices. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 1-30.
- Why the Politics of Literacy? – Guest Editors' Introduction. Studies in Social Justice, 13(1), 1-9.
- UNTANGLING BINARIES: WHERE CANADA SITS IN THE “21st CENTURY DEBATE”. Articles, 52(2), 383-407.
- Visual Research and Social Justice – Guest Editors' Introduction. Studies in Social Justice, 11(2), 187-194.
- Towards Sensorial Approaches to Visual Research with Racially Diverse Young Men. Studies in Social Justice, 11(2), 275-297.
- Socializing the Digital: Taking Emic Perspectives on Digital Domains. Language and Literacy, 14(2), 1-1.
- Artifactual Critical Literacy: A New Perspective for Literacy Education. Berkeley Review of Education, 2.
Chapters
- Towards a Practitioner-Led Understanding of Teacher Professionalism, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 67-75). Bristol University Press
- Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Power, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 28-45). Bristol University Press
- Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Knowledge, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 46-60). Bristol University Press
- Study Design, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 9-14). Bristol University Press
- List of Figures, Table and Boxes, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. vi-vi). Bristol University Press
- Appendix, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 89-90). Bristol University Press
- Introduction: The Case for Decolonizing Teacher Professionalism, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 1-8). Bristol University Press
- Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Being, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 61-66). Bristol University Press
- Teacher Professionalism: A Global Literature Review, Teacher Professionalism in the Global South (pp. 15-27). Bristol University Press
- Alone-Together: Exploring Children’s Material/Digital/Analogue Engagements through Intergenerational Research, Postdevelopmental Approaches to Pedagogical Observation in Childhood (pp. 119-139).
- Storied matter: Research on young people's felt, sensed and storied designs, Visual and Cultural Identity Constructs of Global Youth and Young Adults: Situated, Embodied and Performed Ways of Being, Engaging and Belonging (pp. 158-177).
- Proposing a politics of immediation for literacy studies, or what is possible for literacy studies beyond critical theory's mediations?, The Handbook of Critical Literacies (pp. 411-418).
- Envoi to Part I: Literacy Transitions as Distributed, Participatory Practice, Transition and Continuity in School Literacy Development (pp. 71-74).
- Crafting stories and cracking codes in a Canadian elementary school, Maker Literacies and Maker Identities in the Digital Age (pp. 187-205). Routledge
- “This Documentary Actually Makes Welland Look Good”, Transforming Language and Literacy Education (pp. 120-135). Routledge
- Moving parts in imagined spaces: community arts zone's movement project, The Art and Craft of Literacy Pedagogy (pp. 74-89). Routledge
- Embracing the unknown in community arts zone visual arts, The Art and Craft of Literacy Pedagogy (pp. 90-107). Routledge
- Constructions of Arts Zones, Perspectives on Arts Education Research in Canada, Volume 2 (pp. 1-25). BRILL
- Commentary on Part III, Working with Young Children in Museums (pp. 195-197). Routledge
- Teaching Beyond a Print Mindset: Applying Multimodal Pedagogies Within Literacy Teacher Education, Teaching Literacy in the Twenty-First Century Classroom (pp. 103-118). Springer International Publishing
- Taking a wide-angled view of contemporary digital literacy, The Routledge Handbook of Digital Literacies in Early Childhood (pp. 453-463).
- Reframing the digital in literacy: Youth, arts, and misperceptions, Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides (pp. 71-86).
- Making it work in the global south: Stories of digital divides in a Brazilian context, Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides (pp. 185-202).
- Introduction: Moving stories of inequity to stories of justice, Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides (pp. 1-12).
- Introduction, The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood (pp. 3-17). Routledge
- REFLECTIVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RESEARCH METHODS WITH CHILDREN, The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood (pp. 18-29).
- INTRODUCTION, The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood (pp. 3-17).
- Literacy as Social and Cultural in the Future Perfect Tense, Re-Theorizing Literacy Practices (pp. 237-244). Routledge
- Introduction, Re-Theorizing Literacy Practices (pp. 1-11). Routledge
- The Social Practice of Multimodal Reading, Theoretical Models and Processes of Literacy (pp. 514-532). Routledge
- Toward a New Appreciation of Speaking and Listening, Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts (pp. 110-129). Routledge
- Introduction, Literacy Lives in Transcultural Times (pp. 1-14). Routledge
- Apps and Autodidacts: Wayfaring and Emplaced Thinking on iPads, The Case of the iPad (pp. 125-142). Springer Singapore
- Multimodal Literacies, Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (pp. 1479-1485). Springer Singapore
- Researching Multimodality in Language and Education, Research Methods in Language and Education (pp. 311-324). Springer International Publishing
- Multimodal Literacies, Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (pp. 1-7). Springer Singapore
- Staying Up Late Watching The Walking Dead, Generation Z (pp. 101-113). Springer Singapore
- Researching Multimodality in Language and Education, Research Methods in Language and Education (pp. 1-14). Springer International Publishing
- Introduction, Generation Z (pp. 1-7). Springer Singapore
- It Is Real Colouring?, Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts (pp. 69-93). IGI Global
- Phenomenology and literacy studies, The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies (pp. 454-471).
- 2.6 Touch Points and Tacit Practices: How Videogame Designers Help Literacy Studies, International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research (pp. 423-440). Springer Netherlands
- Same Meaning, Different Production, Visual Methods with Children and Young People (pp. 17-28). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Afterword: The time-space double helix of research (pp. 196-199).
- Making School Relevant: Adding New Literacies to the Policy Agenda, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education (pp. 159-173). Springer Singapore
- A tale of multiple selves: Im/materialising identities on facebook, New Literacies Around the Globe: Policy and Pedagogy (pp. 103-120).
- Artifactual literacies, New Methods of Literacy Research (pp. 163-176).
- Artifactual english, Language, Ethnography, and Education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu (pp. 110-131).
- The Shifting Landscape of Literacy Teacher Education, Literacy Teacher Educators (pp. 191-203). SensePublishers
- Walking the Talk, Literacy Teacher Educators (pp. 35-47). SensePublishers
- The Social Practice of Multimodal Reading: A New Literacy Studies–Multimodal Perspective on Reading, Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (pp. 1182-1207). International Reading Association
- The visual turn: Transitioning into visual approaches to literacy education, Perspectives on Transitions in Schooling and Instructional Practice (pp. 320-346).
- Artifactual Literacies, The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy (pp. 263-278). SAGE Publications Ltd
- Improvising on artistic habitus: Sedimenting identity into art, Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education (pp. 233-251).
- Corporate Crossings: Tracing Textual Crossings, Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies: Instances of Practice (pp. 1-268).
- Modes of Communication in Cross‐Cultural Contexts (pp. 1-10). Wiley
- Languages and Literacies as Mobile and Placed Resources In Nichols S & Snowden C (Ed.) Routledge
- Multimodality and Social Semiosis In Böck M & Pachler N (Ed.) Routledge
Conference proceedings papers
- Unsettling Literacies
- Mapping Posthuman Methodological Innovation in the Study of Learning. Proceedings of International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS, Vol. 2022-June (pp 113-116)
- Posthumanist perspectives on learning. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, CSCL, Vol. 2 (pp 1039)
Reports
- A country that works for all children and young people: An evidence-based plan for upskilling our children and young people for digital futures View this article in WRRO
Other
Preprints
- Decolonising Teacher Professionalism: Foregrounding the Perspectives of Teachers in the Global South, Center for Open Science.
- Teacher Professionalism in the Global South A Decolonial Perspective.
- Teaching interests
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Digital pedagogies; post-qualitative research methods; Participatory learning; Digital literacies; The arts and literacy theory; Qualitative research methods; Digital cultures and education; Language, literacies, and identities; and, Socio-digital futures.
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am Co-Convenor of the UKLA Everyday Literacies SIG with Clare Dowdall; I am Lead Editor of Reading Research Quarterly with Cheryl McLean, Christian Ehret, and Natalia Kucirkova with Editorial Assistant Bev Enion; and, I am Co-Series Editor of the Routledge Expanding Literacies in Education Series with Carmen Medina.