About the presenter
Allison Skerrett is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Director of Teacher Education in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Professor Skerrett’s teaching and research focus on young people’s literacy practices, secondary English education, and transnationalism, with a focus on Caribbean-origin youth, toward educational justice for diverse students. Her publications appear in leading educational journals such as the American Educational Research Journal and Reading Research Quarterly.
Dr. Skerrett’s book, Teaching Transnational Youth: Literacy and Education in a Changing World (Teachers College Press 2015), is the first to examine the educational opportunities and challenges arising from increasing numbers of students living and attending school across different countries. Her new book, Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times: Identity, Inquiry and Social Action at the Heart of Instruction, (Corwin Press, 2022) showcases teachers and students engaged in developing critical literacies and taking social action to create more just worlds.
Dr. Skerrett has received awards for her research and teaching including the Literacy Research Association’s Early Career Achievement Award, Edward B. Fry Book Award, and the Elizabeth Shatto Massey Award for Excellence in Teacher Education. She is currently an Editor for the Journal of Literacy Research and serves on other national and international journal editorial review boards. Dr. Skerrett also serves on national and international educational advisory boards including the US National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Panel, the Research Advisory Committee of the Caribbean Education Council, and Scotland’s International Council of Education Advisors.
Session Description
“Research For, By, and With Us: Constructing Caribbean-Based Knowledges for Literacy Education with Caribbean-Origin Youth”
Who is writing the story of Caribbean-origin people’s literacies and languages as they unfold in and beyond the Caribbean? What images are being circulated about Caribbean-origin people’s literacies and languages? What can be learned from these narratives that may transform literacy teaching and learning in the Caribbean, and, more broadly, for Caribbean-originated youth? What new stories, images, and insights are need to energize innovative thinking and practice pertaining to literacy pedagogy with Caribbean-origin youth?
In this Keynote, Dr. Allison Skerrett examines extant research on the language and literacy practices of transnational Caribbean-originated people. She makes observations about the identities and biographies of those conducting this research, and the nature of their inquiries, to consider the importance of researcher identity in educational research that is focused on Caribbean-origin peoples and contexts. Using the case of one of her research projects, Skerrett examines the promise and pitfalls of researcher identity and biography when doing research situated in the Caribbean region with Caribbean-origin youth. She offers up a model of research for critical examination—one that bridges research and practice, classroom-based research and teaching, and that positions youth as agentive partners in research and classroom teaching and learning. This talk will contribute to the conversation about how the RISE project may continue to transform educational research and practice in the Caribbean region by building the capacity of Caribbean-origin scholars for conducting research in and with Caribbean contexts and peoples.