Research: English Educators and the Publication of Teacher Research in NCTE Journals: Advancing ELA’s Emancipatory Aims

This review of teacher research published in four NCTE journals from 2003–2023 considers who is authoring teacher research articles about which middle and secondary contexts and for which audiences. Despite teacher research’s history in English education, epistemic injustice has fragmented its contributions to our field’s knowledge base. Consequently, a recent history is critically important to document. Drawing on positioning theory to analyze how article authors position themselves and others through writing for publication, this research reveals that most teacher research published in these NCTE journals is authored by English educators. It identifies three vantage points from which English educators differently position themselves in relation to teacher research and teacher-researchers as they contribute to ELA’s emancipatory aims. At a sociopolitical moment when teacher agency and intellectualism are particularly threatened, this review calls English educators forward. By capitalizing on our collective power to publish and seek sustainable change with classroom teacher-researchers, we champion shared roles as knowledge producers and agents of change working together to emancipate students and one another from oppressive systems of inequities.