The co-editors of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL) invite practitioners, teachers, and literacy educators who work with adolescent and adult learners to submit manuscripts that explore problems of practice in the teaching and learning of literacies. We welcome critically reflective articles, reviews, columns, or discussions that honor lived experiences, linguistic repertoires, cultural traditions, and the multiple perspectives about teaching and learning literacies.  

We recognize educators' transformative agency to shape literacy education to surface new insights and understandings. Research that comes from educators’ experiences with learners engages problems of practice through data gathering, analysis, interpretation, and knowledge-sharing to strengthen literacy learning. Practitioners are critical knowledge producers who expand the field's understanding and catalyze transformative change–especially in volatile and contentious times.  

Literacies, within and beyond the classroom, are dynamic, generative, and grounded in local knowledge that is shaped by educators’ knowing, acting, and doing. Insights derived from practitioner research foster connections that support transformative understandings of teaching and learning across various learning contexts. As conveyed in our editorial vision, JAAL intentionally encourages diverse authorship and welcomes new voices, including practitioner voices from the U.S. and beyond, to advance an expansive reflection about literacies teaching and learning.

History and tradition of classroom-based inquiry  

The teacher-as-researcher perspective positions professional practice as a form of ongoing inquiry. The International Literacy Association (ILA) has a long history of supporting classroom-based inquiry, including the awarding of teacher research grants since 1997. The literacy field has benefited from educator-led studies that render visible the lived realities of classrooms and other learning spaces as valid sites of knowledge production. 

As a movement, research stemming from direct work with learners by practitioners was circulated in the late 1980s and early 1990s when educational journals such as Harvard Educational Review, the Educational Researcher, and the Language Arts Journal published several influential papers focusing on teacher inquiry. These articles capitalized the important role educators play in instructional and educational leadership. Since then, leading professional organizations in education, like ILA, have recognized the value of educators’ research that is connected to their work with learners across settings and in professional development and school reform.

Why practitioner research is vital to JAAL  

Praxis-oriented research is vital to improving literacy for youth and adults. It aligns with our editorial vision of expansive contexts, liberatory practices of teaching and learning, inclusive representation, and relevance to classroom practice. Practitioners enact inquiry that mirrors the processes in disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Practitioners are not only leaders in their domain, but also intuitively knowledgeable about the needs of learners and in ways that can fuel educational reform and influence educational policy. Research that comes from practitioner voices challenges this hierarchy by offering perspectives that are authentic, contextually grounded, and ecologically valid. Indeed, as Lytle and Cochran-Smith assert, without practitioner research, we lack “a truly emic perspective” for improving classroom teaching and learning. 

Practitioner inquiry takes many forms emanating from a personal inquiry process grounded in classroom and community practices. Practitioners’ perspectives offer valuable insight about organizing and capturing teaching and learning processes and outcomes in local ways. Publishing practitioner scholarship keeps JAAL grounded in the lived realities of educators and students in multiple learning contexts, including–but not limited to–classrooms, libraries, maker spaces, community programs, museums, and digital spaces. Critical reflection, relational support, and collaborative practice are essential for advancing literacies rooted in the lived challenges and ingenuity of classrooms. 

Practitioner voices from across all literacy learning contexts represent both a commitment and a call: To broaden who gets to speak, who gets to publish, and whose knowledge shapes the future of literacy education. We welcome submissions that illuminate the complexity, creativity, and justice-oriented work educators enact daily, and we invite teacher-scholars to join a community that cultivates research, nurtures mentorship, and transforms literacies education for all.

Launching the Mentorship-to-Publication Mentoring Program 

The co-editors of JAAL are proudly launching the “Mentorship-to-Publication Program,” a new initiative designed to bring in new authors and new voices, particularly teacher researchers and practitioners, both domestic and international, including those historically marginalized in academic publishing. We recognize that many educators and practitioners conduct meaningful inquiry, yet encounter barriers such as limited access to publication networks, scholarly mentorship, and institutional research support. This program responds to those inequities by pairing JAAL authors, reviewers, and editorial board members with educators newer to publishing to provide developmental feedback, structured mentorship, and guidance through the writing and submission process. In doing so, JAAL affirms that practitioner research is foundational to the field.

Learn More

ILA's full list of literacy journals

The latest issue of Literacy Today magazine: Global Perspectives