Unbalanced Discourse: Shifting Meanings of "Balanced Literacy" (Poster 43)

• In Event: Saturday Poster Sessions 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Research in Reading and Literacy Poster Session 2

Abstract

This paper is an empirical study of the term “balanced literacy” in mass media, educational reporting, and legislative documents related to North Carolina’s early literacy transformation from the years 2020-2023. By using discourse analysis to examine “balanced literacy” and its shifting meanings across 49 sources, we found a pattern of diverse meanings, connotations, and associations. Among these were the ideas that balanced literacy lacks an evidence base and that it is the same as whole language approaches to literacy instruction. These findings underscore how contemporary reading debates turn on terms with unstable meanings, and that there are significant gaps between the bodies of scholarship on literacy learning and public discourse.

Authors

• Jenny Zhang, Spencer Foundation

• Marjorie W. Rowe, East Carolina University