2027 Main Call

Reimagining Power and Possibilities for Language and Literacy Education in an Era of Disempowerment

This is a moment characterized by felt crisis: media-induced pressures around a literacy crisis (Thomas, 2024; Chaffin, et al., 2023), the ongoing weaponization of standardized testing, censorship of diverse texts (ALA, 2026), and threats facing diverse learners all elicit disheartening responses, such as steady rates of teacher attrition (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024), self-policing, and anticipatory obedience (AAUP, 2025). Times of panic invite rushed responses, often serving to further disempower those already struggling for power (Okun, 2025); in response, the members of JoLLE seek to slow down and invite empowering reflection and action that challenge these enervating forces. As these pressures can result in imposing traditional power-dynamics, we seek new possibilities, arcing toward resistance.

We, the 2027 staff of JoLLE, seek to give a venue for scholarship that confronts ongoing panic with new possibilities. As a way to respond to widespread disempowerment, we seek alternative approaches that deconstruct power dynamics; research that moves beyond identification of problems toward scholarly work that centers a reimagination of liberatory practices in language and literacy educational theories, traditions, and research. 

We invite researchers, practitioners, and scholars at all levels to submit empirical research, theoretical papers, content analyses, discourse analyses, practitioner inquiries, and innovative methodological work that addresses our theme of reimagining power within the field of literacy and language education. Multiple modalities are welcome. Interdisciplinary work that fuses the creative and the analytical will also be considered.

 

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

  • Who has power in education? How might place/spacemaking work to deconstruct power in education? 
  • What counts as research? How might knowledge be constructed, shared, and celebrated?
  • How might anticipatory obedience impact teachers in the classroom? How might scholars and educators exercise agency in the face of felt-crises? How might educators disrupt crisis-narratives? 
  • How might educators negotiate the intersection of addressing the added pressures of standardized testing, scripted curricula, and the wide-spread banning of text in tandem with these reimaginings?
  • How might children’s and young adult literature work to (re)structure authority for young people? 
  • How might arts-based inquiry provide space for students to grapple with uncomfortable topics? 

 

Submissions may be submitted now through November 1, 2026. 

 

JoLLE’s first issue of 2027 volume year will include both a themed section which responds to the above call, and an “open-submission” section. The open-call section of JoLLE broadly facilitates topics for scholarship which encompasses the breadth and depth of the field of language and literacy education. Please consider submitting your work to either section of the journal. We appreciate your ongoing dedication to the field. 

References

AAUP. (2025). Against Anticipatory Obedience. aaup.org. https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/against-anticipatory-obedience

ALA. (2026). Censorship by the numbers: Banned books data. American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data

Chaffin, M., Riesco, H. S., Hackett-Hill, K., Collet, V., Grizzle, M. Y., & Warren, J. (2023). “Phonics monkeys” and “real life reading”: Heteroglossic views of a state reading initiative. Literacy Research and Instruction, 63(3), 257–278. https://doi .org/10.1080/19388071.2023.2271085

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Teacher Turnover: Stayers, Movers, and Leavers. Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved [date], from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/slc.

Okun, T. (2025). Sense of urgency. Retrieved March 18, 2025 from https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/urgency.html 

Thomas, P. L. (2024). Teaching English in the “Science of Reading” ERA: We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The media continue to misread teaching reading and literacy. English Journal, 114(1), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.58680/ej2024114114