Invited Speakers
Prof. Uta Papen
Professor of Literacy Studies
Co-director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre
Lancaster University
Bio:
Uta Papen is a Professor of Literacy Studies at Lancaster University and co-director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre (https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/literacy-research-centre/). Trained as a social anthropologist, her research is located at the interface between social anthropology, education, applied linguistics and policy studies. The core aim of her work is to critically examine the teaching and learning of literacy, for adults and children, including policy and practice, as well as the link between research and policy. She has researched the role of phonics in primary literacy education, has helped develop (English) literacy pedagogies for deaf children in India, and, in a very recent project, has looked at storytelling and writing in the context of place-based literacy curricula. She is currently working on a critical analysis of adult literacy policies in the UK, to be published by Routledge. As part of this project, she seeks to understand how research influences policy and she asks what has happened to social practice views of literacy (which appear to be missing from current policies). Uta is committed to a critical, social justice perspective on literacy, using ethnographic and participatory methods, complemented by discourse analysis.
Uta has published widely, on literacy practice, policy and on research methods. She is co-editor of the Routledge Series ‘Literacies’ and ‘Routledge Research in Literacy’. More information and a list of publications can be found here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/uta-papen.
Dean – George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture
Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan
Bio:
Elizabeth Birr Moje is dean, the George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in the Marsal Family School of Education. Moje teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary and adolescent literacy, cultural theory, and research methods and was awarded the Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize with colleague, Bob Bain, in 2010. A former high school history and biology teacher, Moje’s research examines young people’s culture, identity, and literacy learning in and out of school in Detroit, Michigan.
Moje has published 5 books and numerous articles in journals such as Science, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Reading Research Quarterly, Socius, Journal of Literacy Research, Review of Education Research, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Her research projects have been or are currently funded by the National Institutes of Health/NICHD, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Spencer Foundation, International Reading Association, and the National Academy of Education. Moje is a member of the William T. Grant Foundation Board of Trustees, an elected member of the National Academy of Education, and an elected member of the Reading Hall of Fame. She is recipient of the Oscar Causey Award for Distinguished Contributions in Literacy Research from the Literacy Research Association (2022); the Senior Career Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Council of Research on Language and Literacy (2023), and the John J. Gumperz Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Scholarship from the American Educational Research Association (2024) She also was recognized among Crain’s Detroit Business’ Notable Leaders in Higher Education in 2023.
In September, 2018, together with several partners, including the Detroit Public Schools Community District and the Kresge Foundation, Moje announced the Marsal Family School of Education’s participation in the development of a cradle-to-career education system in a northwest Detroit neighborhood, on the Marygrove College campus. This vertically aligned education continuum now supports the learning of children and families from before birth through age 5 as well as grades K-2, 9-12, and postsecondary educator preparation. The schools will continue to add one grade per year and until they have a comprehensive prenatal through grade 12 set of offerings for children and families in Detroit.