Teacher and Librarian Partnerships in Literacy Education in the 21st Century

Book excerpt: This volume explores teacher and librarian partnerships in literacy education, showing that such partnerships are essential to literacy education in 21st century. Teacher and librarian partnerships contribute significantly to the realization of the democratic mandate of the teaching and library profession. Partnerships respond to the educational challenges characterized by an unprecedented pace of knowledge development, digitalization, globalization and extensive transnational migration. The contributors reconceptualize literacy education based on teacher and librarian partnerships. Studies from Sweden, Norway and the U.K. analyze such partnerships as sociocultural and intercultural practices, documenting ways in which teacher and librarian partnerships in literacy education enhance reading literacy, learning, empowerment and social justice. The authors treat literacies as social practices, rather than as an autonomous skill, working with interdisciplinary perspectives that draw on educational research, New Literacy Studies, library and information science and interprofessional studies. Partnerships facilitate reading for pleasure and reading engagement in work with school subjects and curriculum goals, irrespective of socio-economic or cultural background or gender. The partnerships facilitate work with multimodal literacies and inquiry-based learning, both of which are essential in the 21st century. Equally important, the contributors show that the partnerships foster work with the multiple literacies of students and communities, and students’ attachment to the public and school library. The contributors also analyze tensions and contradictions in literacy education and in school library policy and practice, and attempts to deal with these challenges. Teacher and Librarian Partnerships in Literacy Education in the 21st Century brings together leading scholars in educational research and literacy studies, including Brian V. Street, Teresa Cremin, Joan Swann and Joron Pihl. The volume addresses scholars, and is relevant for students, teachers, librarians and politicians.