Julie E. Learned

Julie E. Learned is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She studies adolescent literacy. By examining how secondary schools position readers and writers and how young people experience, resist, and help construct school contexts, she investigates issues of equity in literacy education. Research interests span literacy and equity, youth literacies, disciplinary literacy, and English education. Her scholarship and teaching are informed by her experiences as a public high school teacher in a culturally and linguistically diverse community.

Learned currently serves as an Associate Editor for AERA Open and an Editorial Review Board Member for the Journal of Literacy Research. At the University at Albany, she works on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice Task Force for the School of Education. Learned was awarded the International Literacy Association’s Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award for 2016, and in 2017 she received a Spencer Foundation grant to extend her work.


Learned, J. E., Dacus, L. C., & Burgess, K. (in press). How youth construct literacy-related identities: The role of tracking and high-stakes testing. In C. Wagner, K. K. Frankel, & C. Leighton (Eds.), Becoming Readers and Writers: Literate Identities Across Childhood and Adolescence. New York, NY: Routledge.

Learned, J. E., Frankel, K. K., & Brooks, M. D. (2022). Disrupting secondary reading intervention: A review of qualitative research and a call to action. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1234
 
Brooks, M. D., Frankel, K. K., & Learned, J. E. (2022). Placement matters: Is your reading intervention effective? Phi Delta Kappan, 103(6), 41-45.

Frankel, K. K., & Learned, J. E. (2022). Reimagining/disrupting reading interventions: A focus on situated literacy learning, youth identities, and meaningful social relationships. In K. A. Hinchman and H. K. Sheridan-Thomas (Eds.), Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction (3rd ed.) (pp. 331-348). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Levy, B. L M., Learned, J. E., & Harris, C. (2022). The multidimensional media literacy and engagement framework: A tool for fostering informed civic participation. Social Education 86(4), 263-271.  

Frankel, K. K., Brooks, M. D., & Learned, J. E. (2021). A meta-synthesis of qualitative research on reading intervention classes in secondary schools. Teachers College Record, 123(8), 31-58.

Learned, J. E., Dacus, L. C., Morgan, M., Schiller, K., & Gorgun, G. (2020). “The tail wagging the dog”: High-Stakes testing as a mediating context in secondary literacy-related education. Teachers College Record, 122(11), 1-47.

Learned, J. E., Morgan, M., & Lui, A. M. (2019). “Everyone’s voices are to be heard”: A comparison of struggling and proficient readers’ perspectives in one urban high school. Education and Urban Society, 51(2): 195-221.

Learned, J. E. (2018). Classroom contexts and the construction of struggling high school readers. Teachers College Record, 120(8), 1-47.

Learned, J. E. (2018). Doing history: A study of disciplinary literacy and readers labeled as struggling. Journal of Literacy Research, 50(2), 190-216.

Learned, J. E., & Morgan, M. (2018). Constructing reading proficiency and struggle through tracked contexts. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 17(3), 182-198.

Learned, J. E., Morgan, M. J., & Dacus, L. C. (2018). Attending to readers’ identities, positions, and social contexts: An argument for disciplinary literacy in English language arts. In M. Nachowitz and K. C. Wilcox (Eds.), High literacy in secondary English/language arts classrooms: Bridging the gap to college and career (pp. 83-104). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Learned, J. E. (2016). “The behavior kids”: Examining the conflation of youth reading difficulty and behavior problem positioning among school institutional contexts. American Educational Research Journal, 53(5), 1271-1309.

Learned, J. E. (2016). Becoming “eligible to matter”: How teachers’ interpretations of struggling readers’ stress can disrupt deficit positioning. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 59(6), 665-674.

Learned, J. E. (2016). ILA Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2016: “Feeling like I’m slow because I’m in this class”: Secondary school contexts and the identification and construction of struggling readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(4), 367-371.

Learned, J. E., & Moje, E. B. (2015). School contexts and the production of individual differences. In P. Afflerbach (Ed.), Handbook of individual differences in reading: Reader, text, and context (pp. 177-195). New York, NY: Routledge.