A Meta-Ethnography of Family Literacy Scholarship Ways With Metaphors and Silence

• Published in: Reading research quarterly Vol. 55; no. 2; pp. 271 - 289
• Main Authors: Compton-Lilly, Catherine F., Rogers, Rebecca L., Ellison, Tisha Lewis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newark Wiley 01-04-2020; Wiley-Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Argumentation; Comparative Analysis; Epistemology; Ethnography; Families & family life; Family Literacy; Figurative Language; Identification; Literacy; Metaphor; Power Structure; Qualitative research; Racial Bias; Racism; Scholarship; Silence
• ISSN: 0034-0553; 1936-2722
• DOI: 10.1002/rrq.272

In this meta-ethnography, the authors analyze the metaphors that inhabit highly cited examples of family literacy scholarship. Meta-ethnography is a methodology, as described by Noblit and Hare, in which metaphors are analyzed as linguistic tools; in this article, they are used to compare and synthesize understandings across existing ethnographic family literacy studies. Specifically, the authors identified and translated key metaphors in highly cited family literacy research studies to trace the development, refinement, and expansion of epistemological stances that have informed and continue to frame family literacy scholarship. This meta-ethnography makes visible changes in understandings and emerging lines of argument related to family literacy practices that generally are not visible. Specifically, this analysis led to the identification of a problematic silence related to racism and systemic oppression, which the authors take up as a significant meta-ethnographic finding.