Ruth Harman
Biographic Data
| ID | 810319 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ruth Harman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ruth |
| FAMILY NAME | Harman |
| SIGNATURE | HARMAN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Georgia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9827-3135 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Teacher candidates navigating immigration discourses in a politically polarized era
This study examines how preservice teachers conceptualized immigration in their online posts in an undergraduate teacher education course in the southeastern United States. Guided by a Foucauldian poststructuralist framework, we understand that in a discursive field such as a teacher education classroom, there are always competing discourses that inform students’ performativity (Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of id…
Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Applied Linguistics
This chapter explores the critical turn in applied linguistics that has led to the development of critical applied linguistics (CAL) and critical systemic functional linguistics (CSFL). We discuss how research informed by this critical perspective aims to address issues of power and privilege as enacted, reproduced, or resisted in fields such as language learning and teaching, language policy, and language rights. In discussing CSFL, we highlight…
Qualitative Literacy Research in Applied Linguistics
In this chapter, we conceptualize qualitative literacy research in applied linguistics as a complex interdisciplinary endeavor that includes fields such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and discourse analysis. Although researchers in the most recent tide of qualitative and post‐qualitative research share the view that literacy is socially situated and constructed, their theoretical and methodological approaches vary considerably. The Dougl…
Empowering Elementary Preservice Science Teachers: Harnessing Diverse Language Resources in the Practice of Modeling
Recent research has focused on innovative instructional shifts that aim to expand what constitutes science and engineering practices, exploring also how they can build on students' diverse language resources in science learning. However, few studies explore the intersections of elementary teacher preparation and the implementation of science and engineering practices through expansive and asset‐based approaches to language use. Through a qualitat…
SFL as a socially accountable praxis: Who and What Are We Working For
In this paper we explore the concept of socially accountable SFL praxis in designing, conducting, and disseminating participatory work with minoritized youth and communities. Using a reflexive methodology, we explore our often-failed attempts at developing a socially accountable SFL praxis in the southeast of the United States to support minoritized youth and their educators. Specifically, we reflect on (1) our biases, theoretical predispositions…
Critical Multilingual Language Awareness: Reflections on a Ypar Program in Teacher Education
This paper examines how two language educators of color developed critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) in a combined youth participatory action research and teacher education program. Specifically, as a multilingual and diverse group of educators, we chose to use Latin@/o Critical Theory (LatCrit) as our methodology to align with the epistemological framework of YPAR. By sharing the lived experiences and insights of the two educators o…
Critical SFL praxis in teacher education: Looking backward and looking forward (Introduction to special issue on Systemic Functional Linguistics as Critical Praxis in Teacher Education: Looking Backwa…
This special issue explores the affordances and limitations of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a critical social praxis, specifically within the context of teacher education. We define Critical SFL Praxis (CSFLP) as a social activist approach to teacher education that develops teachers’ ability to enact language use in literacy instruction to support learners in seeing, using, and challenging the nature of text/context relationships with…
Culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics praxis in science classrooms
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of scientific inquiry practices, including direct observation, creative design thinking, and argumentation based on evidential learning. To support academic equity for multilingual learners, these new expectations require reconceptualization of science teacher education and classroom instruction, whereby emphasis is placed on incorporating the ling…
Critical SFL praxis in teacher education: Insights from Australian SFL scholars
To acknowledge the lasting and increasing influence of Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) on teacher education, this article outlines Critical SFL Praxis (CSFLP) in teacher education as an activist effort in research and practice. Informed by systemic functional linguistics, the critical approach seeks to push back against minoritization of multilingual youth in schools and communities. Profiling the socio-historical backg…
Toward an Embodied Systemic Functional Linguistics Pedagogy
Halliday's (1985) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and its related pedagogical practices (e.g., teaching-learning cycle) are used in K-12 schools to support the language and literacy development of multilingual and multidialectal youth (see edited volume by Harman, 2018).Often missing from discussion of this social semiotic approach, however, is the contributing role of the body in the production of meaning in classroom discourse.Even when t…
Critical SFL Praxis With Bilingual Youth: Disciplinary Instruction in a Third Space
The authors explore the theoretical and pedagogical premises of their critical systemic functional linguistics approach, which they developed to challenge the deficit positioning of bilingual students in the Southeast of the United States. As multilingual educators from postcolonial Ireland and India, the theoretical framework has helped the authors conceptualize and design interventions that support the incorporation of the linguistic and cultur…
I Could Not Believe That Would Happen”: Challenges and Opportunities in a Critical, Project-Based Clinical Experience
As part of a youth summer program—a partnership between a large Southeastern university and the local school district—middle-school-aged youth, preservice teachers, and doctoral candidates interested in arts-based literacy practices spent their mornings in June 2016 engaging in activities that both explored and expanded thinking around their communities, schools, and families. Whereas the youth were enrolled in a monthlong creative arts and tenta…
Reflective language teacher education: Fostering discourse awareness through critical performative pedagogy
Research and Praxis On Challenging Anti-immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts
Recently, harsh immigration policies have made the lives of the new immigrant Diaspora in the southeastern United States extremely challenging. Disturbed by the impact of these sociopolitical changes on students, their families, and their teachers, as multicultural educators, we have turned for help to recent research and praxis from the U.S. and Europe that overtly challenges anti-immigration discourse. We examine two theoretical perspectives th…
Qualitative Literacy Research
Qualitative literacy research, developed in the fields of anthropology and sociology, is often defined as a research approach that focuses on interpretation; on how people interact with and make meaning of texts in particular social and cultural contexts.
Challenging Anti-Immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts
Rapid migration shifts, anti-immigrant discourses in the public sphere, and harsh immigration policies have posed daunting challenges for immigrant students, their families, their teachers, and their communities in the 21st century. Trends in public discourse and law enforcement in the United States mirror developments in European countries with high levels of immigration. Informed by the research and praxis of eight teams of researchers in the U…
Critical Performative Pedagogy: Emergent Bilingual Learners Challenge Local Immigration Issues
Recent anti-immigration policies and practices in the Southeast of the United States have presented difficult challenges for newly arrived bilingual learners and their families. To validate student voices within this socio-political context, our school/university collaboration implemented an arts-based participatory approach to English Language Arts. Informed by critical discourse analysis, this paper investigates how, in the context of anti-immi…
Critical Multilingual Language Awareness: Reflections on a Ypar Program in Teacher Education
This paper examines how two language educators of color developed critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) in a combined youth participatory action research and teacher education program. Specifically, as a multilingual and diverse group of educators, we chose to use Latin@/o Critical Theory (LatCrit) as our methodology to align with the epistemological framework of YPAR. By sharing the lived experiences and insights of the two educators o…
Challenging Anti-Immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts
Rapid migration shifts, anti-immigrant discourses in the public sphere, and harsh immigration policies have posed daunting challenges for immigrant students, their families, their teachers, and their communities in the 21st century. Trends in public discourse and law enforcement in the United States mirror developments in European countries with high levels of immigration. Informed by the research and praxis of eight teams of researchers in the U…
Critical Performative Pedagogy: Emergent Bilingual Learners Challenge Local Immigration Issues
Recent anti-immigration policies and practices in the Southeast of the United States have presented difficult challenges for newly arrived bilingual learners and their families. To validate student voices within this socio-political context, our school/university collaboration implemented an arts-based participatory approach to English Language Arts. Informed by critical discourse analysis, this paper investigates how, in the context of anti-immi…
Toward an Embodied Systemic Functional Linguistics Pedagogy
Halliday's (1985) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and its related pedagogical practices (e.g., teaching-learning cycle) are used in K-12 schools to support the language and literacy development of multilingual and multidialectal youth (see edited volume by Harman, 2018).Often missing from discussion of this social semiotic approach, however, is the contributing role of the body in the production of meaning in classroom discourse.Even when t…
Reflective language teacher education: Fostering discourse awareness through critical performative pedagogy
I Could Not Believe That Would Happen”: Challenges and Opportunities in a Critical, Project-Based Clinical Experience
As part of a youth summer program—a partnership between a large Southeastern university and the local school district—middle-school-aged youth, preservice teachers, and doctoral candidates interested in arts-based literacy practices spent their mornings in June 2016 engaging in activities that both explored and expanded thinking around their communities, schools, and families. Whereas the youth were enrolled in a monthlong creative arts and tenta…
Qualitative Literacy Research
Qualitative literacy research, developed in the fields of anthropology and sociology, is often defined as a research approach that focuses on interpretation; on how people interact with and make meaning of texts in particular social and cultural contexts.
Challenging Anti-Immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts
Rapid migration shifts, anti-immigrant discourses in the public sphere, and harsh immigration policies have posed daunting challenges for immigrant students, their families, their teachers, and their communities in the 21st century. Trends in public discourse and law enforcement in the United States mirror developments in European countries with high levels of immigration. Informed by the research and praxis of eight teams of researchers in the U…
Critical Performative Pedagogy: Emergent Bilingual Learners Challenge Local Immigration Issues
Recent anti-immigration policies and practices in the Southeast of the United States have presented difficult challenges for newly arrived bilingual learners and their families. To validate student voices within this socio-political context, our school/university collaboration implemented an arts-based participatory approach to English Language Arts. Informed by critical discourse analysis, this paper investigates how, in the context of anti-immi…
Research and Praxis On Challenging Anti-immigration Discourses in School and Community Contexts
Recently, harsh immigration policies have made the lives of the new immigrant Diaspora in the southeastern United States extremely challenging. Disturbed by the impact of these sociopolitical changes on students, their families, and their teachers, as multicultural educators, we have turned for help to recent research and praxis from the U.S. and Europe that overtly challenges anti-immigration discourse. We examine two theoretical perspectives th…
Reflective language teacher education: Fostering discourse awareness through critical performative pedagogy
Critical SFL Praxis With Bilingual Youth: Disciplinary Instruction in a Third Space
The authors explore the theoretical and pedagogical premises of their critical systemic functional linguistics approach, which they developed to challenge the deficit positioning of bilingual students in the Southeast of the United States. As multilingual educators from postcolonial Ireland and India, the theoretical framework has helped the authors conceptualize and design interventions that support the incorporation of the linguistic and cultur…
I Could Not Believe That Would Happen”: Challenges and Opportunities in a Critical, Project-Based Clinical Experience
As part of a youth summer program—a partnership between a large Southeastern university and the local school district—middle-school-aged youth, preservice teachers, and doctoral candidates interested in arts-based literacy practices spent their mornings in June 2016 engaging in activities that both explored and expanded thinking around their communities, schools, and families. Whereas the youth were enrolled in a monthlong creative arts and tenta…
Toward an Embodied Systemic Functional Linguistics Pedagogy
Halliday's (1985) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and its related pedagogical practices (e.g., teaching-learning cycle) are used in K-12 schools to support the language and literacy development of multilingual and multidialectal youth (see edited volume by Harman, 2018).Often missing from discussion of this social semiotic approach, however, is the contributing role of the body in the production of meaning in classroom discourse.Even when t…
Culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics praxis in science classrooms
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of scientific inquiry practices, including direct observation, creative design thinking, and argumentation based on evidential learning. To support academic equity for multilingual learners, these new expectations require reconceptualization of science teacher education and classroom instruction, whereby emphasis is placed on incorporating the ling…
Critical SFL praxis in teacher education: Insights from Australian SFL scholars
To acknowledge the lasting and increasing influence of Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) on teacher education, this article outlines Critical SFL Praxis (CSFLP) in teacher education as an activist effort in research and practice. Informed by systemic functional linguistics, the critical approach seeks to push back against minoritization of multilingual youth in schools and communities. Profiling the socio-historical backg…
Critical SFL praxis in teacher education: Looking backward and looking forward (Introduction to special issue on Systemic Functional Linguistics as Critical Praxis in Teacher Education: Looking Backwa…
This special issue explores the affordances and limitations of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a critical social praxis, specifically within the context of teacher education. We define Critical SFL Praxis (CSFLP) as a social activist approach to teacher education that develops teachers’ ability to enact language use in literacy instruction to support learners in seeing, using, and challenging the nature of text/context relationships with…
Critical Multilingual Language Awareness: Reflections on a Ypar Program in Teacher Education
This paper examines how two language educators of color developed critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) in a combined youth participatory action research and teacher education program. Specifically, as a multilingual and diverse group of educators, we chose to use Latin@/o Critical Theory (LatCrit) as our methodology to align with the epistemological framework of YPAR. By sharing the lived experiences and insights of the two educators o…
Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Applied Linguistics
This chapter explores the critical turn in applied linguistics that has led to the development of critical applied linguistics (CAL) and critical systemic functional linguistics (CSFL). We discuss how research informed by this critical perspective aims to address issues of power and privilege as enacted, reproduced, or resisted in fields such as language learning and teaching, language policy, and language rights. In discussing CSFL, we highlight…
Qualitative Literacy Research in Applied Linguistics
In this chapter, we conceptualize qualitative literacy research in applied linguistics as a complex interdisciplinary endeavor that includes fields such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and discourse analysis. Although researchers in the most recent tide of qualitative and post‐qualitative research share the view that literacy is socially situated and constructed, their theoretical and methodological approaches vary considerably. The Dougl…
Empowering Elementary Preservice Science Teachers: Harnessing Diverse Language Resources in the Practice of Modeling
Recent research has focused on innovative instructional shifts that aim to expand what constitutes science and engineering practices, exploring also how they can build on students' diverse language resources in science learning. However, few studies explore the intersections of elementary teacher preparation and the implementation of science and engineering practices through expansive and asset‐based approaches to language use. Through a qualitat…
SFL as a socially accountable praxis: Who and What Are We Working For
In this paper we explore the concept of socially accountable SFL praxis in designing, conducting, and disseminating participatory work with minoritized youth and communities. Using a reflexive methodology, we explore our often-failed attempts at developing a socially accountable SFL praxis in the southeast of the United States to support minoritized youth and their educators. Specifically, we reflect on (1) our biases, theoretical predispositions…
Teacher candidates navigating immigration discourses in a politically polarized era
This study examines how preservice teachers conceptualized immigration in their online posts in an undergraduate teacher education course in the southeastern United States. Guided by a Foucauldian poststructuralist framework, we understand that in a discursive field such as a teacher education classroom, there are always competing discourses that inform students’ performativity (Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of id…
Sociology (12 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (9 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Praxis (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (6 works) · Systemic functional linguistics (6 works) · Applied linguistics (5 works)