Bridging Cultures through Literacy. The Thirty-Seventh Yearbook: A Double Peer-Reviewed Publication of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers

The theme for the 58th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Bridging Cultures Through Literacy. In the first section of the Yearbook, Parker Fawson's presidential address captures the unique nature of ALER and its role in his professional development, and then moved beyond to capture the changing nature of literacy. In "Creating Innovators: The Central Role of Literacy Development in a Rapidly Changing Global Landscape", Dr. Fawson described the need for 21st century "dispositions" such as creativity, critical thinking, risk-taking, and collaborative problem solving over a storehouse of facts. In section two, Violet Harris, one of the keynote speakers, reminds attendees to recognize the importance of multicultural literature as one of the critical components of bridging cultural gaps. The third section showcases ALER award winners while section four showcases the master's and doctoral research award winners' papers. The remaining articles represent a sampling of the sessions presented at the conference and are divided into three categories related to the conference theme and articles contents: (1) Bridging Cultures Through Literacy: Impacting Children, Adolescents, and Families; (2) Bridging Cultures Through Literacy: Impacting Adult Learners; and (3) Bridging Cultures Through Literacy: Impacting Teacher Education. After a peer-review process for conference acceptance, the ensuing articles underwent an additional round of peer review for acceptance in the Yearbook. The articles reflect the theme and broaden it in terms of cultures to include not only cultures of ethnicity, race, gender, politics and economics, but also cultures of new literacies and technologies. The authors address both research and practice providing additional opportunities for considering new thinking and bridging cultures of all kinds demonstrating that literacy is the road, or bridge, to human progress. [For the Thirty-Sixth Yearbook, see ED552940.]