Constellating Literacy: A Diffractive Analysis of Policy Implementation and Classroom Practices in Early Literacy Education
Abstract
This critical ethnographic study examines the influence of policy-driven literacy reform at an elementary school in the Southwest United States. It explores how campus accountability to state legislation (re)shapes instructional culture and teaching practices at both macro and micro levels. Findings reveal tensions between top-down policy implementation and the lived realities of educators, resulting from misaligned resources, training requirements, and increased reliance on digital assessment tools. The study applies a diffractive reading approach, reframing the interplay between policies, socio-material conditions, and classroom activity. It argues unexamined fidelity to narrowed assessment and instruction in early learning can marginalize relational and multimodal literacy practices essential for equitable and culturally responsive teaching. The study concludes with implications for literacy educators and policymakers, emphasizing the need for responsive, context-sensitive approaches to early literacy instruction.
Keywords: early childhood, critical ethnography, literacy policy, diffractive reading
“Time and the world have always been the problems with structuralism, in all
manifestations…” - A.L. Becker, 1991
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