Dr. Karin Tusting
Research Fellow
Degree: BA French Studies, Lancaster University; MA Language Studies, Lancaster University; PhD Linguistics, Lancaster University
Associated research centres and groups: Lancaster Literacy Research Centre
Current Teaching
In 2011/12 I am contributing to teaching on the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences research training courses 'Undertaking Doctoral Research' and 'Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences', and leading FASS 517 'Discourse Analysis'. In the Linguistics department I am contributing to Linguistics 101 'Language Description' and 132, 'Introduction to Media Discourse'. From 2012 I will be part of the team teaching our new MA in Digital Language and Literacies.
Research Interests
I am interested in the way contemporary social practices are almost always mediated in some way through interaction with written texts of many kinds, including electronic texts. My work studies various aspects of this textual mediation process, drawing on linguistic ethnographic methodologies to study literacy practices. At the moment I have a particular interest in workplace practices, paperwork demands, and the impact of these on people's lives and identities. I have recently completed an ESRC-funded project entitled 'Paperwork and pressure in educational settings: the textual mediation of target culture'. This involved using ethnographic methods to explore the impact of centralised paperwork demands on people's working lives in two contrasting educational settings: an early years site and an adult education college.
Previously, I was a member of research teams working on theAdult Learners' Livesproject, an ethnographic study of the relationship between learning and other aspects of people's lives;the Kendal project, a study using multiple qualitative methods to explore trends and shifts in religious and spiritual belief and practice in the town of Kendal in the Lake District; and theInterculture Project, a study of undergraduates' intercultural experiences during their period of residence abroad. My doctoral research, conducted in the Linguistics and English Language department, examined the role of written text in constructing and maintaining community identity in a Catholic parish.
I have published on extending the concept of communities of practice, models of adult learning, creativity in everyday literacy practices, community-based local literacies research, time and the new literacy studies, the legitimation of cultural generalisations through appeal to personal experience, and French text analysis.
I am currently co-organiser (with Kathrin Kaufhold) of the Literacy Research Discussion Group, which brings together people from the Linguistics and Educational Research departments.
I am active nationally in theResearch and Practice in Adult Literacynetwork and am a founder member of theUK Linguistic Ethnography Forum. I am a member of the ESRC's Peer Review College.
Potential Doctoral Proposals
I am interested in supervising doctoral students working in the following areas:
- literacy studies, including workplace literacies, audit cultures and accountability, digital literacy practices, literacy practices in religious communities, and adult literacy.
- linguistic ethnography
- communities of practiceand situated learning.
- institutional ethnography
- discourse analysis
Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database
Karin Tusting has 34 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk
Maybin, Janet and Tusting, Karin (2011) Linguistic ethnography. In: The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Routledge, London. ISBN 978-0415490672
Tusting, Karin (2010) Eruptions of interruptions : managing tensions between writing and other tasks in a textualised childcare workplace. In: The Anthropology of Writing: Understanding Textually Mediated Worlds. Continuum, London, pp. 67-89. ISBN 978-1441108852
Tusting, Karin (2009) 'I am not a "good" teacher, I don't do all their paperwork' : teacher resistance to accountability demands in the English Skills for Life strategy. Literacy and Numeracy Studies, 17 (3). pp. 6-26. ISSN 1441-0559
Tusting, Karin (2008) Ecologies of New Literacies : implications for education. In: Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 3194-3206. ISBN 9780387304243
Rampton, B. and Maybin, J. and Tusting, Karin (2007) Linguistic Ethnography: Links, Problems and Possibilities. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11 (5). ISSN 1360-6441
Barton, David and Appleby, Y. and Hodge, R. and Ivanic, Roz and Tusting, Karin (2007) Literacy, Lives and Learning. Routledge. ISBN 9780415424851
Tusting, Karin and Barton, David (2006) Models of adult learning : a literature review. NIACE, Leicester. ISBN 978 1 86201 280 6
Barton, D. P. and Tusting, Karin (2005) Beyond communities of practice: language, power and social context. Learning in doing . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0521836433 (hbk.)
Tusting, Karin and Barton, D. P. (2005) Community-based local literacies research. In: Multidisciplinary perspectives on literacy research. Language & social processes (2nd). Hampton Press, Cresskill, N. J., pp. 243-263. ISBN 1572736267
Associated Keywords: Communities of practice, Linguistic ethnography, Literacy, Workplace literacy
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