Patricia Enciso, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Contact Info:
- E-mail: enciso.4@osu.edu
- Office: 242 Arps
- Phone: (614) 688-4288
- Fax: (614) 292-7695
Mailing Address:
- 1945 N. High St.
- Columbus, OH 43210-1172
Biographical Information:
Patricia Enciso's work focuses on relationships among reading practices, literary arts, student identities, equity and learning. She draws on sociocultural learning theory, New Literacy Studies and anti-oppressive educational theory to ask questions about how reading is constructed and performed, with what constraints and possibilities, for what social and political purposes, with what consequences for children, teachers and their communities. This approach to theory and research is especially useful for documenting and analyzing how Latino/a and African American youth and their teachers interpret and become agents within school practices such as reading education. Over the past decade, she has conducted year-long and multi-year studies of the ways children and their teachers create the world of a story, imagine themselves within that space, and use their 'engaged' experience to perform an identity as a reader. Given the potential for contradictory interpretations of texts, and the ways these are often linked with contentious or silenced social meaning, it is possible that some readings and readers will be dismissed while others are elevated. Professor Enciso's research, using qualitative research methods and discourse analysis, is concerned with how reading education can be inclusive and engaging.
A two-year ethnography of the 'social landscapes of reading' was funded by a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship (1996-1998), through which Professor Enciso documented the ways children and teachers constructed and questioned unequal access to and uses of reading practices. In this research, she also developed pedagogical principles that enabled students to more fully participate in and develop identities aligned with literary reading in school (2000; 2004).
Current Research
Currently, she is working with novice teachers and graduate supervision associates to document how they use anti-oppressive theory and pedagogical principles to develop practices of 'critically engaged reading' with middle schools students. She is also working with Courtney Kelly, a graduate student in Teaching and Learning, to document and interpret the social and linguistic negotiations of space, language, and identity among immigrant and non-immigrant youth in an afterschool program. (Funded by the OSU P-12 Project and the Education Council).
Recent Publications and Presentations
Patricia Enciso has published and presented her research nationally and internationally. Identity, Agency, and Power: New Directions in Sociocultural Theory, co-edited with Cynthia Lewis (Univ. Minnesota) and Elizabeth Moje (Univ. of Michigan) will be published in Spring 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum.
Consulting
Her recent consulting work includes serving as a content specialist and commentator for Channel Thirteen's web-based video program Reading Multicultural Literature in Middle Grade Classrooms (2005) ; as a curriculum development specialist for the Columbus Ohio, King Arts Center's Ethnic Images exhibit (2005); as a literacy specialist for the Arts in Education Institute; and as a reading curriculum development specialist in area middle and elementary schools.
She is currently serving as the Coordinator for Latino/a Studies at Ohio State University; she is the Chair of the Trustees of the Research Foundation for the National Council of Teachers of English; and was recently awarded the co-editorship of Language Arts, the premier journal of literacy education for elementary and middle level teachers and scholars.
Teaching (Masters, Masters of Education, Ph.D):
- Literacy Methods for the Middle Grades
- Reading and the Social Setting
- Diversity and Equity Issues in Education
- Literacy Research and Diverse Settings
- Sociocultural Learning Theory
- Multicultural Literature
- Development of Literary Understanding
- Critically Engaged Reading
- Ethnic Studies in Education: Latino/a Perspectives
