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This study sought to provide new insights to the following questions: When discussing their literacy practices, how do adolescent girls talk about their bodies? What is the role of the body in some young women's literacy? What are the different forms that (dis)embodied learning can take, and what is its role in girls' literacy education? These questions were developed out of an interest in shedding light upon how particular literacies foster agency, how school and other institutional contexts can sometimes feel physically controlling, and how voice/silence are related to (dis)embodied knowledge. Grounded in the above questions, this article shares a cross-case analysis focused on issues of the body as they relate to case studies of three adolescent girls (ages 18-21) of diverse backgrounds. Informants participated in several interviews and the assembling of literacy artifacts, and the interviews were analyzed with the Listening Guide, a feminist, voice-centered, relational methodology. First, the work is situated theoretically by defining and exploring terms such as agency, embodied knowing, and voice/silence, and how they all relate to literacy, school, and learning. Second, the methodological framework used to collect and analyze data with the female informants is provided. Third, the cross-case analysis of case studies is provided, focusing on the three themes of agency, the physically controlling nature of schools/institutions, and the notion of silence or disembodied knowing when it comes to such issues as sexuality and social class. The three informants all engaged somewhat critically with their literacies, though not in a consistent fashion, exhibiting some dissonance or disembodied knowing in relation to their literacy practices. Even in the face of Correspondence should be addressed to Christine

As qualitative researchers, our identities are inevitably mixed into our methodological approaches, and many of us secretly wonder about our roles and the quality of our listening. Researchers who are seeking a meaningful method of analysis that will honor the role of the researcher, and respect the voices and experiences of the human beings in their studies, will benefit from the multidisciplinary method of The Listening Guide (LG). The LG is a qualitative, relational, voice-centered, feminist methodology, predominantly used as a way to analyze interview transcripts. The LG differs from other means of analysis in that it places emphasis on the psychological complexities of humans through attention to voice. It does so through the creation and special analysis of voice poems as well as by attending to silences. The LG serves a very specific need in research analysis in the ways it honors the role of the researcher-researched relationship, the intricacies of voice and silence, and perhaps most importantly, unearthing trends which may have gone unnoticed. An explicit how-to guide does not exist. When researchers are new to a method, sometimes a more explicit how-to guide is necessary, and my intention is to share one in this article. In this article, I will share the democratic and multidisciplinary significance of the LG in how it matters right now, as well as a precise how-to guide on its utilization, and innovative examples of creative, interdisciplinary uses of the LG.

In order to shed personalized light upon some of the confusions surrounding dyslexia, this study draws upon critical disability studies to share the stories of mothers of children with dyslexia. This feminist autoethnography shares the voice of the researcher alongside interviews with 5 participants, all mothers of children with dyslexia, who were in their 40s, and ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, results illustrated that the children inhabited an “in-betweenness” in their disability, in the ways dyslexia was less visual and therefore misunderstood. Likewise, the children presented a great deal of resistance in their learning, which was later understood as a way of protecting themselves. Parents faced several emotional and financial battles. Educational implications include suggestions for negotiating the “in-betweenness” of reading disability, as well as strategies for navigating resistance in learning. This study emphasizes the need for more participatory research that involves students with dyslexia, and their parents.