Michael Young, PhD
Dr. Michael Young earned his Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning: Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Iowa in 2020. Prior to his appointment in the School of Teaching and Learning, he was an assistant professor and associate department head at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he was awarded the Blehart Distinguished Teaching Award.
He is a former member of the Executive Council for the Minnesota Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, where he served in legislative and policy advocacy. His research examines issues of equity inside classrooms and schools by highlighting the often conflicting and disjointed discourses of elementary literacy teaching that privilege state definitions of literacy, definitions often rooted in colonization and oppression.
Taking up critical qualitative methods including narrative inquiry, his dissertation research examined elementary teacher narratives of experience in teaching literacy in the context of school accountability efforts. Much of this research is informed by his experience as a former early childhood and elementary educator, instructional coach, and curriculum facilitator.
His work is published in Language Arts, Talking Points, and Rural Educator, and he is an active member of the National Council for Teachers of English, the Literacy Research Association, the International Literacy Educators Coalition, and the American Education Research Association. He serves on the Award Committee for the Whippoorwill Award for Rural Young Adult Literature.
Recent Scholarship
Szech, L. Young, M. J. (In Press). Subjugated learning: Caregiver perceptions of literacy, learning, and school. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.
Young, M. J. (2024). I am queer, not obscene: Disrupting policy mandates that censor readers and reading. Language Arts, 101(4), 268-271. https://doi.org/10.58680/la20241014268
Parton, C. L., Bass, E. L., Brenner, D., Kedley, K. E., Hoffman, A., Sanders, J., Yahn, J., & Young, M. J. (2023). The 2022-2023 Whippoorwill Award: Complex representations of rural identities and places. Rural Educator, 44(3), 58-65. https://doi.org/10.55533/2643-9662.1420
Young, M. J. (2022). State-defined literacy and the narrated experiences of three elementary teachers. Talking Points, 34(1), 10-16.
Young, M. J. (2021). Not allowed: Power and practice in literacy teaching as defined by the State. Language Arts, 99(2), 113-125. https://doi.org/10.58680/la202131518