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Citation: Literacy and Numeracy Studies (LNS) 2014, 22, 4175, 
http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/lns.v22i1.4175 
  
L I T E R A C Y  &  N U M E R A C Y  S T U D I E S  V O L  2 2  N O  1  2 0 1 4  1 
 

EDITORIAL 
 
 
KEIKO YASUKAWA   

  
This issue of Literacy and Numeracy Studies farewells one of our 

founding editors, Rosie Wickert. Rosie was instrumental in bringing the 
predecessor journal Open Letter to the University of Technology, Sydney in 
1997, and giving it a new name and life as Literacy and Numeracy Studies: 
An international journal in the education and training of adults. Rosie 
brought to the Journal her strong commitment to developing a research 
informed field of adult literacy and numeracy in Australia, and her own 
strong research and policy engagement in the field. Even after her 
retirement from the University, Rosie continued her active involvement in 
the Journal. On behalf of the editorial group, I wish to express our deepest 
thanks to Rosie for her tireless work with the Journal. 

This issue welcomes articles from two new researchers in the field: 
Michael Atkinson and Ana Pinto. Both are currently studying for their 
research degree qualifications in Australian universities, and share their 
research in our Journal. Atkinson takes a critical perspective of the ways in 
which the neo-liberal underpinnings of the ESL programs for adult learners 
from refugee backgrounds in Australia limit their educational and social 
journey. His study suggests that by attending not only to the learners’ 
functional literacy skills, but also to learners’ sense of their emerging 
identities, these programs could be sites of much more meaningful learning 
for the learners. 

Ana Pinto’s article is focused on the design of networked learning for 
adult literacy learners. Pinto combines pedagogical and architectural 
perspectives to develop a way of understanding design features of 
networked learning environments. Her article leaves readers to contemplate 
how well designed networked learning environments may, not only 
facilitate successful literacy learning in a narrow sense, but also facilitate 
the democratic distribution of social capital and critical engagement in 
socio-political issues. 

The third article in this issue is by Robert Prince and Arlene Archer. 
Their article explores how academic voice is constructed multi-modally in 
quantitative texts. Starting from an example from a student’s thesis, they 
illustrate the ways in which different graphic texts can construct and 
negotiate modality. Their article poses questions for the teaching of 

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academic literacy and numeracy in higher education, particularly in 
disciplines whose work rely heavily on quantitative texts. 

The Refractions piece in this issue is a presentation made by Lesley 
Farrell at a 2013 forum organised by the Australian Council for Adult 
Literacy on the topic of Promoting Research in Adult Literacy and 
Numeracy. In this piece, Farrell advises researchers and practitioners to take 
heed of some of the research that is being undertaken outside the familiar 
boundaries of academic research in adult literacy and numeracy, and which 
is influencing policy makers transnationally. She cites a few such research 
studies to illustrate who are the people undertaking these studies, what 
influence are they having on policy makers, and why. Farrell’s aim is not so 
much to promote these studies as good research, but rather to argue that if 
we, as adult literacy and numeracy researchers, wish to undertake research 
that has impact on policy, we need to be mindful that traditional academic 
research is but one small source of influence in an increasingly global 
policy making process arena. 

Finally, this issue features a review of Mike Rose’s Back to School: 
Why everyone deserves a second chance at education, his 2012 publication. 
The book is reviewed by Pam Osmond, whose entire career has been in 
adult basic education in Australia. At a time when debates about literacy 
and numeracy are led and dominated by employers and governments in 
purely economistic terms, Rose’s book and Osmond’s review implore us to 
remind ourselves what education is really about and what our moral 
imperative is for researching in adult literacy and numeracy.