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Part of
Innovative Qualitative Methodologies in Multilingual Literacy Development Research: Amplifying voices from immigrant, transnational, and refugee communities
Edited by Amanda K. Kibler and Fares J. Karam
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 11] 2025
► pp. 92–100

Chapter 5
Commentary: The instability of ‘data’ in a postdigital era

Key challenges for qualitative multilingual researchers

 | University of Pennsylvania
This commentary on Part 1 of Innovative Qualitative Methodologies in Multilingual Literacy Development Research: Amplifying Voices from Immigrant, Transnational, and Refugee Communities focuses upon some of the ways in which qualitative literacy researchers have begun to rethink data. Complex ethical and conceptual challenges that arise in multilingual literacy research in a postdigital era are contextualized in the work of the three chapters in Part 1 before directions for future research are offered.
Keywords: qualitative, literacy, multilingual, methodology, data
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The challenge of data on the move: Methods for moving with
  • The challenge of what counts as data: Methods to expand data
  • The challenge of representation: Methods for making visible
  • Moving forward: Centering ethics and equity in working with data
  • References
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References (14)
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