Literacy research, ethics and social responsibility

In this article I examine the ethics of conducting literacy research, beyond what is typically addressed in current ethical guidelines. Using a few studies as examples, I analyse how the conception of research that underlies literacy research is grounded in ethics based on individual autonomy that allow researchers to disregard their social responsibility and often does not yield the kind of social transformations envisioned. Working from principles of social rather than individual ethics, I consider the literacy research community's responsibility to inform policy and practice, to make explicit how the research relates to people's well-being and to make the notion of what is good an explicit focus of inquiry.