Robert Petrone
As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Petrone’s research moves across many domains, including examination of the cultural production of ideas of “age,” “youth” and “adolescence,” particularly as they are manifested by and through discourse, literary and media texts, and policies; exploration of youth cultural, learning, and literacy practices in contexts beyond schools (specifically skateboarding); and collaboration with educators to build curricula that critiques deficit renderings of youth, centers youth epistemologies, and repositions youth as educational experts. Methodologically, he employs critical discourse analysis, literary analysis, critical ethnography, and participatory approaches. Demographically, his work has primarily been in relation with Indigenous, Latinx, and white working-class and low SES male youth in rural contexts. Recently, his work has consisted of a long-term, participatory research collaboration with students and staff of an alternative high school on a Native American Reservation. Dr. Petrone’s scholarship has been published in venues such as Harvard Educational Review, Educational Researcher, Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, English Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education. In addition, Dr. Petrone has co-authored two books: Re-thinking the “Adolescent” in Adolescent Literacy (with Sophia Sarginiadies and Mark A. Lewis) and Teaching English in Rural Communities (with Dr. Allison Wynhoff Olsen). He also has a solo-authored monograph that will be published this summer by University of Massachusetts Press entitled Dropping In: What Skateboarders Can Teach Us about Learning, Schooling, and Youth Development, which is a long-term ethnographic study that explores the learning, literacy, and cultural practices of a group of working-class, Latino and white rural skateboarders. Dr. Petrone serves as Co-Editor for the international academic journal, English Teaching: Practice & Critique, Co-Director of the Missouri Language & Literacies Center, and Coordinator for the Language and Literacies for Social Transformation Doctoral Program. Prior to joining University of Missouri, Dr. Petrone was a faculty member at Montana State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned graduate degrees at Northern Arizona University and Michigan State University, and taught middle and high school English and Reading in New York and Colorado. Dr. Robert Petrone is Associate Professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum at the University of Missouri.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Aug 8). A conversation with Robert Petone (Season 4, No. 2) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/767A-06CA-FC45-6FB5-20E8-N