Lead Faculty: Jim Gee

Throughout my career I have sought to integrate theories of language, learning, and social practice in my research. My work on language takes a sociocognitive and sociocultural approach to oral and written language, stressing the different styles of oral language and the different types of literacy that are tied to specific domains, such as science in classrooms, or to specific sociocultural groups in our society.

My work on learning takes a situated and embodied view of the mind that studies cognition in terms of how thinking is mediated by the physical and social environment, various symbol systems, and different sorts of tools and technologies.

My method of research is a form of discourse analysis that seeks to explicate the interrelated cognitive, social, cultural, and political aspects of language-in-use and learning within specific domains. My recent research has been devoted to language, literacy, and learning in science and the sorts of cognitive, social, and cultural resources students bring to the classroom; to contrasts between learning inside and outside schools; and to the sorts of learning principles built into various digital domains, such as video and computer games.

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