Storytelling and Literacy Practices in Community - Bringing Together Place, People and Texts

Storytelling and Literacy Practices in Community - Bringing Together Place, People and Texts | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Storytelling and Literacy Practices in Community - Bringing Together Place, People and Texts Ondine Bradbury, Kelly Carabott This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8539021/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 8 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Community-based literacy research frequently positions storytelling and children’s literature as powerful sites for engaging learners in culturally responsive and critical literacy practices. This scoping review synthesises peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2025 to examine how such practices are enacted through relationships between schools, families, and communities across a variety of contexts. Analysis of 14 studies revealed that literacy learning is most commonly framed as relational and contextually situated, with storytelling functioning as a shared practice where identity and agency are negotiated. Across the literature, literacy practices and texts functioned as relational artefacts embedded within community life, rather than as standalone physical or symbolic resources. However, the review highlights a persistent limitation: while community-based literacy approaches frequently invited participation and rich meaning-making, fewer studies attended to how such practices were sustained through ongoing or embedded triadic arrangements involving people, places, and texts. The findings suggest that community-based literacy initiatives are most generative when they move beyond dyadic models of engagement and instead adopt relational triadic approaches that position schools, families, and communities as co-educators and co-creators within literacy practices. School community text triadic literacy storytelling Figures Figure 1 Introduction This scoping review synthesised existing research on the intersection of literacy, community engagement and storytelling, focusing on how this work has been conceptualised and enacted across diverse educational contexts. Literacy scholarship has long examined how learners and teachers engage with texts through cultural and critical lenses (Comber, 2011, 2015), with particular attention to what is visible, represented or omitted in picturebooks commonly used in primary classrooms (Barton & Fanshawe, 2024; Serafini, 2010). More recent Australian work extends this by situating text creation within community contexts and foregrounding storytelling as both a mode of expression and a form of active participation (Barton & Fanshawe, 2024; Simoncini et al., 2022). Specifically, this review aimed to identify which forms of community-engaged literacy initiatives have been trialled, how schools and communities have been positioned within them, and the kinds of outcomes reported. In contemporary literacy scholarship, children’s literature and texts are widely regarded as powerful tools for engaging learners in critical and culturally responsive literacy practices (Luke, 2018; Louloudi, 2024). From this perspective, literacy is understood not merely as a set of technical skills but as a socially situated practice shaped by learners' lived experiences and local contexts (Street, 1984; Barton & Hamilton, 1998). Culturally relevant literacies, in particular, emphasise how literacy practices are embedded in the everyday social world (Gee, 1991; Gumartifa et al., 2025). Literature informing teaching practices increasingly emphasises inclusion, equity, and responsiveness to diverse cultural and community contexts (Morrell, 2017; Mendoza, 2018). These perspectives call for literacy learning that affirms learners’ identities while enabling meaningful participation in wider social life. At a time when standardised programs and outcome-driven accountability measures increasingly shape literacy teaching, ‘meaningful participation’ offers an important counterpoint to approaches that risk narrowing literacy to decontextualised skills and scripted instruction (Gardiner et al., 2017). The findings of this scoping review suggest that community-based literacy initiatives are most powerful when they move beyond text-focused or dyadic (two-way) partnerships. They work best when designed as relational, triadic approaches that bring people, places, and texts together in meaningful ways. This review shifts attention from a sole focus on which texts are used to how literacy practices are enacted, supported, and sustained within community contexts. While literature and storytelling are powerful entry points to critical literacy, their impact can be amplified when embedded in sustained, relational work across schools and communities. Literature The following section synthesises literature that positions community-based literacy as relational and contextual practice. Drawing on sociocultural and community-oriented scholarship, it examines how literacy learning has been conceptualised through storytelling, children’s literature, and community engagement. This review provides a foundation for understanding how relationships between people, texts, and places are configured within community-based literacy initiatives discussed in the findings. Culture, Storytelling, and Lived Literacies Withiin literacy research, the concept of community is understood as fluid and context-dependent, encompassing families, local organisations, cultural groups, and other social collectives. Although definitions of community vary, these perspectives share a common orientation towards literacy as embedded in sociocultural contexts and developed through shared practices and relationships that evolve over time (Barton & Hamilton, 2012; Henry & Stahl, 2020). In this sense, community is more than a geographical location. Rather, it is relational, dynamic, and negotiated through the spaces where literacy practices are enacted. Street’s (1984, 2003) seminal work in new literacy studies similarly emphasises that literacy is always situated within social practices, shaped by context, history, and power. Wenger’s (1998) theory of communities of practice extends this understanding by defining communities as groups of people who share a concern or practice and learn through sustained interaction. These communities are characterised by a shared domain of interest, active engagement in joint activities, and the development of a shared repertoire of practices over time. From this perspective, community is not simply defined by common goals, but by ongoing participation in relational practices that evolve through collective activity. Applied to literacy, this framing highlights how reading, writing, and storytelling are shaped by participation in shared social practices rather than by individual skill acquisition alone. Seminal ethnographic research further demonstrates that communities develop distinctive literacy practices that reflect shared values, histories, and social structures, enacted through everyday participation in community life (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Heath, 1983). A substantial body of research brings together the community and the teaching and learning of literacy (Perry & Degener, 2021; Schmidt & Häggström, 2019). Across this body of work, literacy is positioned as a relational and place-based practice that connects people and their environments to make meaning in literacy learning. Schmidt and Häggström (2019), for example, illustrated how young children in Sweden used storytelling and mapping to connect their sense of belonging in literacy texts, sustainability, and their local knowledge. Perry and Degener (2021) conceptualised literacy as a social practice embedded in everyday family life. The examples they provide include menus, signage, and general social engagement. Together, these studies emphasise that literacy development is inseparable from the lived experiences and contexts in which learners participate. Further research extends these ideas by highlighting the role of creativity and collective practice in strengthening community-literacy connections. Creative, place-responsive approaches show how participants engage with local genres and narratives through activities such as walking, mapping, and multimodal production. Arts-based literacy research has demonstrated that creative practice can support wellbeing, identity, and belonging in rural and regional contexts (Barton & Fanshawe, 2024; Baroutsis et al., 2025). Miller’s (2020) work on futures literacy similarly illustrates how collective storytelling and design can serve as tools for civic participation and for imagining alternative futures. This body of work positions storytelling and children’s literature as meaningful entry points to culturally grounded literacy learning, while foregrounding literacy as a social and imaginative practice embedded in community life. It also raises important questions about how such practices are supported, sustained, and embedded within longer-term community relationships. Beyond Texts: Relational Conditions for Community-Based Literacy While storytelling and children’s literature are often positioned as central to community-based literacy initiatives, fewer studies explicitly attend to the relational and structural conditions that enable this work to endure beyond individual projects or interventions. In much of the literature, literacy artefacts such as picturebooks, stories, or creative outputs are foregrounded as the primary sites of engagement. There is less attention to the ongoing relationships, shared responsibilities, and contextual factors that shape literacy practices over time, which are crucial to literacy (Comber, 2015; Luke, 2018; Moll et al., 1992). From a sociocultural perspective, literacy cannot be separated from the social practices through which it is enacted (Lare & Silvestri, 2023). Isolating texts or activities from their relational contexts risks positioning community involvement as supplementary rather than constitutive of literacy learning (Lare & Silvestri, 2023). Focusing on these relational conditions shifts analytic focus away from discrete artefacts towards how literacy is organised, negotiated, and sustained across interconnected settings. This distinction is particularly relevant in initiatives that seek to connect literacy learning across home, school, and community contexts. Rather than operating through singular or dyadic relationships, such work often involves the simultaneous interaction of people, places, and texts, alongside multiple forms of expertise and participation (Ivey et al., 2015). Recent scholarship positions literacy as emerging through these relational configurations, where meaning-making is produced through movement across settings and sustained interaction rather than through texts alone (Nichols, 2015). Positioned in this way, literacy is not reduced to the use of artefacts alone, but emerges through how relationships are configured across settings (Beauchemin, 2021). This relational lens provides a useful framework for examining how community-based literacy initiatives are conceptualised and enacted across the studies included in this scoping review, shifting analytic attention from individual texts toward the relational arrangements that shape literacy learning. Contemporary literacy teaching is increasingly shaped by standardised curricula, programmatic approaches, and outcome-driven accountability measures that prioritise efficiency and measurable progress (Kucirkova & Cremin, 2017; Simpson, 2016, 2017; Vicars & Sesta, 2023). In these contexts, literacy is often organised into discrete units, time-bound interventions, and short-term projects with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Scholars caution that these conditions can narrow literacy practice towards technical compliance, privileging predetermined texts and routines over relational and context-responsive work (Comber, 2015; Luke, 2018; Nichols, 2015). As a result, community engagement is more readily accommodated through dyadic configurations, most commonly between teachers and students or between families and texts, than through more complex relational designs. While dyadic approaches can support meaningful learning, they also reflect the structural realities of contemporary provision, where time, resourcing, and accountability demands often constrain sustained collaboration across people, places, and texts. Therefore, the following research questions were included to guide this scoping review: How do community-based literacy practices position families, Elders, and other community members as co-educators alongside schools and educators? What does existing research reveal about community-based literacy teaching and learning through storytelling? Method This scoping review was guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and further refined by Levac et al. (2010). The review aimed to map and synthesise existing research on community-based literacy teaching and creative practices, including storytelling and picturebook production. Search Terms Initial database searches combining “community literacy”, “community engagement”, and “storytelling/picturebook creation” yielded minimal results. In response, the search strategy was iteratively refined to broaden coverage while remaining aligned with the review’s aims. This involved incorporating synonymous and related terms, consistent with scoping review methodologies that prioritise breadth and conceptual mapping over exhaustiveness. The final Boolean search string was: ("community literacy" OR "place-based literacy" OR "family literacy" OR "literacy education" OR "early literacy") AND ("storytelling" OR "children's literature" OR "picturebooks" OR "children's books" OR "narrative inquiry" OR "community engagement") Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria During the title and abstract screening phase, articles were included if they met three core criteria: (1) a focus on literacy development, broadly defined to encompass reading, writing, storytelling, and multiliteracies; (2) evidence of community involvement beyond school-based staff, such as engagement with families, local experts, artists, or broader community members; and (3) a focus on storytelling and/or children’s literature. Articles were excluded if they focused solely on classroom-based instruction without community participation or if they did not substantively address literacy practices. The initial database search yielded 213 records. To ensure relevance and manageability, the review was limited to literature published between 2015 and 2025. This timeframe reflects shifts in literacy education and community engagement over the past decade, including increased attention to culturally responsive pedagogy, co-design, and community partnerships, and aligns with recent curriculum and policy developments shaping literacy provision. Applying this date limit reduced the pool to 85 records, enabling a focused yet comprehensive analysis while maintaining methodological rigour. All records (n = 85) were imported into Covidence to manage screening and data extraction. The platform supported blinded title and abstract screening by both authors. After removing duplicates (n = 11), 74 unique records were screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Any screening conflicts were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached. Of these, 43 were excluded for insufficient focus on community involvement in literacy practices or for focusing exclusively on classroom-based pedagogy. The remaining 31 studies were retrieved for full-text review. Twenty were subsequently excluded as out of scope, most commonly because they lacked a substantive focus on literacy, did not engage community participants beyond school staff, or were based on pre-service teacher–focused projects. This process resulted in 11 studies being retained for detailed analysis. To ensure currency, an automated literature alert was established in EBSCOhost following the initial search, identifying and including three additional relevant studies prior to final analysis (Samuelsson, 2025; Wang et al., 2025; Wiseman et al., 2025). This resulted in a final corpus of 14 studies (see Figure 1). Thematic Analysis The analytical process for this scoping review followed established frameworks that emphasise systematic mapping and interpretive synthesis (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Levac et al., 2010; Peters et al., 2020). A hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis was adopted. First, a deductive coding process was undertaken, guided by the research questions, consistent with hybrid thematic approaches described by Fereday and Muir-Cochrane (2006) and Braun and Clarke (2006). Coding was conducted manually by both researchers across the full dataset of 14 studies. Given the diversity of contexts and research designs represented, studies were initially clustered by key demographic and methodological characteristics. This step supported a more coherent synthesis of patterns across family-, school-, and community-based literacy practices and aligns with scoping review methodologies that prioritise descriptive mapping before interpretation. During this phase, recurring demographic and methodological patterns across the included studies were identified. The deductive phase was complemented by an iterative inductive analysis in which both researchers re-examined all studies to allow unanticipated categories to emerge from the data. Throughout this process, analytic responsiveness was maintained as codes were refined, merged, or expanded through ongoing comparison and discussion (Braun and Clarke, 2006). An overview of the resulting codes is provided in Table 1. Table 1 Codes and Subsequent Themes Resulting from the Scoping Review Analysis Codes Themes School–community partnerships Place-based connections Community engagement Cultural connection Schools, Community, and Connection Student and community voice Shared decision-making Critical perspectives Voice and Critical Perspectives Across Community Authentic literacy practices Contextual literacy Multimodal literacies Local texts and knowledges Authentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies Finally, codes were synthesised into overarching themes using principles of thematic synthesis. This process resulted in three themes: (1) Schools, Community, and Connection, (2) Voice and Critical Perspectives Across Community, and (3) Authentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies. The alignment between themes and the studies contributing to each theme is presented in Table 2. Table 2 Themes and Relevant Studies Theme Relevant Studies Schools, community and connection English (2024)* Gunn (2019) Johnson & Flückiger (2022)* Krape & Nicholson (2019) Vaughan & Caldwell (2017) Willis (2024) Wiseman et al. (2025) Voice, and Critical Perspectives across community Gallen et al (2016) Kim (2016) Kim (2017) Authentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies Abraham (2015) English (2024)* Dyke & Drummond (2015) Johnson & Flückiger (2022)* Samuelsson (2025) Wang et al. (2025) Note: Some articles address multiple themes and are marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate they appear in more than one category in the table. Following full-text review, data were analysed to capture key features of each study, including participant groups, forms of community involvement, literacy focus, and the role of texts and place. In addition to thematic coding, a descriptive relational configuration analysis was undertaken to examine how community-based literacy practices were organised across the included studies. Drawing on charted data, studies were mapped according to their dominant relational emphasis: people and text, people and place, or people, text and place (see Table 3). Table 3 Relational Configurations of People, Texts, And Place Across Included Studies Study Location Relational Configurations Abraham 2015 United States of America People and Text Dkye and Drummond 2015 Australia People and Text English, 2024 Australia People and Text Gallen et al, 2016 Australia People and Place Gunn, 2019 Australia People and Text Johnson & Flückiger, 2022* Australia People, Text and Place Kim, 2016 South Korea People and Text Kim et al, 2017 South Korea People and Text Krepe and Nicholson Australia People and Place Samuelsson, 2025 Sweeden People and Text Vaughan & Caldwell, 2017* Australia People, Text and Place Wang et al, 2025 United States of America People and Place Willis, 2024 Australia People and Text Wiseman et al, 2025 United States of America People and Text This mapping was used to identify patterns in how literacy practices were structured and enacted across community contexts and was not intended as an evaluative measure of quality or effectiveness. Rather, it provided an analytic lens for synthesising relational arrangements across the literature and informed the thematic interpretation presented in the Findings section. Findings The studies included in this scoping review employed a range of methodologies, including small-scale qualitative case studies, program evaluations, and reflective accounts (see Table 1). Participant groups were diverse, and included children, parents, teachers, Elders, Indigenous Education Workers, and library users. Despite this methodological and contextual diversity, common patterns emerged in how literacy was co-constructed through family and community engagement and creative practices. Across the dataset, literacy learning was most often enacted through relational arrangements that extended beyond classrooms and were shaped through interactions among people, texts, and places. Community and connection Across the seven studies reviewed in this theme, literacy connections among families, schools, and communities extended into community spaces, showcasing diverse literacy practices through stories and literature. Although the studies differed in focus, from intergenerational programs to co-teaching, community arts, and trauma-informed reading. They collectively reflected an understanding that literacy flourishes when people, places, and stories intersect in rich and creative ways. Projects such as Telling Tales (Krape & Nicholson, 2019) illustrate how literacy can bridge generations. Emerging from a single school event, the project grew into a theatrical collaboration among students, grandparents, and educators. Transforming oral histories into theatrical performance positioned storytelling as an inclusive act of meaning-making, situating literacy within people and place. Vaughan and Caldwell’s (2017) Creative Arts Indigenous Parental Engagement (CAIPE) project adopted a similar relational approach, using music, storytelling, and visual art to embed the cultural knowledge of students, parents, and community members into literacy practices. Conducted across eight schools in metropolitan, regional, and remote locations, the project foregrounded culturally specific, arts-based approaches to literacy learning. Across both studies, community knowledge and expertise were strongly valued. Rather than privileging school-based literacies, these initiatives positioned community practices as equally legitimate, anchoring literacy in the relationships, contexts, and places where communities live and learn. A similar relational approach to literacy learning emerged in projects centred on parental involvement, though methods and aims varied. Willis (2024) documented a school-based collaboration in which a teacher and parents jointly planned and co-taught a unit on war and refugees, drawing on the Four Resources Model to support authentic, inquiry-based literacy tasks. Co-teaching with parents expanded opportunities for learning in, with, and through community spaces, including a visit from a Federal Member of Parliament, a presentation by a refugee and refugee advocate, and a field trip to a simulated refugee camp. Through the co-construction and co-teaching of the unit, knowledge was shared across home, school, and community contexts, enabling place-making and collective meaning-making. This demonstrated how school-parent-community connections can generate rich literacy experiences that emerge from shared knowledge and collaborative practice. This focus on ‘literacy as a communal practice’ was also evident in Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study, in which Indigenous Education Workers (IEWs) co-created culturally relevant texts with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and community members. Working alongside Indigenous Elders, IEWs took students, teachers, and some parents on-Country during the project’s initial stages, with these experiences forming the foundation for subsequent text creation. This approach repositioned IEWs as literacy leaders, with texts emerging from shared learning experiences grounded in place, culture, and community knowledge. In contrast to Vaughan and Caldwell’s (2017) use of an external organisation to facilitate school-based workshops, Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study embedded leadership within the community. This repositioned literacy agency and expertise, shifting from an externally driven, top-down approach to one grounded in community knowledge and co-constructed practices. The importance of situating literacy within community spaces was further illustrated in Gunn’s (2019) study of public libraries across Victoria, which documented a shift from libraries as passive repositories to active community hubs for literacy and communication. These library hubs engaged participants in a wide range of creative and communicative activities, including craft, multilingual conversation groups, robotics, 3D printing, community debates, and Indigenous history talks. Unlike the more targeted programs described earlier, the library initiatives supported multigenerational and multimodal literacy practices that fostered creative expression and social inclusion. Through examples such as conversation sessions that promoted both social inclusion and literacy development, Gunn’s study redefined literacy as a public and collective act, anchored in accessible community spaces where community members could co-create literacy practices. Voice and Critical Perspectives Across Community The three studies included in this theme consistently advocated for embedding literacy within lived experiences, where people are active agents capable of shaping their own learning and contributing to the shared learning culture. Across these studies, social and cultural meaning-making was central to valuing voice within critical literacy frameworks. Children’s literature functioned as a key interpretive stimulus, initiating opportunities for creative text production through which critical perspectives could be explored. Collectively, these studies grounded literacy learning within children’s social and physical environments, reinforcing literacy as an inherently community-based practice rather than an individual or decontextualised activity. Kim's work (2016; Kim et al., 2017) provided a sustained exploration of how children’s literature can function as a catalyst for voice and critical meaning-making. This was achieved through an approach that situated literacy learning within children’s cultural and social worlds. Across both studies, multicultural picturebooks were used not only as reading texts but as critical stimuli that invited children to draw on their background knowledge, beliefs, and lived experiences. In Kim’s (2016) study with five-year-old Korean children, literature discussions created reciprocal opportunities for children to articulate perspectives and generate meaning through multiple forms of text creation. Extending this work, Kim et al. (2017) demonstrated how engagement with multicultural literature supported children’s poetry writing as a means of exploring social justice, human diversity, and identity. Through the reciprocal processes of reading, discussion, and creative composition, children were able to reflect on their experiences critically and consciously reconstruct their identities. Both studies highlighted the importance of valuing children as knowledge contributors and positioning voice as emerging through literacy environments that recognise and legitimise children’s cultural knowledge. Gallen et al. (2016) similarly demonstrated how situating literacy within children’s lived experiences can amplify children’s voices and make visible the depth of their literacy knowledge. Working with four- to six-year-old Australian kindergarten children, the study explored how using picturebooks as a stimulus could support socially situated learning about place. Through the reciprocity of reading and writing as collaborative social practice, children were able to tell, draw, and create digital artefacts to express their own worldviews. Additionally, they were able to articulate their unique social and cultural understandings through dialogue and the creation of creative, multimodal texts. Authentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies Across the six studies in this theme, literacy was consistently framed as grounded in learners’ cultural contexts, community relationships, and lived experiences. Abraham’s (2015) critical discourse analysis of a Year 5 student’s narrative of her mother’s deportation illustrated how personal and family stories can disrupt dominant discourses around topics such as immigration. By positioning the student’s (Gisela) multimodal narrative as authentic literacy, Abraham (2015) also positions an approach that challenges traditional models of literacy. They demonstrated that personal experiences can provide powerful representations of meaning-making. Similarly, Wang et al. (2025) highlighted the potential of culturally sustaining pedagogies in their study of community storytime, where a multilingual mother and daughter co-led storytelling sessions that embedded heritage language and cultural artefacts. The work from Wang et al. (2025) illustrated how authentic literacy practices can validate contextual knowledge while positioning children as active contributors to literacy learning. Connections between authentic literacy, culture and literacy engagement were evident in Dyke and Drummond’s (2015) account of a holiday program in a remote Northern Territory community. In this study, Indigenous children’s oral storytelling was transformed into printed texts with illustrations, allowing the children to see their contextual and cultural knowledges and stories valued within literacy practices. This, in turn, led to heightened motivation and enjoyment of literacy, demonstrating the importance of texts generated by children themselves and those that reflect their lives and communities. English (2024) similarly foregrounded the role of family and culture in shaping meaningful literacy experiences through initiatives that supported parents in recording themselves reading to their children and provided families with multilingual books in their home languages. The findings indicated that family bonds can both strengthen and affirm children’s family literacies. At the intersection of school and community, Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study of Indigenous Education Workers (IEWs) further demonstrates the influence of culturally relevant literacies. Positioned as both support staff and literacy leaders, IEWs worked alongside families, Elders, and students to co-create culturally meaningful story texts grounded in Indigenous knowledges and on-Country experiences. This work reframed literacy as a shared, relational endeavour that strengthened community-school connections. Similarly, Samuelsson’s (2025) study in a Swedish preschool context emphasised the importance of drawing on resources across home, school, and community to expand what counts as literacy. Through a literacy book-creation project, children drew on play, props, and multiple languages to produce authentic literary artefacts, conceptualised as part of a broader literacy ‘web’. In their pre-school literacy book-creation study, children in early childhood drew on play, props, and multiple languages to create authentic literary artefacts. The studies within this scoping review highlighted how authentic literacy practices emerge through relational configurations that connect people, texts, and place. Building on this insight, the review findings mapped studies using a descriptive people, text and place lens, revealing that most initiatives operated through dyadic configurations. These are most commonly people and text, or people and place. Fewer studies integrated all three dimensions simultaneously. These configurations are not evaluative, but descriptive, offering insight into how community-based literacy practices are structured and enacted across contexts. Discussion This discussion revisits the research questions and synthesises key patterns identified across the scoping review. Drawing on the findings and the existing literature, the section examines how community, culture, and context are positioned within community-based literacy initiatives and what this reveals about the affordances and constraints of storytelling and children’s literature as sites for literacy learning. The findings are interpreted using a relational lens that distinguishes between dyadic and triadic configurations of literacy practice (see Table 3), enabling closer examination of how literacy is designed and enacted across school, family, and community contexts. Authentic Literacies as Contextually Situated Culture Across the literature review and the scoping review analysis, authenticity in literacy consistently emerged as being connected to the ideas of context and shared creation. The findings showed that the most effective ways to learn literacy are when it is embedded in learners’ everyday lived experiences. These studies demonstrated that this includes linguistic and cultural heritage, as well as local histories and community relationships. Budd (2016) and Husband (2019) highlighted how culturally responsive picturebooks allow young readers to engage critically with identity and belonging, while Wijaya (2022) extended this understanding to community-based contexts, showing that storytelling and performance can operate as living literacies that transmit relationships. With this in mind, the studies in the scoping review remind us that literacy is not confined to school walls, and that authentic literacy learning can develop effectively through the bringing together of school, cultural and communal practices. Across the scoping review, 'place' emerged as more than a contextual backdrop for literacy activity; instead, it functioned as a lived and relational dimension through which community members directly shaped literacy practices. Direct engagement with place involved the active participation of community members, whose knowledge, histories, and everyday practices contributed to the design and enactment of literacy learning. Crucially, the scoping review positions ‘culture’ in these studies as encompassing both ethnicity and contextual culture. Contextual culture encompasses the lived practices, histories and relationships that characterise a ‘place’. The studies that exemplify this finding are English’s (2024) Read Along Dads and Wiseman et al (2025), who show how literacy has the potential to rebuild family identity and relationships. These studies employed varied approaches to support authentic literacies and shared authorship. Yet, a consistent finding emerged: literacies can be both culturally and contextually sustained when they reflect the 'contextual culture' encompassing the social worlds in which participants live. These findings reinforce and extend existing literature that emphasises authentic literacy as relational and situated within literacy learning environments. The Triadic Model of Relational Literacy Pedagogy: Entangling People, Places, and Text The final section of this discussion examines how the findings emphasised the need to move beyond dyadic models of literacy (i.e., school-family; school-community) towards a triadic model. The studies in this scoping review confirmed what research has long established (Street, 1984; Barton & Hamilton, 2012) that literacy is a social practice fostered through relationships. However, the pedagogy of relationality that emerged across all community literacy examples examined expanded this understanding. These relationships were not limited to people; they also encompassed places and texts as active participants that shape literacy learning. This triadic view positions the entanglement of people, places, and texts as opportunities for authentic, rich literacy, rather than treating literacy as a discrete set of skills that can be taught and learned outside a cultural context. However, relatively few studies integrated 'people', 'text', and 'place' simultaneously. Studies such as Gunn's (2019) account of library-based literacy hubs, Samuelsson's (2025) 'literacy web' metaphor, and Willis's (2024) co-teaching with parents exemplify this more integrated, triadic configuration, demonstrating the generative potential of shared design and responsibility. Across these examples, conceptualisations of community were grounded in lived contexts of place, where literacy practices were fluid, evolving, and co-created through shared storytelling and participation in community life. Intergenerational memory and everyday literacy practices featured prominently, aligning with dynamic definitions of community in contemporary literacy scholarship (Barton & Hamilton, 2012; Henry & Stahl, 2020). Although many initiatives were powerful, they were fragile ecosystems, often reliant on short-term funding, individual leaders, or time-limited projects. As a result, literacy work was frequently experienced as a one-off event rather than as an embedded community practice. This stands in tension with Wenger's (1998) assertion that communities develop shared repertoires through sustained engagement. This analysis shows that when people, places, and texts are entangled within community practices, literacy learning is shaped through relational pedagogical influences rather than discrete instructional acts. Even so, whilst many studies affirmed that literacy flourishes when families, schools, and communities operate as interconnected systems, fewer examined the ongoing negotiation, mutual recognition, and ethics of interdependence required to sustain such relational arrangements over time. The findings suggest that place and community should not be treated as predetermined cultural inputs. Instead, they function as lived, relational contexts shaped through participation over time. For community-based literacy initiatives to endure, they require ongoing resourcing, shared responsibility, and conditions that enable them to become part of an evolving community of practice. Limitations This scoping review mapped key patterns, emphases, and gaps across the included studies. It was intentionally bounded by a focus on storytelling and children’s literature within community-informed literacy initiatives. While this lens allowed a coherent synthesis, it may have excluded other forms of community-based literacy practice that were not framed using the search terms employed. The review was also limited to peer-reviewed publications between 2015 and 2025, which may have excluded earlier foundational work and practice-based reports outside academic journals. These boundaries reflect methodological choices shaped by the review’s interest in relational and contextual approaches to literacy, and may, in turn, have influenced how the literature was interpreted and synthesised. Future Research Recommendations Future research based on the findings from this review is needed to examine how community-based literacy practices are embedded beyond children’s literature, extending practitioners’ or community-authored experiences that may be less viable in academic journal publications. Further, examination of global and longitudinal studies that have been sustained or adapted and then embedded over time may also provide insight into the conditions that support continuity once initial funding or research involvement concludes. Finally, research centred on community as co-researchers rather than participants could strengthen findings regarding agency, authorship, and notions of power within literacy engagement, thereby contributing to more relational and ethically grounded approaches to literacy research in this space. Conclusion This scoping review examined research published from 2015 to 2025 to explore how community-based storying and literacy practices position families, Elders, and other community members as co-educators alongside schools and teachers, and what this body of research reveals about literacy teaching and learning through storytelling. Across the 14 papers analysed, key themes showed that literacy practices are situated in relationships and grounded in place, where place is not a neutral backdrop but an active part of community life that shapes stories and literacy practices. Creative community partnerships were not merely didactic exchanges; they were embedded and steeped in ecological triads. When schools open their classrooms and the community becomes an integral part of the learning process, rich learning emerges, with community members becoming co-educators in literacy practices. These findings suggest that community literacy learning is a form of relational ecology that entangles people, texts, and places, enabling individuals and communities to reimagine who they are and how they belong. The convergence of school and community contexts created conditions for literacy practices to emerge that were contextually situated, culturally responsive, and authentically purposeful. These examples have implications for literacy instruction, illustrating that literacy is enacted most powerfully when grounded in the relationships that sustain it. Rather than positioning school literacy as separate from or superior to community literacy, these studies demonstrated that rich literacy practices emerged at the intersection of multiple communities, where knowledge, expertise, and resources were shared reciprocally across diverse contexts. That is, when communities engaged in shared literacy experiences, literacy became a lived social practice that reflected the complexity and richness of community life. Stories are integral to community, history, culture, and place, and rich stories emerge through shared literacy practices. This scoping review extends existing research by illustrating how literacy practices are enriched when community, school, and place intersect in authentic and contextually grounded ways. While the literature strongly theorises community, culture, and agency in literacy education, few studies integrate these dimensions within a sustained triadic model of practice. The review, therefore, points toward a re-imagined ecological approach in which family, school, and community collaborate as co-educators and co-creators, offering promising directions for designing literacy experiences that respond to learners’ lived realities. References Abraham, S. (2015). A critical discourse analysis of Gisela’s family story: A construal of deportation, illegal immigrants, and literacy. Discourse (Abingdon, England) , 36 (3), 409–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2014.901937 Adam, H., & Harper, L. J. (2023). Gender equity in early childhood picture books : A cross-cultural study of frequently read picture books in early childhood classrooms in Australia and the United States. Australian Educational Researcher , 50 (2), 453–479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-021-00494-0 Arksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology , 8 (1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616 Baroutsis, A., Woods, A., Comber, B., & Kervin, L. (2025). Mapping with children to understand the geographies of learning to write. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy , 48 (1), 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44020-024-00074-6 Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (2012). 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Agency and leadership by Indigenous education workers for family-school-community engagement. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , 51 (2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.55146/ajie.v51i2.59 Krape, E., & Nicholson, V. (2019). Telling tales... Elders serving up a smorgasbord of life. Literacy Learning , 27 (3), 31–35. Kim, S. J. (2016). Opening up spaces for early critical literacy : Korean kindergarteners exploring diversity through multicultural picture books. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy , 39 (2), 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651970 Kim, S. J., Wee, S.-J., & Lee, Y. (2017). ’The color of heart is more important’: Korean kindergarteners exploring racial diversity through poem writing. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood , 42 (1), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.23965/AJEC.42.1.07 Lare, C., & Silvestri, K. N. (2023). Reflecting on and embracing the complexity of literacy theories in practice. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 33 (1), 1-44. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation . Cambridge University Press. Levac, D., Colquhoun, H., & O’Brien, K. K. (2010). Scoping studies: Advancing the methodology. Implementation Science , 5(1), 69. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-5-69 . Louloudi, E. (2024). Investigating teachers’ perspectives of critical literacies: A comparison of case studies in Canada and in Europe . Springer. Luke, A. (2018). Critical literacy, schooling, and social justice . Routledge. Mendoza, A. (2018). Preparing preservice educators to teach critical, place‐based literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 61 (4), 413-420. Miller, F. (2020). Producing shared understanding for digital and social innovation : Bridging divides with transdisciplinary information experience concepts and methods (1st ed.). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7372-9 Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice , 31 (2), 132-141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534 Morrell, E. (2017). Toward equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice: A critical, global approach. Journal of Literacy Research , 49 (3), 454–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X17720963 Nichols, S. (2015). Ecological approaches to literacy research . In J. Rowsell & K. Pahl (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of literacy studies (pp. 171–199). Routledge. Perry, K. H., & Degener, S. (2021). Community walks, literacy practices, and everyday genres: Integrating adult, family, and community literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 64 (6), 702–707. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1155 Rowsell, J., & Pahl, K. (2020). What is living literacies? In K. Pahl, J. Rowsell, D. Collier, S. Pool, Z. Rasool, & T. Trzecak (Eds.), Living literacies: Literacy for social change (pp. xx–xx). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11375.003.0004 Samuelsson, R. (2025). Creating a web of multimodal resources: Examining meaning-making during a children’s book project in a multilingual community. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy , 25 (3), 749–776. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984231195179 Schmidt, C., & Häggström, M. (2019). Literacy and multimodality in Swedish teacher education: understanding and bringing together theory and practice. Utbildning & Lärande , 13 (1), 7. Serafini, F. (2010). Reading multimodal texts: Perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives. Children's Literature in Education , 41 (2), 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-010-9100-5 Simoncini, K. M., Smith, H., Cain-Gray, L., & Sebalj, D. (2022). Books that tell my story: Transforming the attitudes of Australian preservice teachers towards children’s diverse and multicultural literature. The Australian Journal of Teacher Education , 47 (9), 100–114. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2022v47n9.6 Simpson, A. (2016). The use of children’s literature in teaching. A study of politics and professionalism within teacher education . Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315884158 Simpson, A. (2017). Teachers negotiating professional agency through literature‐based assessment. Literacy , 51 (2), 111-119. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12114 Street, B. V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice . Cambridge University Press. Street, B. V. (2003). What’s “new” in New Literacy Studies? Critical approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 5 (2), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.7916/cice.v5i2.1685 Vaughan, T. & Caldwell, B. J. (2017). Impact of the creative arts Indigenous parental engagement (CAIPE) program. Australian Art Education , 38 (1), 76–92. Vaughn, S., Fall, A.-M., Roberts, G., Wanzek, J., Swanson, E., & Martinez, L. R. (2019). Class percentage of students with reading difficulties on content knowledge and comprehension. Journal of Learning Disabilities , 52 (2), 120–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219418775117 Vicars, M., & Sesta, J. (2023). Literacy disrupted: Re/scripting possibilities for critical curriculum change in Australian primary schools. Equity in Education & Society , 2 (2), 181-197. Wang, W., Thomas, R., & Cahill, B. (2025). Katy transforms storytime: Culturally sustaining pedagogy in the community. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy , 25 (1), 216–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984221124185 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity . Cambridge University Press. Willis, L.-D. (2024). Coteaching for parent-school-community engagement: Seen through the four resources model. Literacy Learning , 32 (3), 11–14. Wijaya, A. W. A., Siantoro, A., & Layuk, M. (2022). The whole community development in supporting children’s literacy in rural areas: community and parents’ participation to foster children’s literacy in rural areas. Journal of Indonesia Sustainable Development Planning , 3 (1), 30–47. https://doi.org/10.46456/jisdep.v3i1.257 Wiseman, A. M., Cryer-Coupet, Q. R., & Atkinson, A. A. (2025). Examining the potential of family literacy programs through the narratives of fathers in recovery. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education , 38 (7), 972–989. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2024.2425279 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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Literacy scholarship has long examined how learners and teachers engage with texts through cultural and critical lenses (Comber, 2011, 2015), with particular attention to what is visible, represented or omitted in picturebooks commonly used in primary classrooms (Barton \u0026amp; Fanshawe, 2024; Serafini, 2010). More recent Australian work extends this by situating text creation within community contexts and foregrounding storytelling as both a mode of expression and a form of active participation (Barton \u0026amp; Fanshawe, 2024; Simoncini et al., 2022). Specifically, this review aimed to identify which forms of community-engaged literacy initiatives have been trialled, how schools and communities have been positioned within them, and the kinds of outcomes reported.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn contemporary literacy scholarship, children\u0026rsquo;s literature and texts are widely regarded as powerful tools for engaging learners in critical and culturally responsive literacy practices (Luke, 2018; Louloudi, 2024). From this perspective, literacy is understood not merely as a set of technical skills but as a socially situated practice shaped by learners' lived experiences and local contexts (Street, 1984; Barton \u0026amp; Hamilton, 1998). Culturally relevant literacies, in particular, emphasise how literacy practices are embedded in the everyday social world (Gee, 1991; Gumartifa et al., 2025). Literature informing teaching practices increasingly emphasises inclusion, equity, and responsiveness to diverse cultural and community contexts (Morrell, 2017; Mendoza, 2018). These perspectives call for literacy learning that affirms learners\u0026rsquo; identities while enabling meaningful participation in wider social life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt a time when standardised programs and outcome-driven accountability measures increasingly shape literacy teaching, \u0026lsquo;meaningful participation\u0026rsquo; offers an important counterpoint to approaches that risk narrowing literacy to decontextualised skills and scripted instruction (Gardiner et al., 2017). The findings of this scoping review suggest that community-based literacy initiatives are most powerful when they move beyond text-focused or dyadic (two-way) partnerships. They work best when designed as relational, triadic approaches that bring people, places, and texts together in meaningful ways. This review shifts attention from a sole focus on which texts are used to how literacy practices are enacted, supported, and sustained within community contexts. While literature and storytelling are powerful entry points to critical literacy, their impact can be amplified when embedded in sustained, relational work across schools and communities.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Literature","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe following section synthesises literature that positions community-based literacy as relational and contextual practice. Drawing on sociocultural and community-oriented scholarship, it examines how literacy learning has been conceptualised through storytelling, children’s literature, and community engagement. This review provides a foundation for understanding how relationships between people, texts, and places are configured within community-based literacy initiatives discussed in the findings.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCulture, Storytelling, and Lived Literacies\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithiin literacy research, the concept of community is understood as fluid and context-dependent, encompassing families, local organisations, cultural groups, and other social collectives. Although definitions of community vary, these perspectives share a common orientation towards literacy as embedded in sociocultural contexts and developed through shared practices and relationships that evolve over time (Barton \u0026amp; Hamilton, 2012; Henry \u0026amp; Stahl, 2020). In this sense, community is more than a geographical location. Rather, it is relational, dynamic, and negotiated through the spaces where literacy practices are enacted. Street’s (1984, 2003) seminal work in new literacy studies similarly emphasises that literacy is always situated within social practices, shaped by context, history, and power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWenger’s (1998) theory of communities of practice extends this understanding by defining communities as groups of people who share a concern or practice and learn through sustained interaction. These communities are characterised by a shared domain of interest, active engagement in joint activities, and the development of a shared repertoire of practices over time. From this perspective, community is not simply defined by common goals, but by ongoing participation in relational practices that evolve through collective activity. Applied to literacy, this framing highlights how reading, writing, and storytelling are shaped by participation in shared social practices rather than by individual skill acquisition alone. Seminal ethnographic research further demonstrates that communities develop distinctive literacy practices that reflect shared values, histories, and social structures, enacted through everyday participation in community life (Barton \u0026amp; Hamilton, 1998; Heath, 1983).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA substantial body of research brings together the community and the teaching and learning of literacy (Perry \u0026amp; Degener, 2021; Schmidt \u0026amp; Häggström, 2019). Across this body of work, literacy is positioned as a relational and place-based practice that connects people and their environments to make meaning in literacy learning. Schmidt and Häggström (2019), for example, illustrated how young children in Sweden used storytelling and mapping to connect their sense of belonging in literacy texts, sustainability, and their local knowledge. Perry and Degener (2021) conceptualised literacy as a social practice embedded in everyday family life. The examples they provide include menus, signage, and general social engagement. Together, these studies emphasise that literacy development is inseparable from the lived experiences and contexts in which learners participate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFurther research extends these ideas by highlighting the role of creativity and collective practice in strengthening community-literacy connections. Creative, place-responsive approaches show how participants engage with local genres and narratives through activities such as walking, mapping, and multimodal production. Arts-based literacy research has demonstrated that creative practice can support wellbeing, identity, and belonging in rural and regional contexts (Barton \u0026amp; Fanshawe, 2024; Baroutsis et al., 2025). Miller’s (2020) work on futures literacy similarly illustrates how collective storytelling and design can serve as tools for civic participation and for imagining alternative futures. This body of work positions storytelling and children’s literature as meaningful entry points to culturally grounded literacy learning, while foregrounding literacy as a social and imaginative practice embedded in community life. It also raises important questions about how such practices are supported, sustained, and embedded within longer-term community relationships.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBeyond Texts: Relational Conditions for Community-Based Literacy\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile storytelling and children’s literature are often positioned as central to community-based literacy initiatives, fewer studies explicitly attend to the relational and structural conditions that enable this work to endure beyond individual projects or interventions. In much of the literature, literacy artefacts such as picturebooks, stories, or creative outputs are foregrounded as the primary sites of engagement. There is less attention to the ongoing relationships, shared responsibilities, and contextual factors that shape literacy practices over time, which are crucial to literacy (Comber, 2015; Luke, 2018; Moll et al., 1992). From a sociocultural perspective, literacy cannot be separated from the social practices through which it is enacted (Lare \u0026amp; Silvestri, 2023). Isolating texts or activities from their relational contexts risks positioning community involvement as supplementary rather than constitutive of literacy learning (Lare \u0026amp; Silvestri, 2023). Focusing on these relational conditions shifts analytic focus away from discrete artefacts towards how literacy is organised, negotiated, and sustained across interconnected settings. This distinction is particularly relevant in initiatives that seek to connect literacy learning across home, school, and community contexts.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRather than operating through singular or dyadic relationships, such work often involves the simultaneous interaction of people, places, and texts, alongside multiple forms of expertise and participation (Ivey et al., 2015). Recent scholarship positions literacy as emerging through these relational configurations, where meaning-making is produced through movement across settings and sustained interaction rather than through texts alone (Nichols, 2015). Positioned in this way, literacy is not reduced to the use of artefacts alone, but emerges through how relationships are configured across settings (Beauchemin, 2021). This relational lens provides a useful framework for examining how community-based literacy initiatives are conceptualised and enacted across the studies included in this scoping review, shifting analytic attention from individual texts toward the relational arrangements that shape literacy learning.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContemporary literacy teaching is increasingly shaped by standardised curricula, programmatic approaches, and outcome-driven accountability measures that prioritise efficiency and measurable progress (Kucirkova \u0026amp; Cremin, 2017; Simpson, 2016, 2017; Vicars \u0026amp; Sesta, 2023). In these contexts, literacy is often organised into discrete units, time-bound interventions, and short-term projects with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Scholars caution that these conditions can narrow literacy practice towards technical compliance, privileging predetermined texts and routines over relational and context-responsive work (Comber, 2015; Luke, 2018; Nichols, 2015). As a result, community engagement is more readily accommodated through dyadic configurations, most commonly between teachers and students or between families and texts, than through more complex relational designs. While dyadic approaches can support meaningful learning, they also reflect the structural realities of contemporary provision, where time, resourcing, and accountability demands often constrain sustained collaboration across people, places, and texts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTherefore, the following research questions were included to guide this scoping review:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"1\" type=\"1\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHow do community-based literacy practices position families, Elders, and other community members as co-educators alongside schools and educators?\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eWhat does existing research reveal about community-based literacy teaching and learning through storytelling?\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Method","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis scoping review was guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O\u0026rsquo;Malley (2005) and further refined by Levac et al. (2010). The review aimed to map and synthesise existing research on community-based literacy teaching and creative practices, including storytelling and picturebook production.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSearch Terms\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInitial database searches combining \u0026ldquo;community literacy\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;community engagement\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;storytelling/picturebook creation\u0026rdquo; yielded minimal results. In response, the search strategy was iteratively refined to broaden coverage while remaining aligned with the review\u0026rsquo;s aims. This involved incorporating synonymous and related terms, consistent with scoping review methodologies that prioritise breadth and conceptual mapping over exhaustiveness. The final Boolean search string was:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(\u0026quot;community literacy\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;place-based literacy\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;family literacy\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;literacy education\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;early literacy\u0026quot;)\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp; AND\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp; (\u0026quot;storytelling\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;children\u0026apos;s literature\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;picturebooks\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;children\u0026apos;s books\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;narrative inquiry\u0026quot; OR \u0026quot;community engagement\u0026quot;)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eInclusion and Exclusion Criteria\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the title and abstract screening phase, articles were included if they met three core criteria: (1) a focus on literacy development, broadly defined to encompass reading, writing, storytelling, and multiliteracies; (2) evidence of community involvement beyond school-based staff, such as engagement with families, local experts, artists, or broader community members; and (3) a focus on storytelling and/or children\u0026rsquo;s literature. Articles were excluded if they focused solely on classroom-based instruction without community participation or if they did not substantively address literacy practices. The initial database search yielded 213 records. To ensure relevance and manageability, the review was limited to literature published between 2015 and 2025. This timeframe reflects shifts in literacy education and community engagement over the past decade, including increased attention to culturally responsive pedagogy, co-design, and community partnerships, and aligns with recent curriculum and policy developments shaping literacy provision. Applying this date limit reduced the pool to 85 records, enabling a focused yet comprehensive analysis while maintaining methodological rigour.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll records (n = 85) were imported into Covidence to manage screening and data extraction. The platform supported blinded title and abstract screening by both authors. After removing duplicates (n = 11), 74 unique records were screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Any screening conflicts were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached. Of these, 43 were excluded for insufficient focus on community involvement in literacy practices or for focusing exclusively on classroom-based pedagogy. The remaining 31 studies were retrieved for full-text review. Twenty were subsequently excluded as out of scope, most commonly because they lacked a substantive focus on literacy, did not engage community participants beyond school staff, or were based on pre-service teacher\u0026ndash;focused projects. This process resulted in 11 studies being retained for detailed analysis. To ensure currency, an automated literature alert was established in EBSCOhost following the initial search, identifying and including three additional relevant studies prior to final analysis (Samuelsson, 2025; Wang et al., 2025; Wiseman et al., 2025). This resulted in a final corpus of 14 studies (see Figure 1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThematic Analysis\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analytical process for this scoping review followed established frameworks that emphasise systematic mapping and interpretive synthesis (Arksey \u0026amp; O\u0026rsquo;Malley, 2005; Levac et al., 2010; Peters et al., 2020). A hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis was adopted. First, a deductive coding process was undertaken, guided by the research questions, consistent with hybrid thematic approaches described by Fereday and Muir-Cochrane (2006) and Braun and Clarke (2006). Coding was conducted manually by both researchers across the full dataset of 14 studies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven the diversity of contexts and research designs represented, studies were initially clustered by key demographic and methodological characteristics. This step supported a more coherent synthesis of patterns across family-, school-, and community-based literacy practices and aligns with scoping review methodologies that prioritise descriptive mapping before interpretation. During this phase, recurring demographic and methodological patterns across the included studies were identified. The deductive phase was complemented by an iterative inductive analysis in which both researchers re-examined all studies to allow unanticipated categories to emerge from the data. Throughout this process, analytic responsiveness was maintained as codes were refined, merged, or expanded through ongoing comparison and discussion (Braun and Clarke, 2006). An overview of the resulting codes is provided in Table 1.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCodes and Subsequent Themes Resulting from the Scoping Review Analysis\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"621\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCodes\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eThemes\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSchool\u0026ndash;community partnerships\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePlace-based connections\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCommunity engagement\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCultural connection\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSchools, Community, and Connection\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStudent and community voice\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eShared decision-making\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCritical perspectives\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eVoice and Critical Perspectives Across Community\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAuthentic literacy practices\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eContextual literacy\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMultimodal literacies\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLocal texts and knowledges\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAuthentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, codes were synthesised into overarching themes using principles of thematic synthesis. This process resulted in three themes: (1) Schools, Community, and Connection, (2) Voice and Critical Perspectives Across Community, and (3) Authentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies. The alignment between themes and the studies contributing to each theme is presented in Table 2.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 2\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThemes and Relevant Studies\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"612\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eTheme\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eRelevant Studies\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSchools, community and connection\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEnglish (2024)*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGunn (2019)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eJohnson \u0026amp; Fl\u0026uuml;ckiger (2022)*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKrape \u0026amp; Nicholson (2019)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eVaughan \u0026amp; Caldwell (2017)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWillis (2024)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWiseman et al. (2025)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eVoice, and Critical Perspectives across community\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGallen et al (2016)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKim (2016)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKim (2017)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAuthentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAbraham (2015)\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEnglish (2024)*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDyke \u0026amp; Drummond (2015)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eJohnson \u0026amp; Fl\u0026uuml;ckiger (2022)*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSamuelsson (2025)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWang et al. (2025)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNote: \u0026nbsp; Some articles address multiple themes and are marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate they appear in more than one category in the table.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing full-text review, data were analysed to capture key features of each study, including participant groups, forms of community involvement, literacy focus, and the role of texts and place. In addition to thematic coding, a descriptive relational configuration analysis was undertaken to examine how community-based literacy practices were organised across the included studies. Drawing on charted data, studies were mapped according to their dominant relational emphasis: people and text, people and place, or people, text and place (see Table 3).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 3\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRelational Configurations of People, Texts, And Place Across Included Studies\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"624\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStudy\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLocation\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eRelational Configurations\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAbraham 2015\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUnited States of America\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDkye and Drummond 2015\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEnglish, 2024\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGallen et al, 2016\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Place\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGunn, 2019\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eJohnson \u0026amp; Fl\u0026uuml;ckiger, 2022*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople, Text and Place\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKim, 2016\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSouth Korea\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKim et al, 2017\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSouth Korea\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eKrepe and Nicholson\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Place\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSamuelsson, 2025\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSweeden\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eVaughan \u0026amp; Caldwell, 2017*\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople, Text and Place\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWang et al, 2025\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUnited States of America\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Place\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWillis, 2024\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAustralia\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWiseman et al, 2025\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUnited States of America\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePeople and Text\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis mapping was used to identify patterns in how literacy practices were structured and enacted across community contexts and was not intended as an evaluative measure of quality or effectiveness. Rather, it provided an analytic lens for synthesising relational arrangements across the literature and informed the thematic interpretation presented in the Findings section.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Findings","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe studies included in this scoping review employed a range of methodologies, including small-scale qualitative case studies, program evaluations, and reflective accounts (see Table 1). Participant groups were diverse, and included children, parents, teachers, Elders, Indigenous Education Workers, and library users. Despite this methodological and contextual diversity, common patterns emerged in how literacy was co-constructed through family and community engagement and creative practices. Across the dataset, literacy learning was most often enacted through relational arrangements that extended beyond classrooms and were shaped through interactions among people, texts, and places.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCommunity and connection\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the seven studies reviewed in this theme, literacy connections among families, schools, and communities extended into community spaces, showcasing diverse literacy practices through stories and literature. Although the studies differed in focus, from intergenerational programs to co-teaching, community arts, and trauma-informed reading. They collectively reflected an understanding that literacy flourishes when people, places, and stories intersect in rich and creative ways.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProjects such as Telling Tales (Krape \u0026amp; Nicholson, 2019) illustrate how literacy can bridge generations. Emerging from a single school event, the project grew into a theatrical collaboration among students, grandparents, and educators. Transforming oral histories into theatrical performance positioned storytelling as an inclusive act of meaning-making, situating literacy within people and place. Vaughan and Caldwell’s (2017) Creative Arts Indigenous Parental Engagement (CAIPE) project adopted a similar relational approach, using music, storytelling, and visual art to embed the cultural knowledge of students, parents, and community members into literacy practices. Conducted across eight schools in metropolitan, regional, and remote locations, the project foregrounded culturally specific, arts-based approaches to literacy learning. Across both studies, community knowledge and expertise were strongly valued. Rather than privileging school-based literacies, these initiatives positioned community practices as equally legitimate, anchoring literacy in the relationships, contexts, and places where communities live and learn.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA similar relational approach to literacy learning emerged in projects centred on parental involvement, though methods and aims varied. Willis (2024) documented a school-based collaboration in which a teacher and parents jointly planned and co-taught a unit on war and refugees, drawing on the Four Resources Model to support authentic, inquiry-based literacy tasks. Co-teaching with parents expanded opportunities for learning in, with, and through community spaces, including a visit from a Federal Member of Parliament, a presentation by a refugee and refugee advocate, and a field trip to a simulated refugee camp. Through the co-construction and co-teaching of the unit, knowledge was shared across home, school, and community contexts, enabling place-making and collective meaning-making. This demonstrated how school-parent-community connections can generate rich literacy experiences that emerge from shared knowledge and collaborative practice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis focus on ‘literacy as a communal practice’ was also evident in Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study, in which Indigenous Education Workers (IEWs) co-created culturally relevant texts with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and community members. Working alongside Indigenous Elders, IEWs took students, teachers, and some parents on-Country during the project’s initial stages, with these experiences forming the foundation for subsequent text creation. This approach repositioned IEWs as literacy leaders, with texts emerging from shared learning experiences grounded in place, culture, and community knowledge. In contrast to Vaughan and Caldwell’s (2017) use of an external organisation to facilitate school-based workshops, Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study embedded leadership within the community. This repositioned literacy agency and expertise, shifting from an externally driven, top-down approach to one grounded in community knowledge and co-constructed practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;The importance of situating literacy within community spaces was further illustrated in Gunn’s (2019) study of public libraries across Victoria, which documented a shift from libraries as passive repositories to active community hubs for literacy and communication. These library hubs engaged participants in a wide range of creative and communicative activities, including craft, multilingual conversation groups, robotics, 3D printing, community debates, and Indigenous history talks. Unlike the more targeted programs described earlier, the library initiatives supported multigenerational and multimodal literacy practices that fostered creative expression and social inclusion. Through examples such as conversation sessions that promoted both social inclusion and literacy development, Gunn’s study redefined literacy as a public and collective act, anchored in accessible community spaces where community members could co-create literacy practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eVoice and Critical Perspectives Across Community\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three studies included in this theme consistently advocated for embedding literacy within lived experiences, where people are active agents capable of shaping their own learning and contributing to the shared learning culture. Across these studies, social and cultural meaning-making was central to valuing voice within critical literacy frameworks. Children’s literature functioned as a key interpretive stimulus, initiating opportunities for creative text production through which critical perspectives could be explored. Collectively, these studies grounded literacy learning within children’s social and physical environments, reinforcing literacy as an inherently community-based practice rather than an individual or decontextualised activity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKim's work (2016; Kim et al., 2017) provided a sustained exploration of how children’s literature can function as a catalyst for voice and critical meaning-making. This was achieved through an approach that situated literacy learning within children’s cultural and social worlds. Across both studies, multicultural picturebooks were used not only as reading texts but as critical stimuli that invited children to draw on their background knowledge, beliefs, and lived experiences. In Kim’s (2016) study with five-year-old Korean children, literature discussions created reciprocal opportunities for children to articulate perspectives and generate meaning through multiple forms of text creation. Extending this work, Kim et al. (2017) demonstrated how engagement with multicultural literature supported children’s poetry writing as a means of exploring social justice, human diversity, and identity. Through the reciprocal processes of reading, discussion, and creative composition, children were able to reflect on their experiences critically and consciously reconstruct their identities. Both studies highlighted the importance of valuing children as knowledge contributors and positioning voice as emerging through literacy environments that recognise and legitimise children’s cultural knowledge.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGallen et al. (2016) similarly demonstrated how situating literacy within children’s lived experiences can amplify children’s voices and make visible the depth of their literacy knowledge. Working with four- to six-year-old Australian kindergarten children, the study explored how using picturebooks as a stimulus could support socially situated learning about place. Through the reciprocity of reading and writing as collaborative social practice, children were able to tell, draw, and create digital artefacts to express their own worldviews. Additionally, they were able to articulate their unique social and cultural understandings through dialogue and the creation of creative, multimodal texts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuthentic and Contextually Relevant Literacies\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the six studies in this theme, literacy was consistently framed as grounded in learners’ cultural contexts, community relationships, and lived experiences. Abraham’s (2015) critical discourse analysis of a Year 5 student’s narrative of her mother’s deportation illustrated how personal and family stories can disrupt dominant discourses around topics such as immigration. By positioning the student’s (Gisela) multimodal narrative as authentic literacy, Abraham (2015) also positions an approach that challenges traditional models of literacy. They demonstrated that personal experiences can provide powerful representations of meaning-making. Similarly, Wang et al. (2025) highlighted the potential of culturally sustaining pedagogies in their study of community storytime, where a multilingual mother and daughter co-led storytelling sessions that embedded heritage language and cultural artefacts. The work from Wang et al. (2025) illustrated how authentic literacy practices can validate contextual knowledge while positioning children as active contributors to literacy learning.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConnections between authentic literacy, culture and literacy engagement were evident in Dyke and Drummond’s (2015) account of a holiday program in a remote Northern Territory community. In this study, Indigenous children’s oral storytelling was transformed into printed texts with illustrations, allowing the children to see their contextual and cultural knowledges and stories valued within literacy practices. This, in turn, led to heightened motivation and enjoyment of literacy, demonstrating the importance of texts generated by children themselves and those that reflect their lives and communities. English (2024) similarly foregrounded the role of family and culture in shaping meaningful literacy experiences through initiatives that supported parents in recording themselves reading to their children and provided families with multilingual books in their home languages. The findings indicated that family bonds can both strengthen and affirm children’s family literacies.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the intersection of school and community, Johnson and Flückiger’s (2022) study of Indigenous Education Workers (IEWs) further demonstrates the influence of culturally relevant literacies. Positioned as both support staff and literacy leaders, IEWs worked alongside families, Elders, and students to co-create culturally meaningful story texts grounded in Indigenous knowledges and on-Country experiences. This work reframed literacy as a shared, relational endeavour that strengthened community-school connections. Similarly, Samuelsson’s (2025) study in a Swedish preschool context emphasised the importance of drawing on resources across home, school, and community to expand what counts as literacy. Through a literacy book-creation project, children drew on play, props, and multiple languages to produce authentic literary artefacts, conceptualised as part of a broader literacy ‘web’. In their pre-school literacy book-creation study, children in early childhood drew on play, props, and multiple languages to create authentic literary artefacts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe studies within this scoping review highlighted how authentic literacy practices emerge through relational configurations that connect people, texts, and place. Building on this insight, the review findings mapped studies using a descriptive people, text and place lens, revealing that most initiatives operated through dyadic configurations. These are most commonly people and text, or people and place. Fewer studies integrated all three dimensions simultaneously. These configurations are not evaluative, but descriptive, offering insight into how community-based literacy practices are structured and enacted across contexts.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis discussion revisits the research questions and synthesises key patterns identified across the scoping review. Drawing on the findings and the existing literature, the section examines how community, culture, and context are positioned within community-based literacy initiatives and what this reveals about the affordances and constraints of storytelling and children\u0026rsquo;s literature as sites for literacy learning. The findings are interpreted using a relational lens that distinguishes between dyadic and triadic configurations of literacy practice (see Table 3), enabling closer examination of how literacy is designed and enacted across school, family, and community contexts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;Authentic Literacies as Contextually Situated Culture\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the literature review and the scoping review analysis, authenticity in literacy consistently emerged as being connected to the ideas of context and shared creation. The findings showed that the most effective ways to learn literacy are when it is embedded in learners\u0026rsquo; everyday lived experiences. These studies demonstrated that this includes linguistic and cultural heritage, as well as local histories and community relationships. Budd (2016) and Husband (2019) highlighted how culturally responsive picturebooks allow young readers to engage critically with identity and belonging, while Wijaya (2022) extended this understanding to community-based contexts, showing that storytelling and performance can operate as living literacies that transmit relationships. With this in mind, the studies in the scoping review remind us that literacy is not confined to school walls, and that authentic literacy learning can develop effectively through the bringing together of school, cultural and communal practices.\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the scoping review, \u0026apos;place\u0026apos; emerged as more than a contextual backdrop for literacy activity; instead, it functioned as a lived and relational dimension through which community members directly shaped literacy practices. Direct engagement with place involved the active participation of community members, whose knowledge, histories, and everyday practices contributed to the design and enactment of literacy learning. Crucially, the scoping review positions \u0026lsquo;culture\u0026rsquo; in these studies as encompassing both ethnicity and contextual culture. Contextual culture encompasses the lived practices, histories and relationships that characterise a \u0026lsquo;place\u0026rsquo;. The studies that exemplify this finding are English\u0026rsquo;s (2024) \u003cem\u003eRead Along Dads\u003c/em\u003e and Wiseman et al (2025), who show how literacy has the potential to rebuild family identity and relationships. These studies employed varied approaches to support authentic literacies and shared authorship. Yet, a consistent finding emerged: literacies can be both culturally and contextually sustained when they reflect the \u0026apos;contextual culture\u0026apos; encompassing the social worlds in which participants live. These findings reinforce and extend existing literature that emphasises authentic literacy as relational and situated within literacy learning environments.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Triadic Model of Relational Literacy Pedagogy: Entangling People, Places, and Text\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe final section of this discussion examines how the findings emphasised the need to move beyond dyadic models of literacy (i.e., school-family; school-community) towards a triadic model. The studies in this scoping review confirmed what research has long established (Street, 1984; Barton \u0026amp; Hamilton, 2012) that literacy is a social practice fostered through relationships. However, the pedagogy of relationality that emerged across all community literacy examples examined expanded this understanding. These relationships were not limited to people; they also encompassed places and texts as active participants that shape literacy learning. This triadic view positions the entanglement of people, places, and texts as opportunities for authentic, rich literacy, rather than treating literacy as a discrete set of skills that can be taught and learned outside a cultural context.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, relatively few studies integrated \u0026apos;people\u0026apos;, \u0026apos;text\u0026apos;, and \u0026apos;place\u0026apos; simultaneously. Studies such as Gunn\u0026apos;s (2019) account of library-based literacy hubs, Samuelsson\u0026apos;s (2025) \u0026apos;literacy web\u0026apos; metaphor, and Willis\u0026apos;s (2024) co-teaching with parents exemplify this more integrated, triadic configuration, demonstrating the generative potential of shared design and responsibility. Across these examples, conceptualisations of community were grounded in lived contexts of place, where literacy practices were fluid, evolving, and co-created through shared storytelling and participation in community life. Intergenerational memory and everyday literacy practices featured prominently, aligning with dynamic definitions of community in contemporary literacy scholarship (Barton \u0026amp; Hamilton, 2012; Henry \u0026amp; Stahl, 2020). Although many initiatives were powerful, they were fragile ecosystems, often reliant on short-term funding, individual leaders, or time-limited projects. As a result, literacy work was frequently experienced as a one-off event rather than as an embedded community practice. This stands in tension with Wenger\u0026apos;s (1998) assertion that communities develop shared repertoires through sustained engagement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis analysis shows that when people, places, and texts are entangled within community practices, literacy learning is shaped through relational pedagogical influences rather than discrete instructional acts. Even so, whilst many studies affirmed that literacy flourishes when families, schools, and communities operate as interconnected systems, fewer examined the ongoing negotiation, mutual recognition, and ethics of interdependence required to sustain such relational arrangements over time. The findings suggest that place and community should not be treated as predetermined cultural inputs. Instead, they function as lived, relational contexts shaped through participation over time. For community-based literacy initiatives to endure, they require ongoing resourcing, shared responsibility, and conditions that enable them to become part of an evolving community of practice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLimitations\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;This scoping review mapped key patterns, emphases, and gaps across the included studies. It was intentionally bounded by a focus on storytelling and children\u0026rsquo;s literature within community-informed literacy initiatives. While this lens allowed a coherent synthesis, it may have excluded other forms of community-based literacy practice that were not framed using the search terms employed. The review was also limited to peer-reviewed publications between 2015 and 2025, which may have excluded earlier foundational work and practice-based reports outside academic journals. These boundaries reflect methodological choices shaped by the review\u0026rsquo;s interest in relational and contextual approaches to literacy, and may, in turn, have influenced how the literature was interpreted and synthesised.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFuture Research Recommendations\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Future research based on the findings from this review is needed to examine how community-based literacy practices are embedded beyond children\u0026rsquo;s literature, extending practitioners\u0026rsquo; or community-authored experiences that may be less viable in academic journal publications. Further, examination of global and longitudinal studies that have been sustained or adapted and then embedded over time may also provide insight into the conditions that support continuity once initial funding or research involvement concludes. Finally, research centred on community as co-researchers rather than participants could strengthen findings regarding agency, authorship, and notions of power within literacy engagement, thereby contributing to more relational and ethically grounded approaches to literacy research in this space.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis scoping review examined research published from 2015 to 2025 to explore how community-based storying and literacy practices position families, Elders, and other community members as co-educators alongside schools and teachers, and what this body of research reveals about literacy teaching and learning through storytelling. Across the 14 papers analysed, key themes showed that literacy practices are situated in relationships and grounded in place, where place is not a neutral backdrop but an active part of community life that shapes stories and literacy practices. Creative community partnerships were not merely didactic exchanges; they were embedded and steeped in ecological triads. When schools open their classrooms and the community becomes an integral part of the learning process, rich learning emerges, with community members becoming co-educators in literacy practices. These findings suggest that community literacy learning is a form of relational ecology that entangles people, texts, and places, enabling individuals and communities to reimagine who they are and how they belong. The convergence of school and community contexts created conditions for literacy practices to emerge that were contextually situated, culturally responsive, and authentically purposeful. These examples have implications for literacy instruction, illustrating that literacy is enacted most powerfully when grounded in the relationships that sustain it. Rather than positioning school literacy as separate from or superior to community literacy, these studies demonstrated that rich literacy practices emerged at the intersection of multiple communities, where knowledge, expertise, and resources were shared reciprocally across diverse contexts. That is, when communities engaged in shared literacy experiences, literacy became a lived social practice that reflected the complexity and richness of community life. Stories are integral to community, history, culture, and place, and rich stories emerge through shared literacy practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis scoping review extends existing research by illustrating how literacy practices are enriched when community, school, and place intersect in authentic and contextually grounded ways. While the literature strongly theorises community, culture, and agency in literacy education, few studies integrate these dimensions within a sustained triadic model of practice. The review, therefore, points toward a re-imagined ecological approach in which family, school, and community collaborate as co-educators and co-creators, offering promising directions for designing literacy experiences that respond to learners’ lived realities.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAbraham, S. (2015). A critical discourse analysis of Gisela\u0026rsquo;s family story: A construal of deportation, illegal immigrants, and literacy. \u003cem\u003eDiscourse (Abingdon, England)\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e 36\u003c/em\u003e(3), 409\u0026ndash;423. \u003cu\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2014.901937\u003c/u\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAdam, H., \u0026amp; Harper, L. J. (2023). 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Examining the potential of family literacy programs through the narratives of fathers in recovery. \u003cem\u003eInternational Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e38\u003c/em\u003e(7), 972\u0026ndash;989. \u003cu\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2024.2425279\u003c/u\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"the-australian-journal-of-language-and-literacy","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"Learn more about [The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy](https://link.springer.com/journal/44020)","snPcode":"44020","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/44020/3","title":"The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"School, community, text, triadic literacy, storytelling","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8539021/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8539021/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eCommunity-based literacy research frequently positions storytelling and children\u0026rsquo;s literature as powerful sites for engaging learners in culturally responsive and critical literacy practices. This scoping review synthesises peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2025 to examine how such practices are enacted through relationships between schools, families, and communities across a variety of contexts. Analysis of 14 studies revealed that literacy learning is most commonly framed as relational and contextually situated, with storytelling functioning as a shared practice where identity and agency are negotiated. Across the literature, literacy practices and texts functioned as relational artefacts embedded within community life, rather than as standalone physical or symbolic resources. However, the review highlights a persistent limitation: while community-based literacy approaches frequently invited participation and rich meaning-making, fewer studies attended to how such practices were sustained through ongoing or embedded triadic arrangements involving people, places, and texts. The findings suggest that community-based literacy initiatives are most generative when they move beyond dyadic models of engagement and instead adopt relational triadic approaches that position schools, families, and communities as co-educators and co-creators within literacy practices.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Storytelling and Literacy Practices in Community - Bringing Together Place, People and Texts","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-01-12 07:11:05","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8539021/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-04-05T00:44:11+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"128691017816221094735462951635459388353","date":"2026-03-18T05:04:43+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-02-02T10:17:18+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"248423331994089084386601450163543616744","date":"2026-01-13T02:31:45+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-01-08T02:26:15+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-01-08T01:33:45+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-01-08T01:32:57+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy","date":"2026-01-07T08:41:43+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"the-australian-journal-of-language-and-literacy","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"Learn more about [The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy](https://link.springer.com/journal/44020)","snPcode":"44020","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/44020/3","title":"The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"432c8f7e-a602-414b-b059-6606da120e15","owner":[],"postedDate":"January 12th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-13T10:11:13+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-01-12 07:11:05","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8539021","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8539021","identity":"rs-8539021","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}