Education

  • Ph.D. – Vanderbilt University, Learning, Teaching, and Diversity, with emphasis in Language, Literacy, and Culture;
  • M.A. – University of Georgia, English Education;
  • B.A. – University of Georgia, English and Comparative Literature

Areas of Expertise

  • Literacy
  • Digital media and learning
  • Digital equity
  • Design-based research
  • Affect theory
  • Hospital schools

Background

A former high school teacher in Athens, Georgia, Christian has long been fascinated by how people develop and deepen human connections through experiences with literacy. Since his last year as a classroom teacher, he has spent over a decade documenting the emotional dimensions of how people read, write, and engage digitally to communicate, create and connect. During this time, Christian has worked alongside educators and youth workers in schools and communities to design learning experiences that support youths’ well-being. The contexts of this work have included children’s hospital schools, middle and high schools in the US and Canada, public libraries, and urban community centers. Christian’s work has been supported by a variety of private and governmental funders such as the National Council of Teachers of English, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec. He is co-editor of Reading Research Quarterly through 2026.

Research

Christian’s current research examines the emotional complexities of literacy and learning in children and youths’ increasingly digitized lives. His research takes a critical approach to technology’s role in enhancing community and in fracturing human connection, in deepening youths’ sense of self and in depleting youths’ well-being. Related projects in progress or recently completed have investigated: how adolescents learn to communicate and build community through affectively intense moments of esports play (competitive videogaming) in urban youth centers, and how adolescents develop critical, algorithmic literacy through everyday social media use.

His current research agenda follows three primary questions: 1) How do the ways in which children and youth read, learn and communicate with technology relate to their sense of human connection, community and well-being?; 2) How can researchers, educators and youth workers incorporate technology in designing learning opportunities for children and youth that increase their sense of human connection, community and well-being?; 3) How can researchers, educators and youth workers address educational inequities through emotionally resonant digital education that connects and improves well-being and educational outcomes for children and youth served by children’s hospital schools?

  • EDUC 994, Doctoral Research and Dissertation
  • EDUC 615, Schools and Community Collaboration
  • EDUC 851, Curriculum Theory
  • EDUC 390, Special Topics in Education
  • EDUC 615
  • EDUC 994
  • EDMX 708
  • EDUC 851
  • Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research, Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research. (January 2025).
  • James Fellow, Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Center, University of Sydney. (July 2024).
  • International Society of the Learning Sciences. (June 2016 – Present).
  • Literacy Research Association. (December 2011 – Present).
  • National Council of Teachers of English. (November 2011 – Present).
  • American Educational Research Association. (April 2011 – Present).

Journal Article

Hollett, T., & Ehret, C. (2025). Literacies and the production of intimacy in a family idioculture: Shared games, shared stories, and momentous desires. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Published. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984251405340

Aggleton, J., Mannard, E., & Ehret, C. (2025). Overcoming barriers and improving outcomes: Teachers’ perspectives on using narrative videogames to teach literacy/Englis. Literacy. Published. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12384

Low, B., Ehret, C., & Hagh, A. (2025). Algorithmic imaginings and critical digital literacy on #BookTok. New Media and Society, 27(4), 2336–2353. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231206466

Becerra Posada, T., & Ehret, C. (2024). Land‐based literacies in local naturecultures: Walking, reading, and storying the forests in rural Colombia. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 68(2), 162–177. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1375

Posada, T. B., & Ehret, C. (2024). Walking, reading, and storying the forests: The interdependence of land and literacies in rural Colombia,. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 68(2), 162–177. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jaal.1375

Ehret, C. (2024). Critical literacies in algorithmic cultures. Literacy, 58(2), 157–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12363

Petterson, K., & Ehret, C. (2024). Refrains of Friendship in Young Children’s Postdigital Play. Journal of Literacy Research, Online first(Online first), Online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X241226479

Ehret, C., & Rowsell, J. (2021). Literacy, Affect, and Uncontrollability. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(2), 201–206. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.387

Leander, K. M., Aziz, S., Botzakis, S., Ehret, C., Landry, D., & Rowsell, J. (2017). Readings and Experiences of Multimodality. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 66(1), 95–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336917719247

Ehret, C., & Hollett, T. (2016). Affective Dimensions of Participatory Design Research in Informal Learning Environments: Placemaking, Belonging, and Correspondence. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 250–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2016.1169815

Ehret, C., & Hollett, T. (2014). Embodied Composition in Real Virtualities: Adolescents’ Literacy Practices and Felt Experiences Moving with Digital, Mobile Devices in School. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(4), 428–452. https://doi.org/10.58680/rte201425161

Book Chapter

Ehret, C., Curwood, J. S., Mannard, E., & Sidhu, P. (accepted). Co-Design as a Research Paradigm to Foster Digital Literacies: Ten Principles. In Handbook of Digital Literacies Research.

Ehret, C. (2018). Propositions from Affect Theory for Feeling Literacy Through the Event. In Theoretical Models and Processes of Literacy (pp. 563–581). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315110592-34

Hollett, T., & Ehret, C. (2017). Relational Methodologies for Mobile Literacies: Intra-action, Rhythm, and Atmosphere. In The Case of the iPad (pp. 227–244). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4364-2_14

Conference Proceeding

Ehret, C., & Chung, J. Y. (2025). Desiring Learning in a Hospital School Arts Education Program. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, 1894–1898.

Rahm, J., Polman, J. L., Adams, J., Ehret, C., & Mannard, E. (2023). Centering Critical Youth Research Methodologies of Praxis and Care in Post-Pandemic Times: From Respectful Relations and Dialogue Towards New Imaginaries. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, 1622–1629. https://repository.isls.org/handle/1/9983

Other

Playful literacies across ages and contexts: new horizons for pleasure, affect, and living texts. (2023). In C. Ehret, T. Flint, J. Lammers, A. Magnifico, & R. Mora (Eds.), English Teaching: Practice & Critique: Vol. 22 (2nd ed.). Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-06-2023-199

Professional

  • Reviewer/Referee, Spencer Foundation. (January 2025 – December 2026).
  • Board of Directors, Literacy Research Association. (December 2023 – December 2026).
  • Editor, Reading Research Quarterly. (September 2022 – September 2026).

University

  • Chair, Curriculum Committee. (August 2023 – 2024).