Professor Hilary Janks

The relationship between language, literacy and power as well as early childhood education are the foci of Professor Hilary Janks’s research. After obtaining her undergraduate and Honours degrees in English Literature, and Honours and Master’s degrees in Applied Linguistics at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she is currently a Professor Emerita, she completed her PhD in the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster University, Britain. She held an Adjunct Professorship at the University of South Australia and is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published two widely cited books: Literacy and Power and Doing Critical Literacy. She has authored/co-authored more than 50 journal articles and supervised 18 Doctoral and 14 Master’s students. Prof Janks received the Medal of Honour from the Education Association of South Africa and was the first recipient of the Literacy Association of South Africa’s ‘Significant Contribution to Literacy’ award. She was elected a Fellow of the American Education Research Association and as a member of the Reading Hall of Fame.