Jungmin Lee

Through ethnographic research, Lee examines how multilingual children's language and literacy practices unfold across formal and informal learning environments to inform more equitable and culturally sustaining learning opportunities.

Jungmin Lee is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the School of Information Sciences whose work examines how young children's multilingual language and literacy practices unfold across schools, libraries, and community learning environments, with particular attention to how educators, librarians, and other youth-serving professionals recognize and build on those practices.

A literacy educator whose professional journey spans South Korean and U.S. educational contexts, Lee has worked with children and young adults in elementary and secondary schools, a public library book club, and community learning spaces. For more than a decade, she has worked as a teacher educator in the United States, preparing preservice teachers and supporting practicing teachers in literacy education. Together, these experiences have shaped her understanding that literacies are enacted in and across schools, libraries, homes, and communities, and that children’s experiences with literacy should be joyful, relational, and meaningful from the very beginning.

Building on this perspective, Lee is particularly interested in what becomes possible for children's language and literacy practices in informal learning spaces, including libraries and museums, where children's interests, relationships, languages, and ways of making meaning shape opportunities for learning. Her current research includes a study of translingual participation in school library storytime and the Family Learning Observation and Analysis (FLOA) project, a community-based partnership centered on multilingual families' language and literacy practices.

She holds both an MA and a PhD in Teaching and Learning from The Ohio State University.

Lee, J., & Choi, M.-S. (2026). Learning to notice quality interactions: Preservice teachers’ sense-making of multilingual family engagement in community-based fieldwork. Early Childhood Education Journal. Advance online publication.

Choi, M.-S., & Lee, J. (2026). Constrained multilingualism in a Korean sojourner family’s museum learning. Language and Intercultural Communication, 26(3). 

Lee, J., & Choi, M.-S. (2026). Translanguaging in historical inquiry: Integrating language, literacy, and critical thinking. In N. Keefer & J. Parker (Eds.), Teaching social studies in language immersion contexts: Pedagogy and methods for integrating content and target language acquisition (pp. 115–128). National Council for the Social Studies.

Choi, M.-S., & Lee, J. (2026). Enacting translanguaging pedagogy through informal family research: Preparing elementary preservice teachers for linguistic justice with refugee and immigrant children. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 18(2), 245–260. 

Choi, M.-S., & Lee, J. (2025). Integrating Multilingualism and Asset-Based Pedagogies in Literacy Education: Preparing Preservice Teachers Through Family Learning. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 74(1).

Choi, M.-S., & Lee, J. (2025). Enhancing Preservice Teachers' Engagement with Asset-Based Pedagogies: Curriculum Revision and Implications. In L. B. Liu, M. Mohamed, C. C. Liu, C. V. Rouler, & K. Kapur (Eds.), Funds of Knowledge in Teacher Education: Sustaining Local Diversity Amidst Global Standards (pp. 238–255). IGI Global.

Lee, J. (2024). Examining the role of emotion in culturally and linguistically diverse students’ classroom underlife. Race Ethnicity and Education, 27(3).

Hikida, M., & Lee, J. (2018). Positioning Readers in One-on-One Conferences. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 67(1). 

Lee, J. (2018). [Review of the book Visual methods with children and young people: Academics and visual industries in dialogue, by E. Stirling & D. Yamada-Rice, Eds.]. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(2), 287–290.

Lee, J. (2016). Immigrant children in transcultural spaces: language, learning, and love, by M. F. Orellana. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 10(3), 182–183.

Lee, J. & Choi, M-S. Learning to Notice Quality Interactions: Preservice Teachers’ Sense-Making of Multilingual Family Engagement in Community-Based Fieldwork. Literacy Research Association, Honolulu, HI. December 2-5, 2026.

Choi, M-S. & Lee, J. Coordination Under Constraint: Chronotopic Accountability in a Korean Sojourner Family’s Museum Learning. Literacy Research Association, Honolulu, HI. December 2-5, 2026.

Lee, J. Multilingual Storytime Beyond the Text: Librarian Positioning and Family Language Practices. Association for Library and Information Science Education, Buffalo, NY. November 16-18, 2026.

Lee, J. & Choi, M-S. Disrupting the Science of Reading through Family-Based Multilingual Research: Preservice Teachers as Ethnographers of Literacy. American Educational Research Association, Los Angeles, CA. Apr 8-12, 2026.

Choi, M-S. & Lee, J. Asset-Based Teaching: Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Engagement with Multilingual Literacy Practices. Literacy Research Association, Las Vegas, NV. December 3-6, 2025.

Lee, J. Collaborative Meaning-Making in Pretend Play: How young children co-construct literacy and social connections. Literacy Research Association, Las Vegas, NV. December 3-6, 2025.

Choi, M.S. & Lee, J. Empowering Future Teachers: Multilingual and Cultural Competencies in Louisiana’s Teacher Education through the Family Learning Project, American Educational Research Association, Denver, CO, Apr 23-27, 2025.

Choi, M.S. & Lee, J. Pre-service teachers’ critical reflection on equitable literacy education through multicultural children’s literature, Literacy Research Association, Altana, GA, Dec 4-7, 2024.

Choi, M.S. & Lee, J. Bringing Family Literacy to Classroom: Redesign of ELA Preservice Teacher Methods Courses for Equitable Instruction, Literacy Research Association, Altana, GA, Dec 4-7, 2024.

Lee, J., & Choi, M.S. Nurturing Language and Literacy Practices in a Multilingual Sojourning Family: A Collaborative Approach, American Association for Applied Linguistics, Houston, TX, Mar 16-19, 2024.