Her research interests revolve around youth and adolescent literacy. She currently examines the roles of social, institutional, and instructional contexts in young people's literacy learning. By exploring how secondary schools position youth as readers and writers (and how young people experience, resist, and help construct those contexts) she investigates issues of equity and access in literacy education. Learned has expertise in adolescent literacy, disciplinary literacy, English education, and qualitative research methods. Her scholarship and teaching are informed by her experiences as a public high school teacher in a culturally and linguistically diverse community.