He specializes in language and literacy research, with a particular interest in new literacies associated with the explosion of the internet. He was originally trained as an educational philosopher at the University of Canterbury, with interests in political and moral philosophy. He completed his master's thesis in 1972, on the right to education. His doctoral thesis looked at freedom in education. In the course of his doctoral studies he became interested in a conception of freedom as liberation developed by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. This interest evolved into his first book on literacy (Lankshear 1987), which explored reading and writing in relation to schooling and revolutionary change. In the 1990s, Lankshear collaborated with James Paul Gee and Glynda Hull to develop an account of literacy and fast capitalism within "the new work order."
