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UBC Theses and Dissertations
Boys and girls in the reading club : conversations about gender and reading in an urban elementary school Moffatt, Lyndsay Elizabeth
Abstract
Recent research has revealed a gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. Broadly speaking, when compared with girls, boys display a more negative attitude towards reading and perform less well on measures of reading achievement. Yet, why boys appear to have such difficulties with reading and why girls appear to have fewer difficulties with it has yet to be fully explored. This thesis examines the talk of a group of grade five and six students at a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, mixed socio-economic urban elementary school, concerning their ideas of gender normative behaviour, gendered reading practices and the consequences of non-normative gender performances or gender crossing behaviour. Using Critical Socio-Cultural theories of literacy and learning and Feminist Post-Structuralist theories of gender and identity, this year long ethnographic study reveals that students' investments in their gender identities may help to create and maintain the gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. In particular, boys' investment in maintaining a heteronormative masculine identity may interfere with their participation in school based print literacy. The implications of these findings for bridging the gender reading gap are discussed. In addition, this thesis raises questions about the simplicity of current conceptions of the gender reading gap that depict boys as victims and girls as victors in school. This thesis adds to research that calls for a more complex understanding of issues of gender, "race" and class in .contemporary classrooms.
Item Metadata
| Title |
Boys and girls in the reading club : conversations about gender and reading in an urban elementary school
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| Creator | |
| Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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| Date Issued |
2003
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| Description |
Recent research has revealed a gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. Broadly
speaking, when compared with girls, boys display a more negative attitude towards
reading and perform less well on measures of reading achievement. Yet, why boys appear
to have such difficulties with reading and why girls appear to have fewer difficulties with
it has yet to be fully explored. This thesis examines the talk of a group of grade five and
six students at a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, mixed socio-economic urban elementary
school, concerning their ideas of gender normative behaviour, gendered reading practices
and the consequences of non-normative gender performances or gender crossing
behaviour. Using Critical Socio-Cultural theories of literacy and learning and Feminist
Post-Structuralist theories of gender and identity, this year long ethnographic study
reveals that students' investments in their gender identities may help to create and
maintain the gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. In particular, boys'
investment in maintaining a heteronormative masculine identity may interfere with their
participation in school based print literacy. The implications of these findings for
bridging the gender reading gap are discussed. In addition, this thesis raises questions
about the simplicity of current conceptions of the gender reading gap that depict boys as
victims and girls as victors in school. This thesis adds to research that calls for a more
complex understanding of issues of gender, "race" and class in .contemporary classrooms.
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| Extent |
6091126 bytes
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| Genre | |
| Type | |
| File Format |
application/pdf
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| Language |
eng
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| Date Available |
2009-10-29
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| Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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| Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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| DOI |
10.14288/1.0078212
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| URI | |
| Degree | |
| Program | |
| Affiliation | |
| Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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| Graduation Date |
2003-11
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| Campus | |
| Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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| Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.