Understanding boys' (dis)engagement with reading for pleasure

Why do boys from low-income families appear to read for pleasure far less than other groups of young people? This research project provides new evidence that how reading is taught in schools influences different boys’ orientations to and engagement with reading for pleasure. It offers evidence that boys’ (dis)engagement is not simply a gender issue and that it also involves teacher perceptions of other aspects of boys’ social and learner identities, including ‘ability’, ethnicity and social class.
The research was funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Foundation. There is considerable international evidence that illustrates the significant cognitive (including increased attainment in literacy and numeracy tests), affective and social benefits of reading for pleasure (OECD 2010). Yet less than half of boys in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) surveyed in English schools recently (Clarke 2016) report reading for pleasure and are significantly underachieving educationally. The present research case studied eight boys aged 9-10 years and three girls in four schools (labelled Schools A-D) with higher than average proportions (32-59%) of children eligible for FSM in England. The research found that a combination of teachers’ perceptions of boys’ in-school ‘ability’ labels, gender, ethnicity and social class, and the teaching practices for reading, caused some boys to become positioned as struggling readers who do not engage with volitional reading for pleasure. This impacted negatively on their orientations to, and level of engagement with, reading for pleasure