1st Edition
Young People Reading Empirical Research Across International Contexts
The value of small-scale qualitative research projects into young people’s reading is often underestimated. Yet these finely tuned studies, with a precise focus and highly specialised approach, can provide us with profound insights into the richness and variety of young people’s reading practices.
Bringing together contributors from six continents, this fascinating volume explores researchers’ experiences of investigating the reading habits, preferences and practices of young people aged 12–21. Detailing a variety of empirical methodologies and research methods, its chapters also consider reading in an array of contexts, in various languages and using diverse media.
Key issues addressed in the book include:
- the complexity of sociocultural similarities and differences in young people’s reading in international contexts
- multilingual, bilingual and monolingual readers’ experiences of reading
- how young readers use a range of different print and digital media
- how our understanding of the range of texts available to young readers and the different contexts of and purposes for reading can be enhanced through small-scale qualitative research.
Providing in-depth discussion of contributors’ research and findings, and touching on many different contexts, text types and media, this volume will support and inspire current and future researchers, lecturers and teachers interested in young people’s reading.
Introduction Evelyn Arizpe and Gabrielle Cliff Hodges SECTION 1 MAKING ADOLESCENT READING CHOICES VISIBLE 1 The possibilities of comics reading: Uncovering a complex and situated reading experience in Canada Lucia Cedeira Serantes 2 The residue of fiction in the memory of adolescence: The potential effect of reading fiction in Turkey Osman Coban 3 Rivers of reading: A research method to explore young adults’ personal reading histories Gabrielle Cliff Hodges SECTION 2 ADOLESCENT READING IN TIMES OF CRISIS 4 Reading fears and opportunities: Researching changes over 25 years in the literacy practices of Mexican adolescents Evelyn Arizpe and Laura Guerrero-Guadarrama 5 Young adults’ attitudes towards reading in Lebanon Nayla Aramouni 6 ‘I think I was born with a suitcase’: Blackfoot adolescent readers’ responses to Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian Erin Spring SECTION 3 YOUNG ADULT READERS’ EXPERIENCES WITHIN AND BEYOND SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY 7 Adolescent reading habits: The effect of school activities on reading practices Mireia Manresa 8 Young people reading in Uganda: Making connections between literature and reality Rebecca Nambi 9 Exploring post-16 literature in English in a Malaysian classroom: A hermeneutic phenomenological perspective Jia Wei Lim 10 Pressure, pleasure and function: Malaysian undergraduates reading across boundaries in a university in England Su Li Chong Conclusion Evelyn Arizpe and Gabrielle Cliff Hodges
Biography
Evelyn Arizpe is Senior Lecturer at the School of Education, University of Glasgow, UK.
Gabrielle Cliff Hodges is former Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Cambridge, UK.
