Från vildmark till grön ängel : Receptionsanalyser av läsning i åttonde klass

• The subject of this dissertation is Swedish upper secondary pupils’ reception of novels read as part of their literature instruction. The main purpose is to study and compare the reading of female pupils with that of male pupils and to analyze to what extent attention is paid to their private reading experiences in the literary teaching. What strategies do the students use to interpret and discuss fiction? And what is the relationship between their private reading habits and the way fiction is studied at school? Consequently, the subject field of this qualitative study concerns not only teenagers’ private reading habits, but also gender related issues, school adjusted reading routines and didactic matters.Reading at school differs in many ways from the pupils’ private reading habits, but there are also differences regarding the students’ attitudes towards reading as such. There proved to be certain diversities between the reading habits of boys and girls. The boys read in general less than the girls, and many boys were interested in reading adventurous and exciting stories. The girls were more into reading realistic novels, and to them it was important that they could identify with the characters. Many pupils responded personally to their reading. Instead of reflecting on the meaning of a text and comparing it to other texts or phenomena of the surrounding world, their reception confined itself to categories like “boring” or “exciting”. Merely a few students included a more profound literary analysis in their responses.An important aim of literature instruction must be to broaden the pupils’ literary repertoires and to make them improve their reading skills. This study shows that to achieve these improvements the students must feel involved, which means that literature instruction must be adapted to the literary cultures of both boys and girls.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Literature

adventure stories

envisionment building

gender studies

literary competence

literature instruction

reading cultures

reader repertoires

reading habits

reception studies

teenage fiction

text repertoires

upper secondary school

Litteraturvetenskap

Literature

Litteraturvetenskap

Literature

Litteraturvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

dok (subject category)