Diversity in Literary Response: Revisiting Gender Expectations

摘要

Drawing on and reexamining theories on gender and literacy, derived from research performed between 1974 and 2002, this qualitative study explored the gender assumptions and expectations of Language Arts teachers in a graduate level adolescent literature course at a university in the Midwestern United States. The theoretical framework was structured around a social constructionist lens, including reader response and gender theories. The methodology employed ethnographic methods, as well as critical discourse analysis.This study explored the ways participants identified with or resisted gender expectations in their book discussion groups. It looked at the kind of discourses that were maintained and disrupted in the groups and within their personal blogs and written responses. The participants showed diversity within gender, which calls into question the use of gender as a major consideration for making reader's advisory, collection development, programming, or pedagogical decisions. It indicates that preservice librarians should be offered a variety of opportunities to examine and redefine our current strategies for motivating readers and recommending library materials. As library educators it is essential that we offer librarians lenses beyond gender in which to view their clients.