Promoting reading 1
grounds establish a culture of resistance with ma
sculine overtones in relation to the middle-class norms and values that they experience are represented by the school. More recent studies such as Mac an Ghaill’s The making of men. Masculinities, sexualities and schooling (1994) has applied the terms to students from middle class backgrounds. More examples of how the concept of a culture of resistance is used in school research in order to describe a distinctively negative attitude to reading among boys can be found in Stig-Börje Asplund’s thesis Läsning som identitetsskapande handling: gemenskapande och utbrytningsförsök i fordonspojkars litteratursamtal (Reading as Identity Construction: Practices and processes of building a sense of community in literature discussions among male Vehicle Engineering students) (2010). A British study based on interviews with teachers at 226 British schools divides the probable causes of the reading gap between boys and girls into three main categories: perceptions of cultural norms, home environment, and individual factors (Clark & Burke 2012). The first category includes the fact that reading is not seen as a cool activity among boys, but also that what boys choose to read is not sufficiently respected. This also includes a factor that is often complained about: the lack of male reading role models, which can also be related to the home environment of the child or adolescent. Children are influenced by what their parents do and there is a tendency for boys to identify with their fathers. It has been argued that if boys see their fathers mostly engaged in activities other than reading, this can have a negative impact on the boys’ reading motivation. Without reading fathers in the home, there is a tendency for more boys to regard reading as something that you mainly do in school. There are also studies that have shown that mothers have a stronger belief in their ability to improve their son’s reading performance than fathers have (Lynch 2002). The lack of male reading role models is a common theme in research about boys’ and girls’ reading, in particular in academic journal articles that deal with male reading ability (Clark 2008). The need for male role models also tends to come up for discussion as soon as boys’ reading habits are addressed. Research that studies how boys and girls are socialised into a reader identity has provided the impetus for campaigns in which sports stars have acted as reading role models, as in the British example Reading Stars below. That boys choosing not to read can be explained by social norms regarding masculinity is also the basis of a Swedish government decision to invest in initiatives to do with sport and reading. On the whole, male reading role models have become an important aspect of reading promotion activities today. Some researchers have argued that the source of the problem with boys’ reading habits is a “feminisation” of reading that mothers and a female-dominated preschool and compulsory school have contributed to. It has been argued that women convey assumptions about the purpose and context of reading, the choice of texts and ways to assimilate them that work poorly and, in the worst case, are a deterrent for boys. This is the position taken by American librarian James Sullivan, for example. In his books Connecting Boys With Books: What Libraries Can Do (2003) and Connecting Boys With Books 2: Closing the reading gap (2009) he tackles the issue of male role models within world of the library. Sullivan champions the idea that the uneven distribution of men and women within the library profession has acted as an obstacle to boys’ reading in a variety of ways. Among other things, he asserts that the genres preferred by boys 53