Promoting reading 1
Umeå, the project Bokbundisar (Book buddies) ran
from 2008 – 2011, in which children of infants and primary school age and adolescents of lower and upper secondary school age met regularly for reading aloud and other reading-related activities. This project took inspiration from activities with Book Buddies in New Zealand and in the USA. You can read more about Bokbundisar in the inspiration booklet Men läs då! (Read why don’t you!), which was developed within the project (Föreningen Kulturstorm 2011). It emphasizes the dual benefits of the mentorship: younger children get attention from older children, and the older children gain in self-confidence by acting as role models. Sportsmen and women as reading role models The involvement of sports organisations in reading promotion projects and campaigns is commonplace both in Sweden and abroad. In Sweden in 2013, the Swedish Arts Council was tasked by the Swedish Government to implement a reading promotion initiative with the specific aim of making literature available to girls and boys who engage in sports. The long-term goal of the campaign was to awaken an early interest for reading and boost reading ability and reading enjoyment. The Government’s decision stated that among boys in particular there had been a clear declining trend in reading and literacy in recent years. As grounds for its decision, the Government cited statistics showing that a large and growing group of young boys aged 15 years demonstrated serious deficiencies in reading comprehension. The Government considers this to be a problem of democracy and a gender equality problem, which risks having serious repercussions in the community and contributing to social exclusion. In the Government’s decision, boys’ reluctance to read is associated with social norms of masculinity. One way to change such norms is to reach out to the target group with adult role models. The role model in this case is the sports coach. The Government task resulted in the PAUS project, a national initiative in collaboration with the Swedish Sports Confederation, SISU Idrottsutbildarna (sports education organisation) and the Swedish Arts Council. A reading coach has been attached to this project to work with inspiring, spreading knowledge and acting as a reading role model. The Swedish Arts Council website lists a number of ongoing Swedish projects around sport and reading as part of PAUS. A report from the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis (2014) on gender equality efforts made by the Swedish Government in the area of culture 2011–2014 presented the Swedish Arts Council’s definition of the task involving sport and reading. One of the factors deemed to be key in the future allocation of funds and the project’s potential to succeed is that it should be interpreted as an inclusive task, embracing both girls’ and boys’ reading. Many of the projects that bring together sport and reading have also addressed both girls and boys, while others have had a clearer focus on changing negative masculine gender stereotypes in particular with regard to reading and consequently have targeted boys and men. Sport and Reading An example of a large-scale reading promotion project involving collaboration between libraries and sports clubs can be found in Sweden’s western neighbour. The project 56