ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the world of adolescent romance fiction with that of actual readers. It discusses aspects of teenage girls’ romance novel reading in schools and explores how middle- and working-class girls from diverse racial backgrounds constructed their subject positions within heterosexual femininity through reading romances. The chapter considers how romance-reading related to girls’ schooling and their future expectations as women. It suggests that these gender positions are highly contradictory and that romance fiction both reinforces traditional gender ideologies and allows girls to reflect on these ideologies. The chapter provides a context for romance novels in schools by reference to research on the school text. The question of where instructional materials derive their power and authority to speak to students must underlie any account of reading in school. The authority of the texts to speak to students emanates precisely from the interaction between specific readers, teachers, texts, and context.
