ABSTRACT
Textual analysis indicates that the social and political currents within romance fiction are often very traditional as to women’s place in society. Popular culture, especially popular romance fiction, exploits the many ideological strains that exist within society and represents the continuing struggle over women’s place in the world. Romance fiction itself represents the continuing expansion of the capitalist marketplace in the schools. Although popular romances are key elements in the process of rule by consent, the act of reading also involves political actions around gender meanings and authority relations. The political dynamic underlying teachers’ work, in combination with the absence of communication with students regarding the substance of romance reading, continued to reinforce the view of romance readers as less capable. The twenty-nine readers also accepted dominant gender, class, race, age, and sexual relations, although their responses contained oppositional elements. The textual analysis and the study of readers are in agreement on several points.
