ABSTRACT

This book is the result of the bringing together of several strands of enquiry that have engaged my interest over the past ten years. The first of these is a sustained interest in the gendered nature of reading, which began as the work for an MA dissertation in Critical Theory, and which was subsequently published with the title Reading as a Woman (Millard, 1985). This preoccupation subsequently widened into an interest in gendered differences in the acquisition and uses of literacy at all stages of education. I began this phase of research by questioning the nature of literacy and its relationship to contemporary social practices, in order to understand what tensions might be generated in the manner in which reading and writing are presented to pupils at home and in school. I sought to understand how we, as both teachers and parents, convey to pupils what we consider it is to be literate, both as part of a particular family and as a member of the wider social community and its institutions.