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theses

This dissertation observes and theorizes gendered literacy, a term that has so far been poorly defined. Gendered literacy (in the United States and other Western contexts), has been discussed as enacted by children and educators; as a quantifiable test-based outcome; as a result of biological, cognitive differences between females and males; and, as the result of the historically feminized U.S. educational system. Data were sampled from 23 blogs in the KidLitosphere, a website aggregating over 550 blogs relating to children’s literature. These data, along with data collected from interviews, were qualitatively analyzed using the constant comparative method. Research questions included: • RQ1: What are the conceptions of gendered literacy among literacy educators (parents, public librarians, school librarians, and teachers); creators of texts for children (published authors, editors, and published illustrators); and, children/young adults, as represented in their blogging activities? • RQ2: How do the conceptions of gendered literacy identified through the blogging activities of literacy educators, creators of texts for children, and children/young adults compare to the theoretical conceptions identified in the literature review? • RQ3: What similarities and differences, if any, are represented in conceptions of gendered literacy among literacy educators; creators of texts for children; and, children/young adults, as represented in their blogging activities? • RQ4: What patterns, if any, of resistance to the dominant conceptions of gendered literacy may be found among the blog posts analyzed? Prominent findings relate to educators’ perceptions of boys’ reading preferences and labeling of “boy” and “girl” books. Other findings relate to gendered literacy behaviors (other than reading preferences) and perceptions of these behaviors, including roughly equal numbers of examples describing boys’ love of reading and/or advanced reading level, as compared to those describing girls’. Implications for future practice include educators’ refraining from labeling of books according to boy/girl; encouraging positive perceptions of boys’ reading; motivating children to read in a resistant way – to read texts that would not be considered appropriate for their sex; encouraging producers of reading materials for youth to produce more gender-neutral materials; and, fostering children’s reading and literacy in ways that do not focus on gender.

ETD_6409

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Emily M. Seitz

doi:10.7282/T3Z321HQ

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.