English Teaching: Practice and Critique
Volume 5, Number 3 (December 2006): Focus: English (literature) and gender
Editor: Amanda Haertling Thein (College of Education, University of Iowa)
Rationale: Volume 5, Number 3 of English Teaching: Practice and Critique
is focused on gendered aspects of English and the teaching of
literature. In recent years, research into the teaching of literature
has moved toward a focus on the ways in which readers' experiences with
texts are mediated by social and cultural perspectives and
participation in competing activity systems, discourse communities and
social worlds. Socio-cultural views of the teaching of literature call
for particular attention to be paid to the ways in which students'
gender identities impact their engagement with literature and their
overall performance in the English classroom and beyond.
While
we understand gender to be socially and culturally constructed and
performed as opposed to biologically predetermined, we also understand
that people construct their identities by taking up storylines and
narratives that they encounter in daily life. These storylines continue
to be largely based on an interdependent, gendered binary of masculinity
and femininity that is stubbornly resistant to change. This binary
creates gaps in performance and limitations in learning for both boys
and girls. Research has shown consistently that in general boys when
compared to girls of similar ethnicity and class perform less well in
all aspects of examined English. They also read less than girls at all
stages and their interest in reading drops off much earlier in the
secondary school. Conversely, research suggests that girls read
primarily narrative fiction, while boys often read across genres '“ a
practice that better prepares boys for the kinds of critical thinking
required in higher education.
Two articles in this issue examine gender boundaries in U.S.
classrooms in the context of the teaching of literary texts. Others
challenge traditional boundaries between texts and readers in the
context of literature teaching in a range of contexts (Canada, England
and Hong Kong).