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Gendered differences and school literacy
Abstract
Recent research on literacy and schooling has focused on the need for further inquiry into the role gender plays in shaping children's attitudes and their participation in literacy practices at school. While there exists a body of research that asserts that boys and girls acquire literacy differently and hence become differently literate, much of the work has been done in countries like Australia, Britain, Canada and the US. Little is known about the Singapore school context. this research study attempts to fill this gap by investigating and analyzing the reading and writing preferences of a group of Singapore school children for gender differences.
The research was carried out with two classes of Secondary Three Express Stream pupils from a local secondary school; and the methodology to uncover gender differences involved a survey on the pupils' reading preferences, group interviews and analyses of examination documents and stories written by the pupils.
The findings indicated that the boys and girls had markedly different reading preferences and produced significantly different stories. For example, the girls who were seen to read much more than the boys were found to have very different tastes in the kinds of subject areas that they chose to read. Many of the narratives that were written by the girls were perceived to be superior to the boys' because they often contained single Complications and the building up of characters and their psychological make-up - i.e. features found to be highly valued by teachers and UCLES examiners. Very few of the boys' narratives displayed these features. In its conclusion, this dissertation also examined claims of the possible links between reading and writing. These links, together with the gendered differences uncovered, were found to have significant bearing on school literacy and performance, especially in subject English.
The research was carried out with two classes of Secondary Three Express Stream pupils from a local secondary school; and the methodology to uncover gender differences involved a survey on the pupils' reading preferences, group interviews and analyses of examination documents and stories written by the pupils.
The findings indicated that the boys and girls had markedly different reading preferences and produced significantly different stories. For example, the girls who were seen to read much more than the boys were found to have very different tastes in the kinds of subject areas that they chose to read. Many of the narratives that were written by the girls were perceived to be superior to the boys' because they often contained single Complications and the building up of characters and their psychological make-up - i.e. features found to be highly valued by teachers and UCLES examiners. Very few of the boys' narratives displayed these features. In its conclusion, this dissertation also examined claims of the possible links between reading and writing. These links, together with the gendered differences uncovered, were found to have significant bearing on school literacy and performance, especially in subject English.
Date Issued
2001
Call Number
LB1631 Chi
Date Submitted
2001