Leisure reading in adolescents
Manuel and Robinson (2003) challenge what they call "limiting assumptions about boys, girls, and literacy practices" -- such as boys' lack of interest in reading. Their survey of 69 Australian adolescents found more similarities than differences in reading habits and preferences. Nippold et al (2005) found no significant difference in preference for leisure reading in their study of 200 Oregon boys and girls. Both studies found that girls showed a greater preference for reading poetry than boys.
Leyser and Cole (2004) surveyed 969 Illinois students, and found significant differences in reading patterns between boys with disabilities and boys without. (17.4% of their sample was classified as "with disability"; 60% of these were learning disabilities.) No differences were found within-sex for girls.
The Australian survey looked kind of interesting until I looked at the sample size. Manuel and Robinson mention that 8.8% of boys read 4+ hours per day, while no girls reported reading that much. That turns out to be three boys. Hm. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to speculate on the dips in the male reading and internet use curves. So I will anyway: time spent reading or on the computer dropped almost to 0% at 3-4 hours, but shot up in the 4+ hour group. Girls didn't seem to do that. My suspicion is that there's a "solitary activity" pattern for a significant percentage of the boys that the survey sort of caught sideways, but didn't examine, because it didn't seem relevant to their research.
Leyser and Cole's study also shows a bimodal pattern for boys' reading, explained by disability, but Manuel and Robinson do not specify the disability status of their sample. The "solitary activity" pattern was explored in the Illinois study, but was attributed to a rural environment.
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Leyser and Cole (2004) surveyed 969 Illinois students, and found significant differences in reading patterns between boys with disabilities and boys without. (17.4% of their sample was classified as "with disability"; 60% of these were learning disabilities.) No differences were found within-sex for girls.
The Australian survey looked kind of interesting until I looked at the sample size. Manuel and Robinson mention that 8.8% of boys read 4+ hours per day, while no girls reported reading that much. That turns out to be three boys. Hm. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to speculate on the dips in the male reading and internet use curves. So I will anyway: time spent reading or on the computer dropped almost to 0% at 3-4 hours, but shot up in the 4+ hour group. Girls didn't seem to do that. My suspicion is that there's a "solitary activity" pattern for a significant percentage of the boys that the survey sort of caught sideways, but didn't examine, because it didn't seem relevant to their research.
Leyser and Cole's study also shows a bimodal pattern for boys' reading, explained by disability, but Manuel and Robinson do not specify the disability status of their sample. The "solitary activity" pattern was explored in the Illinois study, but was attributed to a rural environment.
Less than two weeks left to donate in the Blogger Challenge! -- One of the projects expires in 6 days!