Abstract:
Reading is one of many things vying for young people’s attention. In the case of volitional reading, that is reading “in which we choose to engage”, young people between 8 and 15 are following trends of less enjoyment of reading and declining time spent reading. There are complex explanations for patterns of decline in their volitional reading. Some of these explanations are related to how choice is afforded within social and material relations.
Most of what is known about volitional reading in Aotearoa New Zealand comes from large scale research studies of young people’s reading from 8 to 15 years of age. The categorical knowledge these studies produce risk becoming fixed and self-fulfilling prophecies. We have been looking for new ways of comprehending and using sociological patterns in children and young people’s reading so that they are recognised as mutable and contingent. This presentation offers a glimpse into the motivations for young people’s volitional reading through placing a socio-material lens on descriptive statistics.
We approach volitional reading from an affective position, where reading affect describes felt experiences of encountering other bodies (human and nonhuman) through reading. The secondary data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal cohort study that measures physical, social, and cultural dimensions of over 6000 children in Aotearoa New Zealand allows us to consider reading for enjoyment within a rough approximation of the complex arrangements of young people’s lives. We apply our socio-material lens to descriptive statistical analyses (including contingency tables, chi-square testing, Fisher’s exact tests, logistic regression, and plots) that analyse relationships between reading enjoyment and frequency at age 8 and over 60 variables from throughout their life course. The variables examined have categorical characteristics while concurrently perceived through their relationships in one of three assemblages that describe children’s experiences of reading, 1) at home and with family and whānau, 2) outside of home experiences (e.g., at school or community organisations), and 3) societal positions (e.g., gender, household income and ethnicity).
Through examining associations between these variables, we find potential in encounters with other people and things to draw young people back into reading, rather than act as distractions.
Most of what is known about volitional reading in Aotearoa New Zealand comes from large scale research studies of young people’s reading from 8 to 15 years of age. The categorical knowledge these studies produce risk becoming fixed and self-fulfilling prophecies. We have been looking for new ways of comprehending and using sociological patterns in children and young people’s reading so that they are recognised as mutable and contingent. This presentation offers a glimpse into the motivations for young people’s volitional reading through placing a socio-material lens on descriptive statistics.
We approach volitional reading from an affective position, where reading affect describes felt experiences of encountering other bodies (human and nonhuman) through reading. The secondary data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal cohort study that measures physical, social, and cultural dimensions of over 6000 children in Aotearoa New Zealand allows us to consider reading for enjoyment within a rough approximation of the complex arrangements of young people’s lives. We apply our socio-material lens to descriptive statistical analyses (including contingency tables, chi-square testing, Fisher’s exact tests, logistic regression, and plots) that analyse relationships between reading enjoyment and frequency at age 8 and over 60 variables from throughout their life course. The variables examined have categorical characteristics while concurrently perceived through their relationships in one of three assemblages that describe children’s experiences of reading, 1) at home and with family and whānau, 2) outside of home experiences (e.g., at school or community organisations), and 3) societal positions (e.g., gender, household income and ethnicity).
Through examining associations between these variables, we find potential in encounters with other people and things to draw young people back into reading, rather than act as distractions.