This timely and authoritative book provides a critique and deconstructs the myths that serve to uphold the current "moral panic" around boys' supposed failures in literacy and diminished chances of success. Readers are asked to look beyond simple gender binarism to see different, more complex and often more egregious categorizations of students in their classrooms, other than the simplistic male/female categories, and begin to question and address some of those issues: poverty, racism, violence, environment, and more complex issues of gender, patriarchy, and hegemony.
The authors suggest different ways of teaching literacies to both boys and girls and propose that while solutions are not simple, they are critically important in promoting positive educational experiences for all students, regardless of gender, class, culture, race, or sexual orientation.
Chapter 1: Introduction: Reading the Myths and the Panic, Roberta F. Hammett and Kathy Sanford
Chapter 2: Masculinities and Critical Social Literacy Practices: The Read and Misread Bodies of High School Young Men, Michael D. Kehler
Chapter 3: Through the (Feminist) Looking Glass: Feminism, Education, and Feminist Responses to “What about the Boys?”, Laura Rattner
Chapter 4: Boys Reading American Girls: What’s at Stake in Debates about What Boys Won’t Read, Elizabeth Dutro
Chapter 5: The Politics and Crisis of Boys’ Literacy: Beyond Essentialist Mindsets and the Boy-Friendly Curriculum, Wayne Martino
Chapter 6: Mythos, Boys, and Literacy: Adolescent Boys and Their Leisure Reading Choices, Julie Hamston and Kristina Love
Chapter 7: Learning the Right Way Round? Carnivalesque Social Spaces, Gender, and Literacy Learning, Lynne Wiltse
Chapter 8: Opportunities for Critical Literacy in Boys’ Video Authoring, Jamie Myers
Chapter 9: The Influence of Gender on Group Interactions through Post-typographical Text, Marion Harris Fey
Chapter 10: Game Boys: Where Is the Literacy?, Kathy Sanford and Heather Blair
Chapter 11: Adolescent Girls Performing Gender through Literacies: Marginalized or Resistant Youth?, Barbara J. Guzzetti
Chapter 12: Fictional Boys Defying Patriarchal Expectation: A Feminist Critical Analysis of the Young Adult Novels of Karen Hesse, Wendy Glenn
Biography
Roberta F. Hammett is Professor of Education at Memorial University, specializing in literacies, secondary English education, and technology integration in teaching and learning. She has completed two three-year terms as Associate Dean of Education for Graduate Studies and Research.
Katherine J. Sanford is Associate Professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her research and teaching interests include issues of gender, literacy, assessment, and popular culture/new media.
“These essays serve to counter some of the simplistic curriculum notions associated with attempting to save the “failing boys” – notions that I believe are designed to detract attention from addressing largely issues of economic and class inequities created by society.”
Richard Beach, Professor of English Education, University of Minnesota
“The book addresses important questions of gendered literacies and effectively critiques essentialist and binary views on literacy and gender. The authors in the book are representative of the more influential researchers working in gender and literacy today. This is a valuable resrouce for teacher education literacy courses and for graduate courses in curriculum, English language arts, gender, feminist and masculine studies.”
Ingrid Johnston, Professor of English Education, Department of Secondary Education, and Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta
