Since reading is a girly thing: A study on boys’ underachievement in reading literacy in relation to PISA

• Main Authors: Sudic, Elma, Massoud, Sara
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle (LS) 2014
• Subjects: gender differences; teaching methods; reading; literacy; PISA; underachievement; second language learning; boys; motivation; Social Sciences; Samhällsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-33827

Underachievement in reading literacy for boys in secondary school seems to be a generalnorm in many countries around the world today. PISA’s studies highlight that Sweden also isone of countries that has big differences in between the genders in reading literacy; moreover,the results showed that almost every third boy is underperforming in reading literacy. A lot ofstudies have been made on this subject and the researchers have tried to find the source to theproblem. However, no one seems to have found the solution to the problem just yet.Therefore, we became interested in finding out how teachers can remedy boys’ lowerperformances in reading, in Swedish language classrooms. Through the use of a researchsynthesis and a pilot study, the question whether teachers can remedy boys’ underachievementin reading literacy is dealt by carefully analyzing articles, journals and books. The resultsrevealed four themes that may play a big part in increasing boys’ achievement in reading.These four themes are: motivation, teacher modeling, text interest and choices, and theimportance of time frame.Keywords: Gender differences, attitudes, underachievement, boys, motivation, literacy,reading, second language learning, PISA