Gendered differences and school literacy

Chia, T. Y. A. (2001). Gendered differences and school literacy (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://libris.nie.edu.sg/

Background

The study was motivated by findings in other countries and anecdotal observations in Singapore that boys tended to perform worse in national writing examinations than girls.

Aims

The study investigated gender differences in the reading and writing preferences of Secondary 3 Express students.

Sample

Two Secondary 3 Express classes participated in the study. Most of them were non-native English speakers.

Method

The study was divided into two segments. For the Reading segment, data were collected through a reading survey completed by 76 students (boy=37; girl=39) and semi-structured group interviews with eight students (boy=4; girl=4). For the Writing segment, data consisted of school end-of-year writing examination papers, GCE O-level examination papers, UCLES examiners’ reports, and 69 stories (boy=32; girl=37) written by the students in a one-hour writing task.

Findings

The reading survey showed that the boys and girls had markedly different reading preferences and produced significantly different stories.

The girls had more pronounced reading preferences and read more widely than the boys; more girls (69%) read books outside of school than boys (35%). The girls preferred narrative texts that contained human interest themes and psychological development. The boys preferred non-fiction and hobbyist texts, and narratives that were more action-packed. These gender differences were echoed in their preferences for comics and magazines.

The writing task showed that narratives written by the girls contained features that were highly valued by teachers and UCLES examiners. In contrast, writings by the boys were considered less ‘literary’ and often failed to meet the criteria of the narrative genre. Data analysis showed that the narrative was favoured over other genres such as exposition and argumentation in the ‘O’ level examination.

Implications

The author concluded that boys appeared to be comparatively disadvantaged in the school literacy curriculum due to their gendered positioning towards reading and writing. However, she cautioned against knee-jerk reactions and advocated further research to reach a better solution.

Original article retrieved from NIE Digital Repository.