Books are boring! Books are fun! Boys' polarized perspectives on reading

This article draws on interview data gathered from a broader study concerned with examining issues associated with boys, masculinities, and reading at school. The focus is on eight boys in Year 5 and Year 6 who attend schools in a range of socioeconomic communities in Australia. The boys offer polarized perspective on reading with four boys reporting positive attitudes towards reading and describing reading books as “fun” and another four boys describing reading books as “boring”. Examined are inflections in these two groups of boys’ experiences as readers at school, making visible the way boys’ attitudes influence engagement with reading. This research moves beyond broad generalizations about boys to consider complexities inherent in notions of masculinity and how different groups of boys’ internalize their positioning of reading in ways that influence their attitudes, engagement and subsequently outcomes in reading