Graduate School of Education
Department of Library and Information Studies
SEMINAR SERIES
SPRING 2014
We welcome all GSE faculty and students!
Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie
Professor, Library & Information Science
Faculty of Information & Media Studies
Western University
“Spiderman is not for Babies” (Peter, 4 years)
The Boys and Reading Problem from the
Perspective of the Boys Themselves
It used to be the girls who were thought to be the problem. Until recently both research and practice in fields
like Education and Library & Information Science were more interested in uncovering and addressing the
unfair, unequal treatment of girls. But times have changed. Everyone agrees that girls have improved on
almost all performance indicators at school while boys have not. This presentation reports on an interview
study with 43 Canadian boys (4 to 12 years old) which captured the boys’ own perspectives on their reading.
Results indicate that boys are reading, but their preferred reading materials (e.g., nonfiction, comic books,
and game manuals) are not those usually privileged by librarians, teachers and parents.
Monday, March 31, 3:00 – 4:00 pm in Baldy 200G