Reading fictions: reading reader identities in Black Country further education communities

Kendall, Alexandra Clair (2005). Reading fictions: reading reader identities in Black Country further education communities. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis ‘opens up’ an exploration of the relationship between identity and achievement in reading, taking as its focus a case study of 16 – 19 year olds studying at Black Country further education colleges. As a group Black Country young people are often characterised through quantitative measurement, league tables and inspection reports, as underachieving in ‘schooled’ literacy. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from Bourdieu, Bernstein and Foucault this project seeks to explore, problematize and challenge these representations offering a more dynamic account of young people’s engagement with textual experience that is grounded in young people’s own accounts of their experience of their out of school literacies. At the same I offer a critically reflexive account of the process of researching and representing research and attempt to achieve homology between the theoretical perspectives I put to use in my analysis and the practices of writing a PhD. I aim to present a reflexive piece of work that explores the situatedness of the PhD, and its authoring, as product and process.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):