ERIC Number: ED393993
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1996-Apr
Pages: 15
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Gender and Literacy Learning: Implications for Research in Adult Literacy Education.
Hayes, Elisabeth; Hopkins, Jennifer
A study critically reviewed current literature on gender and literacy learning as a foundation for the development of theory and further research on gender issues in adult literacy learning. One of the most surprising findings was the real lack of serious attention to gender issues in recent scholarship on early literacy and reading education. The gender and writing research was categorized into three general approaches that paralleled the scheme developed by Solsken (1993). Much of the research on gender and writing was concerned with delineating differences in the writing of women and men. Such research was largely descriptive, and explanations for such differences were adopted rather uncritically from the psychological or sociolinguistic literature, suggesting universal gender-linked developmental patterns. Considerable attention had been given to how the contexts of literacy learning might contribute to differences in the literacy development of males and females. The ways in which gender differences in reading and writing are socially determined, in contexts such as school, family, or community, had received surprisingly little attention. Some limited attention was given to issues of power and identity in studies of gender and writing. The studies on gendered conflicts in writing focused on how individuals both accommodate and resist socially determined gender roles. (Contains 46 references.) (YLB)
Publication Type: Information Analyses; Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (New York, NY, April 1996).