The purpose of this study is to examine secondary school pupils’ views on reading in general, followed by a specific focus on fiction. The purpose is to identify similarities and differences between girls and boys, where the questions at issue are related to the pupils’ views on reading and the didactic value of findings based on the result. The essay is founded on two theories, which are literacy and gender.
Concepts of value, literacy and gender are presented before the background. According to the gender theory, girls and boys are regarded as a group of individuals rather than two separate groups. The background concentrates mainly on reading connected to school; previous research on literature and education, with a gender perspective.
The research material consists of three research groups from three different schools. Each group consists of one class from year 7 and one from year 9 who have answered a survey. Two girls and two boys have been interviewed from each class. The research material therefore represents 114 questionnaires and twenty-four interviews that focus on students’ views on reading, both in terms of reading during leisure time and at school.
The result shows that "girls and boys reading" should rather be referred to as "individual reading" because reading is very widespread with respect to, and no matter of, sex. There are some general differences between the sexes and ages, where the joint between the informants is that, during leisure time, they read from the computer, whereas literary reading is personal.
A didactic conclusion suggests that the literary reading in school should be mainly personal. This, given the differences between individuals, makes it impossible to motivate everyone to read a collective book. The discussion is based primarily on the results and the theoretical starting point.