Tracing reading to the dark side: investigating the policy producing reading and readers in detention homes

ABSTRACT

Both inside and outside educational settings, reading literature is emphasized as something good, perhaps even something that makes us better people. This paper aims to open the ‘black-boxed’ conception of reading by studying how reading and (non)readers are conceptualized in relation to young people taken into custody. I examine a policy document describing a reading project in detention homes for young people as a case in which reading is perceived as having specific effects. Actor-network theory is used as a methodological approach to call attention to the way ideas, values, and knowledge about educational content are produced. The analysis shows that the seemingly coherent policy document produces radically different versions of what reading is and who the readers and non-readers are. I conclude that conceptualizations of reading and literacy always involve the creation of ‘a dark side of reading’; the strong construction of ‘reading as doing good’ has marginalizing effects.

KEYWORDS:

• Literature instruction
• reading projects
• literacy policy
• critical literacy
• marginalized readers
• detention homes
• actor-network theory

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Ninni Wahlström, Hedvig Gröndal, Emilie Moberg, and Lina Rahm, and also my splendid colleagues at the research school UVD at Örebro University. I also gratefully acknowledge the Discourse reviewers for their helpful and inspiring feedback on this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For a discussion of the concept of black-boxing, see Latour (1987).

2 Following Franzak (2006), I regard the term marginalized readers as a construction that is produced in different practices, in this case in the textual practice of policy, which carries implications for adolescents' position in school.

3 The National Board of Institutional Care translates as Statens Institutionsstyrelse (SiS) in Swedish and is referred to as SiS in this paper.

4 http://www.kulturradet.se/skapande-skola/[SwedishArts Council/Creative-School].

5 http://www.stat-inst.se/om-webbplatsen/other-languages/the-swedish-national-board-of-institutional-care/

6 Care is provided under the terms of the Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (LVU), the Secure Youth Care Act (LSU), and the Care of Substance Abusers (Special Provisions) Act (LVM) (http://www.stat-inst.se).