Abstract
Reading has a vast literature, the bulk of which is concerned with methods and processes of skills acquisition and development. There has been a great neglect of what might be termed the social psychology (or, sociology) of reading — which, for present purposes, can be understood as the influence of the social environment upon reading. It is clear that this influence is considerable. Teachers do not want merely to produce people who can read — they want to produce people who are readers. Thus, a social psychology of reading must not only include a consideration of factors relevant to the acquisition of skills and strategies, but should also seek to illuminate all features of the uses to which basic knowledge is applied. The topic, then, is principally about such matters as what people read, the amount of reading that is done, the purposes and effects of reading, and so on. These socially-influenced issues intertwine, of course, with skill levels — someone who is barely literate is obviously unlikely to become a voracious reader — but reading practices are not always predictable from ability. This, in some sense, is the heart of the matter, especially in societies where basic literacy levels are high: how can we describe and account for variation in reading practices, habits and attitudes?
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Edwards, J. (1997). The Social Psychology of Reading. In: Edwards, V., Corson, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4540-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4540-4_13
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