Situated at the intersections of ethnography, childhood studies, literary studies, and education research, this reception study seeks to access real children's responses to a particular text, and to offer empirical description of actual reading experiences. Survey data is generated by taking advantage of an online resource: an archive of…

Women in higher education and the consumer pressures they feel have implications for the quality of an education a woman receives. With college tuition rising, more and more college students are going into deeper financial debt than ever before (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2008). Popular culture influences on the college-going…

Research in historical cognition and learning suggests that study and practice of the reading and thinking habits of professional historians--such as the attribution, assessment, and contextualization of primary sources--are necessary for children and adolescents to understand historical events and ideas (Stearns, Seixas, and Wineburg 2000;…

The purpose of this study was to design a culturally relevant curriculum that could be used with English language learning, Mexican American, immigrant, fifth grade children and study the responses they might have to that curriculum. The research questions were: What are the issues in developing a culturally relevant curriculum for Mexican…

What happens when children come across texts that push the boundaries of what they expect to encounter when they pick up a picture book? There exists a genre of nontraditional picture books, commonly referred to as "postmodern picture books," which is characterized by a variety of alternative literary and illustrative devices. Given that…

Replies to commentaries by D. Albarracin, W. Hart, and K. C. McCulloch (see record 2006-10465-004), A. W. Kruglanski and M. Dechesne (see record 2006-10465-005), and R. E. Petty and P. Brinol (see record 2006-10465-006) on B. Gawronski and G. V. Bodenhausen's (2006; see record 2006-10465-003) recently proposed associative-propositional evaluation…

Reading comprehension plays a key role in academic success in today's classrooms. Literature Circles (LCs), a learner-centered collaborative reading activity, brings together the ideas of cooperative learning, independent reading, and reader response theory to enhance students' reading comprehension as well as their motivation toward learning…

Recently, transactional reader response theory has been criticized for providing an inadequate theoretical guide for the study of multicultural literature. Some scholars argue that Rosenblatt assumes the reader and her response to literature are ideologically innocent and the continuum of aesthetic and efferent stance does not encompass critical…

This practitioner-research study investigated the reading behaviors of preservice teachers from diverse content disciplines as they engaged in reading multiple texts pertaining to a historical topic. Through participant-observer field notes, reader response journals, reflective essays, and participant debriefing, the authors examined the…

Asserts that student resistance to assigned reading is an essential part of the process of critiquing and intervening in oppressive ideologies. Argues for using resistance to help students see where they are located within ideology and within the interplay of conflicting ideologies and their own experience. (PRA)

Describes how a high school student was able to express powerful feelings and achieve some kind of reconciliation with his father through his therapeutic exploration of Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." (PRA)

Presents two responses to Meredith Kopald's article, "Arthur Miller Wins a Peace Prize: Teaching, Literature, and Therapy" in the same issue of this journal. (PRA)

Responds to E. D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy" and Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," confronting questions of teaching values through literature. Argues that while teachers should deplore societal tyrannies, they can endorse the list proposed by Hirsch and allow students to develop their own responses to items…

Describes four books written for children about the struggles to survive, to escape, and to gain freedom of children who are refugees. Describes how fourth-grade children responded to these books. (SR)

Discusses 10 works of children's literature that inspired powerful responses and conversations among students in children's literature classes. Notes a myriad of responses (not only as to content but to levels of meaning as well) among the students. (RS)