High school students’ literacy practices and identities, and the figured world of school

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that American teenagers do not read or write – that they are a media‐driven group who prefer movies, television and playing video games. Ethnographic data gathered in the High School Literacy Project, a study of four North Carolina high schools, showed a far different picture of teenage literacy. This paper reports on partial findings of the larger study and argues that students use their literacy practices to form their identities within, and sometimes in opposition to, the figured worlds of school, work and family. Many students look to school to provide formal literacy experiences, but find their reading and writing passions at odds with the demands of the school curriculum.