La lecture scolaire comme pratique culturelle : Concepts pour l'étude de l'usage des manuels

Abstract

School work is supposed to encourage individual, silent reading focused on the literal signified and oriented toward encyclopaedia-like information. The observations made by the author in primary schools in Mexico show that such isnot the case. With reference to Chartier's definition of reading as a cultural practice, her analyses of in-school reading cross the study of the textual materiality in handbooks, the different ways to read texts and understand them with a distinction between individual and collective reading and examine the gap between the ideal reading protocol and the various realities in classrooms. Each reading method can lead to a particular use of the printed material and sometimes increases the gap between what is written and the pupil's own experience of reading. Each method reflects the relations of school with written culture in a sociocultural environment where pupils resort to their own tactics to give sense to texts and use it again in other situations. School culture is influenced by out-of-school social and political processes. Therefore new uses and new meanings of texts can be invented every day and everywhere. School work is supposed to encourage individual, silent reading focused on theliteral signified and oriented toward encyclopaedia-like information. Theobservations made by the author in primary schools in Mexico show that such is not the case. With reference to Chartier's definition of reading as a cultural practice, her analyses of in-school reading cross the study of the textual materiality in handbooks, the different ways to read texts and understand them with a distinction between individual and collective reading and examine the gap between the ideal reading protocol and the various realities in classrooms. Each reading method can lead to a particular use of the printed material and sometimes increases the gap between what is written and the pupil's own experience of reading. Each method reflects the relations of school with written culture in a sociocultural environment where pupils resort to their own tactics to give sense to texts and use it again in other situations. School culture is influenced by out-of-school social and political processes. Therefore new uses and new meanings of texts can be invented every day and everywhere.