Teaching practices that promote or not the access of children to literary Reading: Sociability and promotion of cultural rights

Abstract

This paper deals with literary fiction reading practices in primary State schools at La Plata and Berisso, province of Buenos Aires (Argentina), taking into account an ethnographic research that informed a Masters ´s thesis called “No es puro cuento: ví­nculos entre docentes, niñas y niños en el acceso a la lectura literaria (2011-2012)” [“Not out of whole cloth: teacher-children bonds during the access to literary fiction reading”]. The conditions of children’s accessibility to the book as an object and to literature are stressed through teaching practices ””with an eye on the different uses and senses adopted by literature and an analysis of the space and times dedicated to reading. The methodology involved the construction of reading and oral narration spaces, both during the breaks and within the classroom. Following the purposes of this paper, I resort to thick description of the scenaries within which I conducted my ethnographic research, starting from condensed notes on observations and conversations held with a range of school agents, including boys and girls. Towards the end of the article, I will set meeting points and differences among the schools that took part in the project.