Adolescents' Perceptions and Negotiations of Literacy Practices in After-School Read and Talk Clubs

Abstract

This study reports how adolescents' perceptions and negotiations of after-school talk about a variety of texts in a public library setting were shaped by (and helped to shape) the larger institutional and societal contexts that regularly influence young people's actions and interactions with peers and adults. The study's theoretical framework conceives of literacy and discourse as critical social practices and locates such practices in the interplay within and across three contexts. Twenty adolescents and two adults met for 15 weeks as members of four after-school Read & Talk (R & T) Clubs. Analyses of the field notes, club discussions, and interviews with participants and their parents indicated the adolescents viewed the R & T Clubs as social outlets and stages on which to try out new subject positions within sanctioned literacy events involving a community of their peers.