Academic reading as a grudging act: how do Higher Education students experience academic reading and what can educators do about it?

Abstract

This article examines Higher Education students’ experiences of academic reading as a grudging act: something that is performed reluctantly or half-heartedly, because it has to be done. Drawing on group interviews with 30 social science undergraduates, registered at a research-intensive UK university, we offer a reflexive thematic analysis of academic reading, experienced as ‘a struggle’, as ‘a chore’ and as ‘pointless’. Our analysis centres the experiential dimensions of reading, revealing how student orientations towards reading—and the teaching that surrounds it—can influence their practices. The article makes two original contributions to the developing literature about student reading experiences in Higher Education. First, by examining student accounts of reading through Bottero’s (2022) sociology of ‘grudging acts’, we extend what is known about the intersection between reading experiences and practices, raising important questions for educators in the social sciences and beyond. Second, by examining what educators can do in response to these challenges, we collate and extend existing guidance for educators that seek to support student engagement with academic reading in Higher Education.