Swimming against the Tide: Boys, Literacies, and Schooling--An Australian Story.

Abstract

This article focuses on issues related to boys, literacies, and schooling as played out in the Australian context. It reflects on the swathe of populist discourse centring on boys, and on literacy, that drives a potentially divisive education agenda. In providing more nuanced analyses of the debates surrounding the disputed territory of boys, literacies, and schooling, the article offers examples of disaggregated literacy test data to demonstrate the importance of adopting a “which boys” and “which girls” approach to the issues. The article also provides brief coverage of the Success for Boys program, introduced in Australia in 2006, that encourages teachers to swim against the tide of populism by embracing the agenda in all of its complexity. Key words : gender, literacy achievement, schooling Cet article porte sur des questions reliees aux garcons, aux litteraties et a l’ecole dans un contexte australien. L’auteure etudie les multiples discours populistes sur les garcons et la litteratie susceptibles d’entrainer une approche fractionnelle en education. Tout en fournissant une analyse nuancee des debats entourant le territoire conteste des garcons, les litteraties et l’ecole, l’article fournit des exemples de donnees de tests de litteratie non regroupees qui demontrent l’importance de distinguer de « quels garcons » et de « quelles filles » il s’agit. En outre, l’article presente brievement un programme lance en 2006, Success for Boys, qui incite les enseignants a nager a contre ‐ courant du populisme en adoptant un point de vue qui tient compte de toute la complexite de l’education. Mots cles : genre, rendement en litteratie, education