EU Read

Research by Stiftung Lesen

Second Round Table Discussion

Second Round Table Discussion on Stiftung Lesen’s Reading Support

Educational experts targeted three core problems

What moves reading support in Germany? Three questions are high up on the agenda. How can children from a migrant background be introduced to reading? How can the German educational system reach the so called underprivileged social classes? How can an especially precarious reading support target group (boys) be reached?

These questions were the centre of attention of Stiftung Lesen’s round table discussions between December 7th and 8th 2006 in Mainz. This is the only nationwide reading support forum. Circa 50 reading support experts exchanged their views for the second time at the conference, which was supported by the federal ministry for education and research. The experts were representatives of core reading support organisations and the responsible referents from the relevant ministries as well as the institutes for teachers’ further education. The title of this year’s round table discussion was ‘Reading support and diversity – migration background, social disadvantage and gender differences as challenges for reading support.’

Heinrich Kreibich, Stiftung Lesen‘s executive director, welcomed the guests to the conference. Professor Dr. Stefan Aufenanger, educationalist at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and Stiftung Lesen’s scientific director, introduced the topic. A panel discussion with Professor Dr. Ingrid Gogolin, Professor Dr. Renate Luca and Professor Dr. Ursula Neumann, all educationalists from Hamburg, Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Stefan Hradil, sociologist from Mainz and Professor Dr. Cornelia Rosebrock, literary scholar from Frankfurt, defined the broad subject area more closely. Two working groups dealt with the questions ‘Language and reading support for young migrants’ and ‘Reading/Media behaviour and gender difference.’

As an introduction, Heinrich Kreibich pointed out the findings of the first educational report, according to which nearly every fifth member of the German population and more than every fourth child and youth had migration experience. At the beginning of the federal government’s integration summit “‘atal integration deficits’ were stated. Among those were the inability to master the German language and deficits in education and training. ‘The ability to express oneself in speaking and writing and solve conflicts with words rather than fists must stand at the beginning,’ said Kreibich.

In the panel discussion, Prof. Dr. Dr. Stefan Hradil, sociologist from Mainz, pointed out the growing income and wealth inequality in the population, a trend in most European countries that could barely be worked against as the controlling elements were lacking to a large extent. He continued that this lead to a significant social disadvantage for children from underprivileged families.

As Prof. Dr. Ingrid Gogolin, educationalist from Hamburg, stated, there were barely any findings about young migrants’ reading behaviour. Disadvantage was passed on from one generation to the next. Multilingualism should be promoted as an educational requirement. Language support had to happen throughout a pupil’s whole educational career. The young migrants often mastered everyday language but struggled with the educational language in school.

Ursula Neumann, professor for pedagogy at the university in Hamburg, spoke for the integration of school and home in the migrants’ language and reading support. She stated here that family literacy projects were on the right track. They followed the motto: Mothers teach to reach the children. Also, she pointed out that the media offer for migrants was insufficient. Their TV and internet usage was high, however, there was hardly a connection between German and Turkish programmes although young migrants lived in both media worlds.

It has been known for quite some time that girls like reading while boys are reading grouches. However, there is not much clarity about the causes for this. Here, Prof. Dr. Renate Luca pointed out the different expectations for boys and girls. Boys had to be strong. This favoured the use of computer games that were rated as manly among boys whereas reading was seen as womanly. In addition to that, gender studies had been pure girl and woman studies since the 1970s. This had enforced the gender differences even further.

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Rosebrock, literary scholar in Frankfurt, pointed out that girls books demonstrated how to become a woman while boys books like Winnetou and The Leatherstocking Tales were hero stories. Boys books, in which it was explained how to become a man, were practically non-existent. When asked to describe a supportive reading climate, Rosebrock went deeper into the conditions for acquiring reading understanding at school. Schools dealt with reading mainly at a grammar school level. It hardly offered those with limited reading ability any room for reading training. This, however, was urgently needed because reading was hard work for youths from underprivileged homes. At the same time, literature lessons took a central part in school, but a big part of students never reached this level and thus frustratedly shut down during German lessons.

In the second round table’s final discussion, which once again reflected the core results of the working group meetings, three reading support action areas were pointed out: the strengthening of the infrastructure and inter-connecting individual projects, the presentation and distribution of proven good practice models and especially the need for measures to address the far reaching lack of accompanying research and reading support project evaluations. Criteria and methods for evaluation were widely missing. At the same time, sponsors and cooperative partners demanded more and more proof of the benefits and effects on publicity of sponsored projects. Good evaluation, of course, costed money, but it was important. There are good reasons to set up a round table conference for just this subject.

The Round Table Discussions on Reading Support series is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.