Broken promises – A novel’s impact on shaping youth identity

Reading & Writing

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Broken promises – A novel’s impact on shaping youth identity
 
Creator Lundgren, Berit Khau, Mathabo
 
Subject — —
Description In many emerging economies worldwide, and in South Africa in particular, sizeable investments have been made in education with the hope of increasing literacy rates and hence producing a workforce that will fit into the job market. Thus it is important to understand the context and literacy materials within South African classrooms and their impact. This article looks at the novel Broken promises by Roz Haden, which is read in many South African classrooms. From a post-structural feminist theory and functional language theory, we analyse how the portrayal of characters and storyline can have an impact on young readers’ identity construction in relation to the novel’s predominant discourses. The findings show that men are still portrayed as dominant in their own right within society whereas women are defined in relation to men. Unchallenged, this portrayal can continue to perpetuate gendered stereotypes, which would affect young people’s functionality in society. We therefore argue that while novels are good for improving literacy among young people, the messages they contain should be deconstructed and challenged so that young people can make informed decisions regarding their gender identities.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2015-11-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/rw.v6i1.86
 
Source Reading & Writing; Vol 6, No 1 (2015); 8 pages 2308-1422 2079-8245
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/86/191 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/86/193 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/86/192 https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw/article/view/86/189
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 Berit Lundgren, Mathabo Khau https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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