Gender and Literacy

My group is focusing on Gender & Literacy, and we have all had fairly conflicting ideas with the articles we’ve been reading. While many of the authors we are reading tend to separate the genders and ideas behind gender into strictly male or female, we believe that these typical stereotypes are outdated and change within them is necessary. I read many of the articles in relation to girls specifically, and their use of literacy within social networks to establish and condition relationships amongst their peers.  Barbara Guzzetti discusses this in her article “Online Journaling: The Informal Writings of 2 Adolescent Girls,” claiming that, “Girls chatted online to negotiate and enhance their social relationships and social standing in school, while establishing a social currency that kept them in the know and   developed their relationships with their peers.” She continues on to explain that girls’ tendency to use social networks and instant messaging can be explained by their underlying desire to connect with others- that using electronic text helped the girls learn to use reading and writing as social strategies. On the other hand, boys use digital literacy for other purposes such as advancing in video or computer games. While I didn’t read too many articles regarding boys’ literacy practices, in past courses I’ve taken on psychology I have learned that girls use communication to relate to one another while boys use communication to “one-up” each other. I have desperately searched for a video we watched in Womens Psych about the communicative gender differences in young boys and girls, but have had no luck finding it thus far. The study involves a few separate groups of boys/girls: age 5, age 8, age 12 and age 17 and the observation of the ways in which they relate to each other on a social basis, outside of school. Although this study has a more psychological spin on gender and literacy, it is relatable to the articles we’ve been reviewing as it focuses on proving the differences between the genders in their adolescent life. Overall, my group has found that the articles and information we have reviewed are both outdated and false. We are striving to create an argument against the articles that we read, that disproves the stereotypical gender roles within literacy and emphasizes the fact that in the 21st century, there is a much more androgynous spectrum of accumulating and practicing literacy.