Young People's Reading Interests in South Africa.

The Children's Literature Research Unit at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, implemented a research project examining what young people were reading at the end of the 20th century, similar to a research project which had been carried out at Roehampton Institute in London (1996). The research began with a pilot project. Its goals were to: understand the relationship between reading of and attitudes toward a range of topical social issues; examine ways in which children and young adults encounter reading and choose what to read; provide information about reading habits and information use in the context of different ages, gender, class, ethnic background, geographical location and educational phases. The project's final goal was to discern between conventional forms of reading (printed matter) and new developments in the presentation of and interactions with text (including audio tapes, CD-ROMs and Internet). The sample for the pilot project was drawn from primary school students (grades 5, 6, and 7) in eight schools and secondary school learners (grades 8, 9, and 10) in five English-medium schools in the Gauteng Province (South Africa). A questionnaire was answered by 696 boys and 707 girls in primary schools and by 462 boys and 415 girls in secondary schools. Results were not that different from the survey carried out in Roehampton which means that what children are interested in reading in South Africa is not radically different from what children are interested in reading in England. However, children aged between 7-11, representing those from the primary schools, showed high interest in reading religious works, which differed from the results of the Roehampton study. Furthermore, South African children showed a relative lack of interest in comics as compared with respondents from England. (Contains 12 references.) (NKA)