The reading habits of secondary school teachers of English

This thesis presents a study of the reading habits of secondary school teachers of English. It explores what they read, why they read and how they feel about their reading. The introduction explores the background to this work, discussing how my idea to research this topic came into being and outlining my three research questions. In the literature review I discuss the existing literature surrounding the reading habits of teachers, highlighting the gaps in the literature and providing a rationale for this study. I begin by exploring what existing scholarship tells us about how teachers view themselves, their role and their effectiveness in the classroom, and consider how this may affect a teacher’s reading life. I also examine the expectations teachers face with regard to how they fulfil their role, before going on to reflect on what existing research tells us about the amount teachers, both pre-service and in-service, read. I then consider the implied expectations regarding teachers’ reading contained within that research. Finally, I explore the importance of reading itself in order to establish its academic, economic, and social benefits.
In my methodology chapter I discuss how the theoretical framing of a critical realist paradigm helped shape the methodological approach I took to answer my research questions. I also explore how the concept of Narrative Inquiry (Connelly and Clandinin, 2000, and Clandinin, 2022) helped me create in part the questionnaire, but more significantly the semi-structured interviews I used to encourage teachers to reflect on their reading lives. I examine the strengths and limitations of the pilot questionnaire and pilot interviews, and also explore the implications of my status as a colleague to the participants involved in the study, drawing on the work of Braun and Clarke (2006 and 2022) as I do so. I also reflect on how Covid-19 had practical implications for my work, and also affected teacher reading habits during lockdown and beyond.
In subsequent chapters, I report and discuss the data drawn from the results of my questionnaire (sent out electronically to 164 secondary school English teachers during the late autumn of 2021 and completed by 99 teachers, a response rate of 60.3%) and 10 interviews. I systematically analyse the questionnaire data question by question and consider relevant themes generated by the interview data for each of my research questions in turn. I draw on relevant literature where appropriate to either contextualise or challenge my findings. Finally, my conclusion endeavours to refine and draw together my findings and offers recommendations for professional practice, particularly within teacher training organisations and whole-school attitudes towards reading and teacher professional development.