Performance and interaction during ‘reading hour’ in a Spanish secondary school

This paper examines students’ activity during reading hour in a multicultural secondary school in Madrid (Spain). It discusses two dimensions of the event: (1) How elements such as body posture, reading volume, reading speed and clarity were used by students to position themselves in relation to their linguistic competencies, the social order of the classroom and the institutional arrangements they participate in; and (2) how interactions around the text were used by students for peer play by drawing from identities formed outside the classroom. The data illustrates how reading hour was taken by students, especially by some Latin American students, to temporarily redefine aspects of the institutional order they were placed in. These results also invite complicating the outside/inside distinction by showing the multiple layers of institutional and out-of-school life that are collapsed into these categories.

Research highlights▶ I examine peer interactions during reading aloud in a secondary school classroom. ▶ Students use reading aloud to socially position each other in relation to the institutional order of the school. ▶ Verbal play around texts introduces complex social histories into the classroom. ▶ “Inside/Outside” involves multiple laminations and spatio-temporal scales.