‘Fitting in’ and ‘standing out’: the peer group and young people’s development of reader identity

Abstract

The benefits of reading for pleasure and positive reader identities have been well established in previous research. However, much discussion regarding young people’s reading is underpinned by a discourse of deficit, placing emphasis on what young people should be reading. In an attempt to move away from this discourse, this article considers reading in the context of young people’s broader social and cultural worlds, exploring the role of the peer group in young people’s development of a reader identity. The article argues that the reading practices young people engage in are part of their broader social and cultural participation and, consequently, part of a broader project of identity formation. By highlighting the complexity of young people’s development of a reader identity and the meaning ascribed to specific reading practices, the findings challenge deficit models of young people’s reading lives, which underpin attempts to redistribute cultural capital through educational and cultural policy.