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Volume 4
August 2009
Article 3

Formats
PDF

Title
Reader Response and Ethnicity: A Difference That Makes a Difference

Author
Yu-ju Hung.

     Biodata
Yu-ju Hung is a Ph.D. candidate in Department of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education in Indiana University - Bloomington. She is working as an instructor in an IU online graduate course. Her research interests are ESL/EFL teaching, ESL/EFL teacher education, multicultural education, and online teaching.

Abstract

Holding the idea that learners construct knowledge through self-discovery, constructivist learning theory assumes that knowledge cannot be transferred (Bowers, 2005). Opposed to this assumption, continential critics like Greene (1971) and Bowers (2005), and ethnocentrism accentuate the essentiality of transferring learners’ past experience or tradition from their own culture or ethnicity to constitute meanings. Thus, this qualitative study investigates how readers’ ethnicity influences their responses to texts portraying their own ethnicity and texts describing another ethnicity. Ten Taiwanese students’ reading responses of two picture books are examined and discussed. Educational implications for teachers, course-book writers, and policy makers are also suggested to improve English readings, multicultural readings, and education in general.

Keywords: reader response, multicultural education, multicultural reading, ethnicity, culturally familiar texts