Reception of comics revisited. A revision of gender-based reading practices at school.

Abstract

How far can comics be used for a reading promotion which is oriented towards reading weaknesses or gender? The article answers this question firstly through empirical findings as well as research on reading socialization in school and leisure time.

Secondly, the subject matter will be examined by identifying gender constructions and authorship in comics as a possible constitutive starting point for some of the noted tendencies.

Instead of making the (re)-medialisation of gender identities in comics the starting point of a supposedly youth-specific reading promotion which (institutionally) intensifying the pictorially represented gender binarity both on the level of reading practice and on the level of reading content, the article argues for reflecting on this with learners and/or exploring new non-binary reading education paths that adequately take into account the hybrid mediality of comics and the segment's recent developments on the market (for example in feminist comics).