Early Reading Experiences of White Working-Class Trainee Teachers

In Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) trainees who considered themselves white British working class were asked to be interviewed for a small-scale research project. Six students volunteered to be interviewed. They all self-identified as women, and ranged in age from 24 to 52. Initially the research project was focused upon the trainees’ identification with characters in books that they read as children, but the discussion ranged beyond this to the reading background of their families, their experiences at school and their views of themselves as readers now. Most of the trainees remembered their mothers as reading role models. Most had positive experiences of learning to read at school, although this did not always translate into reading for pleasure. All trainees seemed to value reading fiction over non-fiction.