The Dichotomization of reading-related interpretive patterns at the transition from school to university

Partial results of a qualitative longitudinal study

Abstract

The article deals with the development of interpretative patterns related to reading, literature, and texts at the transition from school to university from a qualitative-reconstructive perspective. The focus is on the thesis that interpretive patterns increasingly break down into two distinct, separate domains during this phase (dichotomization thesis). These areas – private, informal reading and institutional, school-, university-reading – relate to different conscious and unconscious attributions, as a result of which different relevance and function are attributed to reading. I illustrate and discuss this phenomenon on the basis of empirical data (narrative interviews in a biographical longitudinal section, analyzed by means of social science hermeneutics).