L’adolescente e il libro

Abstract

To aknowledge and understand which motivational thrusts influence teens’ relationship with the act of reading we need to adopt research methods that manage to deeply analyze their specific contexts and experiences. This paper describes the methodology and the results of a field research that – in line with this vision – has chosen a local and informal approach that, revitalizing orality’s role in society, investigated teens’ motivations in reading or not reading. The pilot survey took place in May 2018 among seven classrooms in Rome and inaugurated a new type of qualitative method that, disguised as “rhetorical challenge”, allowed me to study in deep experiences and reasons hidden behind the declarations of boredom and lack of interest often reported by wider surveys on the subject. The impact of this type of methodology is not only described to find out and inquire into non-readers’ motivations, but also to operate on real causes of reading desertion in the last parenthesis of influence teachers and librarians are given before these kids enter adulthood.