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Abstract

This research examines how a small group of secondary school students with dyslexia in England make sense of their reading experiences and motivation to read across school, home and everyday settings. It responds to concerns that literacy policy and practice foreground accuracy, speed and comparison, leaving limited space for reading for pleasure on students’ own terms. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concepts, the study treats dyslexia and literacy as historically and institutionally produced categories and explores how discourses, norms and accountability regimes shape what counts as legitimate reading and a motivated reader. The research is grounded in a relativist ontology and a social constructionist epistemology and conceptualises motivation as a contingent arrangement of relations, routines and regimes of value, rather than as an inherent trait. Pleasure is central to this concept as it marks moments when students temporarily reconfigure these arrangements, engaging with reading in ways that feel meaningful and dignifying and that are less tightly governed through surveillance. A qualitative design was adopted with three participant groups: six students with dyslexia aged 11–14, six parents and six teachers. Researcher-directed diaries generated week-long records of students’ everyday encounters with reading, and semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers explored understandings of dyslexia, roles and views of the education system. Diary entries were examined using qualitative content analysis and interview accounts were interpreted through reflexive thematic analysis. The findings suggest that reading motivation is fragile under normalising pressures yet can be sustained when the mode, timing, audience and purpose of tasks are adapted, when informal and multimodal literacies are recognised and when relationships with adults and peers protect dignity while opening space for pleasure.

Awarding Institution(s)

University of Plymouth

Award Sponsors

Turkish Ministry of National Education

Supervisor

Elizabeth Done, Vicky Bamsey

Keywords

Dyslexia, Reading Motivation, Foucault

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2026

Embargo Period

2026-09-06

Deposit Date

September 2026

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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