"The Leisure Reading Racial Gap"

Conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data includes the average amount of time per day in 2010 that individuals worked, did household activities, and engaged in leisure and sports activities." The summary of the survey's findings can be found in a news release here.

In an article titled "The Leisure Reading Racial Gap." Mark Bauerlein assesses the study's (disappointing but perhaps not surprising) findings that American teenagers (15-19 years old) spend a mere ".12 hours on weekdays and .10 hours on weekend days in reading". He goes on to speak to the "importance of leisure reading... not only the quality of it but the volume of it" and the "solid correlations between how much reading teens do on their own and how well they perform in school" before addressing the topic I personally find particularly fascinating: racial reading gaps.

Bauerlein says:

When we look at the results broken down by race, more concerns arise... Whites come in at .31 and .37 hours on weekdays and weekend days, respectively. Blacks come in at half that figure, .17 and .18, even though blacks have more leisure time than whites (5.61 hours to 5.14 hours per day). Hispanics have less leisure time (4.89 hours) and pile up even less leisure reading (.15 and .11 hours on weekdays and weekend days).

According to Bauerlein, "These numbers confirm the rule that the more young people read on their own, voluntarily, the better they do in school." Yes! I have certainly seen this to be true in my own life - without a doubt I would not have gone on to college (let alone grad school) or done well in either, had I not been such a voracious reader. I cannot encourage parents to FORCE their kids into the habit of leisure reading enough. It's a vital discipline! And yes, I realize I'm using words like "force" and "discipline" to talk about leisure reading, but I do believe that taking pleasure in leisure reading needs to first be modeled by parents, then enjoyed as a shared activity with their children, and then taught (or forced) as a discipline for their children to do regularly by themselves.

Now, I could care less about college education. I have thoroughly enjoyed my own college education, and I'm immensely grateful for it, but I will never subscribe to the idea that a college education is necessary (let alone desirable) for everyone. But I will always, always believe that reading is an essential part of engaging curiosity and engagement with the great, wide world. I love how Emily Dickinson says it:

THERE is no frigate like a book 

To take us lands away, 

Nor any coursers like a page 

Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll; 

How frugal is the chariot 

That bears a human soul!

To get back to the Baurelein article, I suppose the inference he means for his readers to take away is that racial minorities (who read less, according to the above cited study) are less likely to even attend college, let alone do well in college. I've not studied the numbers on minority college enrollment, but I'd like to do so soon, because this article has definitely peaked my interest in the topic.

Mark Bauerlein, "The Leisure Reading Racial Gap," The Chronicle, June 27, 2011. Accessed June 28, 2011. http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-leisure-reading-racial-gap/36587.

Emily Dickinson, "XCIX," Part One: Life. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1924).