Inauguration Lecture for Professor (N1)- Hans Malmström

Abstract 

A crisis of reading, a crisis of text(s), or no crisis at all? Reflections and provocations on students’ reading ability and the purpose of academic reading

In this short presentation, I use recent research on academic reading in English and Swedish (my own research as well as others’) to revisit a familiar claim: that students no longer read or no longer read well enough. The evidence suggests a more complex picture. Questions of reading ability cannot be separated from questions of expectations, the language of the texts students encounter, and the changing role of texts in higher education.

With a focus on Sweden, and drawing on research of reading demands, students’ reading practices, and the competencies associated with successful academic reading, I consider what we currently know, where the evidence remains inconclusive, and why the diagnosis is important. A recurring concern is what changes when students read in English rather than Swedish: whether the language of the text affects comprehension, completion, preparedness, and the value students attach to reading. If students struggle to read demanding texts, the response should focus on developing vocabulary, strategies, and other dimensions of reading proficiency. If they can read but increasingly see little purpose in the texts they are assigned, then the problem lies elsewhere: in the texts, the tasks, or the place of reading in higher education.

Rather than offering a single diagnosis – or indeed remedy – I hope to challenge some familiar assumptions about students, texts, languages, and reading, and to provoke discussion about what, exactly, is in crisis and where responsibility for addressing it lies.