My reading this evening

I'm having an excellent time reading for my essay due shortly. More truthfully... I'm having an excellent time reading(!), and I sometimes read some stuff that's relevant to my essay!

I've been reading a masters thesis by Ella Kahu on "Family and paid work: a critical discourse analysis of government policy and mothers' talk". In her research she looked at the document "Action Plan for New Zealand Women", published in 2004, and notes how it talks about women being able to make choices in their lives, then very clearly privileges the choice to be in full-time paid employment over any other choices, such as caring (mothering) roles. Later she is going to compare this with the talk of first time mothers about how they see their (multiple) roles, but I haven't got to that bit yet. It's very interesting, but only tangentially related to my own topic (which is about the devaluation of parent involvement in their children's education).

But at least I have an introduction to the essay now which I think will work. The next part is writing 200 words on each of 8-10 paragraphs to prove my points.

In fact, it's quite a good read just because Ella is a very clear writer, and the "-ologies and -isms" which I have been trying to get my head around (eg, post-modernism, structuralism) she explains as part of her research methodology.

Moral of story: always find a good reason to read the thing you want to read!