Personal Reading Trajectories: Reading Autobiographies of Pedagogy Students from a Chilean University

In recent years, studies about teachers' reading practices have emerged, based on the assumption that future reading mediation is related to their own trajectory in this field. In this context, a qualitative research was developed that analyzes 279 reading autobiographies written by eight generations of Chilean pedagogy students, throughout the last decade. This exploratory and diachronic study worked with the "life stories" technique to collect information about the personal trajectories and forms of reading appropriation. The data was addressed by means of mixed analysis (statistical and of content) that established structural categories and subcategories related to the reading experiences in pre-school, primary, secondary and university education; the moments and places where the reading takes place; the mediators role and the value attributed to literature. The main results highlight the centrality of shared reading, the family members acting as mediators and the limited participation of the school and the library in this task. The reason would lay in the compulsory nature of reading in the school context, taking it away from pleasure and aesthetic enjoyment.