The development of the Boys' and Girls' Literacy: Closing the Gap project was sparked by the realization that boys were not performing as well in literacy as girls. The Provincial Report Card for School District 18 consistently revealed this phenomenon at grade eight levels. The local school governance committee requested that this issue be researched and addressed. Upon further investigation, it became clear that this issue was not isolated to the local school district but was widespread throughout Canada and the international community (OECD, 2001). As a result, a partnership between School District 18 and St. Thomas University was forged. A literacy researcher from St. Thomas University and a literacy practitioner from School District 18 proposed a research project designed to address the literacy performance of boys, yet not at the expense of girls. This project was granted two years of funding by Human Resource Development Canada through the National Literacy Secretariat.
The Boys' and Girls' Literacy: Closing the Gap project is unique in that it aims to develop strategies that would particularly have a positive impact on boys' literacy. This holds substantial merit in that the strategies and methodologies selected to address the literacy performance of boys would not disadvantage girls. These strategies included literature circles, male mentors, and providing boy-friendly reading materials. The researchers based these decisions on current research in the fields of literacy and reading; gender and literacy; psychology; and curriculum.
Ethics and Confidentiality
An ethics certificate was received from St. Thomas University on March 5, 2002. This certificate approved
the researchers' methods of preserving the anonymity of the participants and the data collected. The ethics
certificate verifies that the researchers had met the standards of the Tri-Council Policy for research involving
human subjects.
Objectives
The research project had three main objectives. A statement for each objective as well as the corresponding
data collection/methods of evaluation and activities follows.