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Background: Reading amount is decisive for individual students' academic success as well as for the general strength of democratic societies. Still, the amount of both leisure-time and school-related reading is decreasing. To reverse this trend, more knowledge of what drives students' school reading is needed. Methods: Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the study is based on structured interviews with 259 students in Grades 6 and 9 from 14 different schools. Descriptive statistical analyses were made to map students' perceptions of themselves as readers and their school-related reading practices, and to find out what regulates students' motivation for in-class reading. Results: Although students express a strong will to become good readers, our data indicate that students are mainly driven by controlled motivation for their school-related reading; autonomous motivation was only expressed by a minority of students in Grade 6. What would make students read more are mainly text and instruction related factors such as more interesting texts and more time allocated to reading. Conclusions: Our results point to a great potential for more in-class reading across the curriculum, reading sessions that need to be regularly scheduled using carefully selected texts. In line with SDT, our findings highlight the importance of fulfilling students' need for competence, relatedness, and autonomy in order for them to develop more self-determined behavior, such as leisure-time reading – which in turn will boost their reading self-concept.

Reading amount is decisive for individual students' academic success as well as for the general strength of democratic societies. Still, the amount of both leisure-time and school-related reading is decreasing. To reverse this trend, more knowledge of what drives students' school reading is needed. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the study is based on structured interviews with 259 students in Grades 6 and 9 from 14 different schools. Descriptive statistical analyses were made to map students' perceptions of themselves as readers and their school-related reading practices and to find out what regulates students' motivation for in-class reading. Although students express a strong will to become good readers, our data indicate that students are mainly driven by controlled motivation for their school-related reading; autonomous motivation was only expressed by a minority of students in Grade 6. What would make students read more are mainly text and instruction related factors such as more interesting texts and more time allocated to reading. Our results point to a great potential for more in-class reading across the curriculum, reading sessions that need to be regularly scheduled using carefully selected texts. In line with SDT, our findings highlight the importance of fulfilling students' need for competence, relatedness, and autonomy in order for them to develop more self-determined behaviour, such as leisure-time reading – which in turn will boost their reading self-concept. Highlights What is already known about this topic Students who practice reading more tend to become more competent readers and therefore develop a more positive relationship with reading and themselves as readers (reading self-concept). Autonomous motivation strongly predicts reading achievement, whereas controlled motivation negatively predicts reading outcomes. The amount of both leisure-time and school-related reading is decreasing in many parts of the western world, highlighting the need for schools to find new ways of ...

[EN] EHISTO (European history crossroads as pathways to intercultural and media education) is concerned with the mediation of history in popular (science) media and the question of social and political responsibility of journalists and other mediators of history, especially teachers, in the field of commercial presentation of history. The project responds to the increasing significance of a commercialised mediation of history within the public historical culture and reflects the fact that these representations, which do not always meet the EU standards for history education, can have a lasting impact on the young generation's understanding of history. Using the example of popular history magazines, the project shall, besides the necessary basic research, develop didactically reflected materials for both history education in school as well as initial and in-service teacher training. On one hand enable a media-critical examination of history magazines and on the other hand, by working with the history magazines, the project addresses itself to popular interpretations of history from the participating countries and reflects their similarities and differences in European cultures of remembrance. Therefore, this approach not only trains mediacritical competences but furthermore enables a multi-perspective and comparative access to history. The project EHISTO will last two years and is funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme with about 300,000 euros. Partners from six European nations take part in the project.