Reading rurally for (professional) pleasure: what enables and constrains the recreational reading of secondary English teachers in rural NSW?

This paper explores what, how and why rural secondary English teachers read for recreation. Recreational reading has received increasing attention in popular media, academia and English syllabuses in recent years, with the work of Cremin (et al., 2014, 2023) spearheading research into the significance of reading for pleasure for primary teachers and their students. However, there have been no major studies conducted into the recreational reading habits of secondary English teachers, and this gap is extended when we consider Australia, especially rural Australia. The current qualitative, multiple-phase explanatory study consists of surveys (n = 29) and follow up interviews (n = 2), in which secondary English teachers from regional and remote schools in NSW were asked about their recreational reading habits and what constrains this reading. The data was analysed using Template Analysis (King & Brooks, 2017) and with Sociospatial theory (Soja, 1980, 1996) as the theoretical frame. This theory imagines teacher’s lives as consisting of three spaces: the real, everyday firstspace, the idealised secondspace, and the innovative thirdspace. The results provide insights into the reading behaviours of rural English teachers, including what they read, as well as illuminating several aspects of their personal and professional lives that constrain this reading. The paper concludes with several recommendations for future areas of study.