In this research study, we document the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gender issues. Throughout the reading of The Hunger Games, we were especially interested in how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity with respect to their own positioning as girls who were struggling readers. The book club sessions were designed to examine representations in the novel in ways that connected to the participants' lives, helping them to become aware of gendered norms in order to critique them. We first explore the literature about the use of popular texts in education, present our sociological interpretive case study methodology, and then discuss the complex ways in which our participants' approached power, violence, and gender.

This article explores how characters in The Hunger Games trilogy are portrayed relative to Connell's gendered discourses of hegemonic masculinity, marginal masculinity, and emphasized femininity. We briefly review the plot of The Hunger Games trilogy and then discuss the ways in which three of the characters are represented with respect to societal gendered discourses, heteronormativity, and the use of violence. We argue that the ways in which these aspects are portrayed relate to the main characters' performance of discourses of hegemonic masculinity (Gale), marginalized masculinity (Peeta), and a complex amalgamation of the two that also draws somewhat on emphasized femininity (Katniss). Finally, we conclude that, while the trilogy could be read as taking a feminist stance with a strong female protagonist, it nonetheless also constrains Katniss in heteronormative ways.

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In this article, we explore the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gendered issues. Using the book Dork diaries: Tales from a NOT-SO- fabulous life, they connected content in the book to their lives as relates to school “food chains,”  frenemies, and revenge fantasies. The participants demonstrated the complex ways in which their reading of texts intersects with literary, educational, and societal gender issues,  expounding the need for an ongoing problematization of girls' representations and experiences.