The study of literacy no longer focuses solely on psychological processes. In the past, literacy has been reconceptualized as a social practice, or rather as social practices which make up daily life. Private Practices examines the broad fictional reading of middle class pre-teen girls in ethnographic detail, and describes the place of literacy, both at home and at school, in the construction of gender. cultural and social construction, not a biological given. Gender is something people create whilst interacting with each other in all activities of their daily lives, including their literacy...