Swedish compulsory school has recently been subjected to a number of political reforms. Between 2011 and 2014, for example, earlier grades, more national tests and a new curriculum plan (Lgr 11) were to be implemented. This thesis aims to examine those changes as they were experienced by teachers who teach history in Swedish upper primary schools. The theoretical framework is in-spired by existential philosophy, primarily as formulated in the works of Martin Heidegger and Hanna Arendt. In this way, the study highlights the teachers’ lived experience by making use of the concepts yearning, appearance, acting and mood. The study comprises of 36 interviews with 26 informants. The interviews were carried out and transcribed during 2014. The questions focus on both the existential being of the teachers’ lives as well as the ideological function of the history subject. This highly renders in the issue of how lived experiences of a specific school reform corresponded to the teachers’ own perception of a mean-ingful history education. Both the yearnings that were expressed by the participants and their de-scriptions of what they have experienced, have been related to the overall educational ideological functions stated by Gert Biesta (socialisation, subjectification and qualification) and Jonas Aspelin (existentialisation). Although the teachers’ narratives were greatly varied in some aspects, their interpretations of the new assignment seemed to be quite homogenous. Most of the teachers portrayed a situation characterised by performativity. Measurable knowledge and more frequent documentation seemed to be prioritised. Some of them stressed that they experienced less autonomy. In terms of history, the new curriculum was associated with more content knowledge, cognitive skills and procedural abilities. From the teachers’ perspective, pure qualification, rather than subjectification and social-isation, characterised the new curriculum. Still, the teachers’ feelings towards the curricular changes showed a great deal of divergence. Some of them embraced most of the new aspects. They claimed that clearly formulated require-ments in the history curricula provided them with security. They declared that their history teaching to some extent became more professional. In line with such beliefs, some teachers asserted that the strengthened focus on analytical skills improved their teaching. Particularly those who ex-pressed that they preferred such analytic procedural approaches described their experience in terms of confirmation and approval. Others appeared to struggle with the changes. While a few teachers even tried to resist the curricular changes, some found themselves forced to endure what appeared to be a totally new situation. They expressed disbelief, frustration and pain. Notably it was those most devoted to the existentialisational function of history teaching that usually seemed to express such alienation. As argued, they appeared to long for a lost possibility to engage their pupils, to bring history alive and to make meaning of the past.

This study studies teachers’ use of drama when teaching English in grades 4-6. The material has been collected through semi structured interviews with five teachers. The study concludes that teachers use drama to increase the pupils’ eagerness to learn through variation and commitment. Teachers list passion for the language and the opportunity it creates to work with dialogue in near authentic situations among the advantages of working with drama. Among the disadvantages teachers mention the time and energy required for both planning and conducting this kind of teaching. Teachers agree that the curriculum for English is their starting point when planning classroom activities. Teachers also agree that the knowledge requirement concerning pupils spoken language is the most obvious one to be reached through drama. The teachers can also be said to do things that are not part of the curriculum. However, those tasks can be considered essential stepping stones for pupils to find courage to express themselves. Some pupils reach knowledge requirements through drama, while there are indications that others need drama to build appropriate skills to be able to reach requirements at a later stage. Teachers are in agreement that drama should be seen as part of a long-term method to vary teaching and work with pupils around skills and towards knowledge requirements as described in the curriculum for English. / Studiens syfte är att undersöka lärares användning av drama i engelskundervisning i årskurs 4–6. Materialet för studien har inhämtats genom halvstrukturerade intervjuer med fem lärare. En slutsats av studien är att lärare använder drama i syfte att nå ett lustfyllt lärande genom variation och engagemang. Olika typer av övningar beskrivs, med dialogen och talad engelska i fokus. Bland fördelarna att arbeta med drama nämns lusten till språket och möjligheten att träna dialog i nära autentiska sammanhang. Bland nackdelarna nämns tid och energi som krävs av läraren, i planering och genomförande av sådan undervisning. Kursplanen i engelska ses som utgångspunkt för de intervjuade lärarna, där kunskapskrav kring det talade språket kan uppnås. Lärarna gör även sådant som kan sägas vara utanför kursplanen i engelska, men som kan vara nödvändiga mellansteg för att få elever att våga uttrycka sig på engelska. Vissa elever når kunskapskrav genom och under tillfällen med drama, medan det finns tecken på att andra behöver drama för att bygga nödvändiga kunskaper för att vid annat tillfälle kunna nå kunskapskraven. Lärarna är överens om att drama ses som en del av en långsiktig metod för att variera undervisningen och arbeta med elever kring förmågor och mot de kunskapskrav kursplanen i engelska beskriver.