My essay has three foci. One is the presentation of a survey I gave to two groups of pupils, one grade 7 and the other grade 8 about their attitude to reading books in school, and their attitude to reading books in general. I was interested in how the result would correspond to what many investigations on this subject had concluded. One such result was that girls were usually not only more willing to read, but they were also better readers than boys. Therefore, the answerers must tell if they were boys or girls. The result of my investigation rather corroborated what many others had already said: Swedish young people are not enthusiastic book readers, but when reading, the girls are the ones that take the lead. Another focus is in a way historical. I used a novel by a Swedish author telling about poor people on the Swedish countryside in the nineteenth century dreaming of being able to emigrate from their home country and come to America. What interests me is the story telling of the attitude to reading, both in the characters and the authorities. There is much about reading incapacities, but also of lust for, and skill in reading. The attitudes from the authorities is dominated by churchly paternalism: reading skill in ordinary people has one primary function, to make them good Christians. This common value-system is fixed by the didactic curricula of the time. My third focus is the Swedish curricula especially in what they say about reading and literature. I thought I found that they have at least something in common with the curricula of mid-nineteenth century than might be expected. The older ones have what could be seen as an instrumental attitude to reading and such an attitude I thought could be perceived also in the modern ones: they seem to be eager to point out the usefulness of reading in general and even of reading literature. Another point would be the great importance attached to the strengthening of the common value-system, here, not Christian belief, but a democratic ground of values. In my study of what is said about reading in school by people discussing the subject, and when looking at the result of my own investigation by the questionnaire I very often find a similar instrumental attitude: all reading, be it fact or fiction, is expected to lead to something useful not just pleasure.

Previous research has shown that teaching material reproduces ideology; and according to the professor in History of Ideas, Sven-Eric Lied man, ideology can be read out in all sorts of texts. This is in contrast with the Swedish curriculum, which claims that the teaching should be objective and comprehensive. The aim with this study is to investigate if there is any reproduction of ideology in social science textbooks. With this background I have examined four social science textbooks, by using qualitative research methodology and ideology analysis.  Results showed that all four textbooks are reproducing ideology. In the analysis I have been using the methodological framework, ideal types and for this purpose three ideologies; Liberalism, Revisionism and Conservatism were defined. The interpretation of the results was that the dominating reproductions in the textbooks exhibited liberalism and revisionism, but some conservative reproductions could be found in the schoolbooks as well. Many of the reproductions were read out latent in the books. The authors were also using evaluative written language and a lot of watchwords.  The results correspond with the majority of previous research. / <p>2017-01-20</p>

The world today is globalized like never before and with countries becoming more multicultural it is important to strive towards an intercultural society. This essay aims to answer the question “In what ways can one teach representation in the intercultural classroom through fantasy literature?”. That is, to illustrate and exemplify how one can use fantasy literature in the English classroom to give students intercultural knowledge through discussions on representation and intersectionality. The discussions in the essay are based in the democratic values stated in the Swedish course curriculum for upper secondary school (Gy11) in relation to the theoretical background. With examples from the book Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, the essay breaches both difficult and sensitive subjects that can be discussed to make certain issues less alien for the reader. Cultural diversity is magical and it is important that students get the right tools to form deep relationships across cultural borders, and the fantasy genre is a great tool to use in the classroom to lessen these bridges between different cultures since the genre creates an arena for intercultural meetings where ‘the other’ is in focus, which reduces the alienating aspect of different cultures and identities.

The ethical aspects of the Swedish Curriculum for the non-compulsory school system, Lpf94, will form the basis of the research in this essay. The ethical aspects constitute fundamental values and goals as well as common tasks that must be carried out by every teacher. Since the school debate focuses a lot on this perspective, which is often mentioned together with the words problematic and contradictory, it will consequently also be the focus of this essay. Here these features are treated in relation to literature in all its forms used by teachers in class, which also represents a part of the school debate. Together ethics and literature form a perspective that lacks research. The goal is to investigate the ethical awareness of teachers in relation to the literature, and find out which ethical decisions are made by teachers and in what ways the ethical aspects of the curriculum is fulfilled. A qualitative method has been used in order to gain results: four upper secondary school teachers/senior high school teachers have been interviewed. The results are presented in interview transcripts which have been analyzed and interpreted in the light of recent studies and research and pedagogical-didactical literature. Accordingly I have been able to draw the conclusions that the ethical features in teaching is not explicit and that there seldom seems to be any conscious ethical reflections in relation to the literature. The ethical aspects are rather invisible and unconscious. However, it is clear that the interviews raise the awareness of the ethical perspective and thus emphasize the growing and developing function of the dialogue. Finally the results have been interpreted from the point of view of the ethical tasks of the teacher in order to make the ethics visible.I detta examensarbete ligger fokus på de etiska aspekterna av samhällsuppdraget i förhållande till den litteratur som lärare använder sig av i klassrumsundervisningen. Eftersom en stor del av skoldebatten handlar om samhällsuppdraget och dess värdegrund utgör också detta perspektiv utgångspunkten för denna undersökning. Målet är att undersöka vilka etiska avvägningar lärare gör i valet av litteratur och på vilket sätt samhällsuppdragets etik blir synlig i lärares arbete. Därmed framkommer också till viss del i vilken omfattning värdegrundsarbetet sker. Genom en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod i form av samtal har fyra gymnasielärare intervjuats. Erhållna resultat har presenterats i form av intervjutranskript som analyserats och tolkats med hjälp av aktuell forskning och pedagogisk-didaktisk litteratur. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån resultaten är att etiken i lärarnas arbete inte är explicit och att det oftast inte finns en medveten etisk reflektion utifrån litteraturen. Etiken är snarare osynlig och tämligen omedveten. Dock medvetandegörs den under samtalen vilket framhåller dialogens betydelse för utveckling. Vidare framkommer att etiken aldrig är ett mål i sig, utan fungerar mer som medel för att nå andra mål i klassrummet. Slutligen, för att synliggöra etiken, har resultaten tolkats utifrån de etiska krav i samhällsuppdraget som ställs på lärare.

This thesis will explore how the medium of film is treated in the recently published Swedish textbooks and how these textbooks take into account the four different aspects of Cineliteracy. Cineliteracy is a theory which advocates the necessity of students' increased cinematic knowledge by presenting the four skill areas that should be included when it comes to teaching film in school. The theory implies students´ analytical skills, contextual knowledge and knowledge of the film canon as well as the development of students' skills to produce films. Cineliteracy theory finds support both within Swedish National Agency for Education and in recent Swedish research. This study includes investigation of eight new textbooks, adapted to the criteria for the new Swedish curriculum 2011. The analysis will be limited to textbooks for the course Swedish 1, since it is mandatory regardless of the orientation of the student’s education. / Denna uppsats kommer att undersöka hur filmmediet behandlas i nya läroböcker i svenska och hur pass mycket läroböckerna tagit hänsyn till de fyra olika aspekter av cinelitteracitet. Cinelitteracitet är en teori som förespråkar nödvändigheten av elevers ökade filmiska läskunnighet genom att presentera fyra kunskaps- och kompetensområden som bör ingå när filmämnet behandlas. Det gäller så väl elevernas analytiska kompetens, kontextuella kunskap och kunskap om filmkanon som att utveckla elevernas kompetens att producera egna filmer. Cinelitteracitetsteorin har stöd både inom skolverkets satsningar kring film i skolan och inom de senare svenska forskningen. Undersökningen innefattar åtta nya läroböcker, anpassade efter kriterierna för det nya ämnesplanen i svenska i och med Gy 11. Analysen har begränsats till läroböcker för kursen Svenska 1 som är obligatorisk oavsett elevens programmval.

Previous research has shown that sustainable development is a complex concept that can be difficult to apply in a teaching context. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the concept of sustainable development and education for sustainable development are formulated in school policy documents related to the five teachers' descriptions of how they practice it in reality. I have, based on the purpose of this study issued following questions: What are projected on sustainable development and education for sustainable development in the school curriculum as well as other documents that support school activities? What is included? What is not included? How does the teachers interpret the concept of sustainable development? How does the teachers say that they work with sustainable development in the subjects of social science? What difficulties does the teachers experience with education for sustainable development?  This study is made through a qualitative method based on a contextual analysis and interviews with five teachers. The results show that neither the documents nor the teachers' descriptions of education for sustainable development seem to indicate that sustainable development is seen as a political issue. Rather, the descriptions indicate that sustainable development is seen as a matter of ethics. In both the documents and the teachers' descriptions all levels of sustainable development i.e. local, national and international level are mentioned. Therefore, it is also described as a collective responsibility rather than an individual responsibility. In the teachers' descriptions of sustainable development the environmental dimension is mainly mentioned. The documents on the other hand emphasize all dimensions i.e. the social, economic and environmental. According to the documents these three should be balanced in order for sustainable development to be possible to achieve. Teachers' descriptions of how they work with sustainable development show a more clear vision of education for sustainable development as value mediation compared to what is written out in the documents. The steering documents also emphasize that knowledge of sustainable development is required to enable sustainable development. The difficulties that the teachers’ describe on education for sustainable development is mostly related to the complexity of the concept.  One conclusion of this study is that the documents and the teachers' descriptions of sustainable development and education for sustainable development are quite similar. This despite the few differences mentioned above and the fact that one teacher believes that the directives of the curriculum syllabus is a bit unclear in terms of sustainable development.

Curriculums define what a nation deems as valuable skills and values to be taught to the young individuals that will be entering society. The aim of this study is to analyse which type of nationalism that can be found in Swedish curriculums for higher education from 1935-2011 and how the nationalism is expressed. By applying Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities in conjunction with Anthony D. Smith’s ethno-symbolism, we did a text analysis of four selected Swedish curriculums. These curriculums were chosen based on being the four that suited the chosen era as well as being designed for nonobligatory higher education.Results showed that each curriculum has its own type and form of nationalism with distinct features and means of creating imagined communities between individuals. Metodiska anvisningar för rikets allmänna läroverk has a nationalism based upon the individual’s love for the motherland Sweden. Lgy 70 displays a nationalism centered around the mentality of ‘us versus them’. Lpf 94 shows nationalism defined by cultural understanding and shared values. Gy2011 exhibits a nationalism characterised by equal understanding and shared points of reference. Some of the features and means of creating imagined communities are shared and evolved over time between the different curriculums and the later three aim to avoid being nationalistic. Nonetheless, they still have an element of nationalism in them that dictates their stance on valuable skills and knowledge for their respective contemporary era.

The question of what religion is could very well be asked of religious studies teachers by their students. It is, however, a difficult question to answer since there is a lack of consensus regarding the meaning of the term religion in the scientific field. An overview of research on the topic shows a lack of studies regarding religious studies teachers in Sweden and their view on the term religion in different teaching contexts. The aim of this study is to highlight religion studies teachers´ view on the term religion in relation to their teaching, as well as whether textbooks and/or the Swedish curriculum affects how teachers view and use the term religion in their classrooms. This, in turn, might highlight didactic problems that could arise from the lack of a clear definition of religion in the subject of religious studies. The study is conducted by interviewing four teachers at the upper secondary education level in Sweden. The transcripts from the interviews are then analysed using essentialist perspectives on religion as well as the secularist discourse present in Swedish classrooms as the essay’s theoretical perspectives.  The results show that while there is some overlap between how the interviewed teachers view the term religion, they each have a slightly different view of what religion is and how they use the term in their classrooms. Some of the teachers´ views on religion showed signs of essentialism while others tended to see religion as a more open category or that the term should be problematised in classroom exercises. All the interviewed teachers took a non-secularist stance towards religion in their teaching. Textbooks seem to play an important role to a lesser or higher degree depending on which teacher is asked. Textbooks can guide teachers in a certain direction, especially those who recently got their teacher degrees, but the interviewed teachers showed that they were able to use textbooks to their advantage in the classroom while also being aware of problematic content in certain older textbooks. These problematic textbooks tend to take a secularist stance towards religion while newer ones take a more nuanced non-secularist stance. All the interviewed teachers agreed that the Swedish curriculum could be improved regarding how teachers should handle religion as a term, though the exact way in which the curriculum documents should be rewritten varied from teacher to teacher. The curriculum described religion as an open category while also taking a non-secularist stance towards religion. The teachers also discussed whether the subject should even be called religion studies as well as the subject not having enough classroom hours during the school year.

This essay examines the possibility to use the Federalist Papers as authentic classroom material for English 7 within Sweden’s upper secondary school. To do this, three close readings have been done of the first, tenth and fifty-first essay amongst the Federalist Papers. Although the material is quite advanced, this essay found that these essays should be considered when choosing material for English 7 as they are challenging but have a lot of opportunity for learning, especially regarding rhetoric. Like most material in a classroom, one must compare the possible material’s compatibility with the class being taught. However, the Federalist Papers fulfills many of the requirements for course content within the Swedish curriculum for upper secondary school as well as the course plan for specifically English 7. This is because the material regards existential questions and is both historical and political which makes it aligned with the course plan. Likewise, many of the issues covered in these essays regard questions on democratization and human nature in relation to government, which makes the Federalist Papers a good candidate for school material.  The main points of interest for the learners when it comes to English skills to be gained from working with the Federalist Papers are the rhetorical devices,particularly ethos and pathos, that can be observed within the essays. Learners would understand how analogies and metaphors can be used to make an audience feel in a certain way, resulting in a more efficient use of language, while also learning how certain words can indicate an adversarial stance towards opposing ideas.

Swedish curricula and syllabi constitute a richness of different considerations. Withinthis composition of principles, it is distinctly declared that all Swedish schools should counteract any inclination of discrimination and that intolerance must be answered with different measures, including knowledge (Skolverket, 2011b, 1). Scrutinizing ways in which knowledge can be used as an instrument towards these issues is therefore incentivized. On this token, the following essay investigates the potentiality of usingthe novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros in English 7 instruction in upper secondary school, as teaching material for imparting knowledge about different forms of discrimination. To achieve this purpose, the essay first examines the experiences of narrator and protagonist Esperanza Cordero through close reading, to explore how tacit and explicit racial and class-based discrimination shape her identity and inhibit her sense of belonging. Belonging is conceptualized through Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities wherein an individual is viewed as bargaining for belonging towards delimited and delimiting communities. Identity is viewed through a sociological lens as a transformative, negotiable, and revocable phenomenon and as interlinked with asymmetrical power relations. In addition, the essay analyses the findings from the close reading in relation to the syllabus for the course English 7, and the curriculum for upper secondary school. On this basis, the essay maintains that The House on Mango Street is suitable teaching material for the course English 7 at upper secondary school. The results indicate an alignment between the principles stated in the steering documents and the findings of the analyses, illustrating the applicability of The House on Mango Street as teaching material within a Swedish school setting. Furthermore, the results reveal how the novel presents teachers with ample opportunities to mediate how forms of discrimination are intertwined with questions of identity and belonging.