This study sets out to investigate how the roll of the teacher is constructed in the Swedish Teachers’ Unions trade publication. Based on the theory of social constructionism we have used the method of critical discourse analysis to establish dominant trends and patterns in how the roll of teacher is constructed in editorials in Swedish Lärarnas Tidning. We have established that the conflict between a modernist school tradition and a postmodern society has resulted in a dominant, traditional teacher discourse which is being simultaneously challenged by both a market-orientated discourse and a professionalization discourse. Furthermore, we attempt to highlight how these ‘ideal’ constructions can create problems in terms of identity construction for teachers. Aside from a process of professionalization, teaching has also undergone an intensification in terms of workload in a period of incessant education reform, with new tasks being handed down without any of the older tasks disappearing. According to the Swedish Teachers’ Union this has rendered teaching something of a “mission impossible”.

This study examines how teachers of Swedish as a second language perceive that they work to strengthen L2 pupils’ knowledge of Swedish. It investigates how the teachers say that they work to improve the pupils’ vocabulary and word comprehension, and what they can find problematic when they work with this. The method used for the study is qualitative, in the form of interviews, with the aim of charting the teachers’ opinions and perceptions of what was to be studied. Four teachers were interviewed, and their thoughts are part of the results in the study. Among other things, it was found that vocabulary and word comprehension are important to work with in Swedish as a second language since a large vocabulary and good word comprehension are the foundation for the pupils’ continued learning. The results also show the importance of conversations in the classroom when it comes to vocabulary and word comprehension, and the use of pictures and reading aloud.

En stor del av det här arbetet har grundat sig i det politiska förslaget om att införa en läslista i skolan. Syftet med vår studie var därför att ta reda på sambandet mellan lärares syn på, och undervisning i, skönlitteratur samt deras inställning till en litterär kanon. Vi har använt oss av en metodkombination med muntliga och skriftliga intervjuer, och en enkät. Enkäten besvarades av 63 respondenter och i intervjuerna deltog 8 lärare. Med utgångspunkt i receptionsteori, forskning om läroplan och lärares undervisning samt kanonteori och kanondebatt kan vårt resultat visa flera samband. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av lärarna var negativa eller osäkra till ett införande av en litterär kanon. De som ställde sig negativa eller är osäkra till en kanon läser mer frekvent på fritiden jämfört med de som är positivt inställda till en kanon. Gemensamma uppfattningar hos de positivt inställda till kanon är att en litteraturkanon kan bidra till likvärdighet och kulturarv. En återkommande åsikt hos de negativt inställda till en kanon är att de önskar välja litteratur själva, och att de ifrågasätter vem som ska bestämma urvalet i en kanon. Resultatet visar också att det finns en konflikt mellan lärares litteratursyn och hur de undervisar i skönlitteratur. / The idea for this study was initiated by the political proposal of establishing a reading list in the Swedish school. The aim of our study was therefore to examine the connection between middle school teachers’ views on, and teaching of, fiction and their attitudes towards a literary canon. Our study is based on a combination of methods, using both written and oral interviews with 8 teachers, and a questionnaire with 63 participating respondents. Based on reception theories, curriculum studies and research of teaching literature, as well as canon theory and the debate, our result can reveal several connections. A majority of the teachers were negative or uncertain towards a literary canon in the Swedish school. The negative or doubtful are reading more often in their spare time compared to those who are positive towards a canon. Common opinions among those with a positive attitude concern equivalence and cultural heritage. A recurring opinion of those with a negative attitude towards a canon is regarding their own choice of literature for teaching, as well as they question who decides the canon content. The result indicates that there is a conflict between the teachers’ views on literature and how they are teaching literature.

The question of how to teach English grammar has been a pervasive one for a long time, but the topic has scarcely been the subject of contemporary research in a Swedish context. This study aims to gather insights related to the beliefs and pedagogical practises of a small sample of English teachers in the Swedish school system. For example, insights such as whether the teachers indicate a preference towards Inductive or Deductive instruction of grammar and how they tend to approach the teaching of English grammatical patterns. Because of the nature of this goal, this study necessitates the utilization of previous research and frameworks created in the fields of both pedagogy and linguistics, respectively. Without either field, this study could not be conducted, as both fields are vital in understanding the teaching of grammar.  The corpus this study utilized was transcribed from four 18-35 minutes long semi-structured interviews with upper secondary school teachers of English. These interviews were transcribed manually, and they were analysed and categorized using a mix of both the Inductive and Deductive approach of analysing interviews. The results found no overarching preference between Inductive and Deductive grammar teaching among the four teachers, and three out of the four indicated the utilization of both. The teacher who did not indicate this always preferred to teach grammatical structures explicitly. Communication was seen as important by all of the teachers, but only two of the participants indicated the usage of Communicative Language Teaching. The remaining two teachers indicated a preference towards either Task-Based Language Teaching or the Grammar-Translation approach. This variety among the teachers of the study reflected previous research conducted on the topic.