In a world which continuously becomes more globalised, the need to adapt one's language depending on context becomes increasingly important. This is acknowledged in the Swedish syllabus for the upper-secondary school, which emphasises communicative competence and the need to adapt to situation and hearer. This study uses a foundation based on politeness theory, where the act of requesting is considered a threat to the notion of face. The concept of face that is being used is based on the work of Brown and Levinson (1987) and the idea is that everyone has a positive- and negative face where the former is the need for one’s self-image to be respected and the latter is the freedom to act without imposition from others. By role-playing different scenarios, the participants of the study, all students of the English 7 course, were asked to perform requests which varied in imposition and which targeted hearers of different statuses. The results were analysed using a qualitative approach, which leads to the conclusion that half of the six participants adapted their language appropriately to the communicative situation. Those three had managed to show an increase in face-saving acts where the imposition was greater, or the hearer was of a higher status. That only half of the participants managed to do this shows a lack of success in teaching the students the necessary pragmatic skills encoded in the syllabus and more focused studies in this area are recommended to address this issue. Due to the small number of participants, further studies are needed to fully confirm the results presented in this study.

The teacher's situation in upper secondary school today is strongly influenced by several factors, both inside and outside the school's walls. One of these factors are the national steering documents that are designed to regulate the educational activities: school law, curriculum and other regulations. The professionalism in the knowledge-based work has changed from being regulated within the profession to be used as a tool for controlling service personnel by the organisation (Evetts 2009, 2013). Based on a professional theoretical perspective and with critical discourse analysis as a method, this study focuses on:  1. To investigate how the teachers’ assignment appears in the steering documents, and what kind of professionalism that is emerging.  2. To investigate the ability of a professional teacher to act based on what appears in the steering documents regarding the characteristics of a profession.  3. The various regulatory documents’ content and formulations linked to previous research, i.e. if it is possible to connect the analysis of control documents with national research on the teacher's professional role and assignment.  The result shows that signs of the teacher's autonomy, discretion, self-control and expertise - characteristics of a profession - are not present in the steering documents, and instead the discourse of control used by the organization seems to have taken a clear place. With documentation requirements, grades based on standardized knowledge requirements and focus on goal attainment, the governing documents seem to limit and shrink the teacher's discretion, which leads to the assumption that the teacher demands greater responsibility, but is given less opportunity to act as a professional.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the period of antiquity is portrayed in the Swedish upper secondary school material in the course History 1bfrom a gender perspective, by examining digitalized study materials that claims to follow the specifiedcurriculum. The course curriculum for History 1bstates the importance of including female groups in the historic narrative, as well as that ideas of equality between sexes should permeate everything connected to teaching, among other things. The paper aims to analyse how gender is portrayed by examining the digitalized study material of DigilärHistoria 1 100 poäng, Nationalencyklopedin, NE, Historia 1 and Gleerups Möt historien 1b. The analysis was done using theories of gender from Yvonne Hirdman and Joann Scott to put historical power structures in relation to gender. The questions considered were (1)Which male and female characters are included and (2)how are they portrayed? (3)Lastly, how are social differences between them explained?The results showan overrepresentation of men. In the Gleerups material no specific female character was represented. NE’s material had 26 % and Digilär’s 20 % representation of women. The female characters are portrayed with stereotypical female characteristics such as their body, seduction and their ability to bear children. Female leaders are shown only to influence issues regarding equality and other women, whereas all mentioned men are portrayed as changing society especially as conquerors and warriors. Masculinity and femininity are portrayed as counterparts and men’s greatest weakness is any inability to control their wives and daughters. There are some exceptions that blurs the line such as Athene, Apollon and to some extent Cleopatra which are portrayed by showing characteristics associated with the other gender. The writers of the study materials are limited by the limited number of available historical sources and the picture they betray but only NE points out the problems with this. Neither Digilär nor Gleerups mention the skewed picture as a problem but Digilär shows to some extent how people in Greece legitimized the patriarchal structures.

Research has shown that poetry is a good tool to talk about and teach values. Skolverket has during the past 20 years stressed the importance of fundamental values through their documents and guidelines. In the Lgy 11 curriculum for English for Swedish upper secondary school, poetry is for the first time listed as a core content. Therefore this essay asks the critical question: Does teaching of poetry in English 6 textbooks live up to the fundamental values specified by Skolverket? In this essay two textbooks in English 6 have been studied along with literature on the topic. The essay uses a modified model presented by Gunnel Colnerud that differentiates the term fundamental values to be able answer the research question. The result shows that the two textbooks include poetry that talks about the fundamental values according to all the categories suggested in the model. The most frequent value in this study concerns students’ own opinions and their existential and religious questions.

This essay provides perspectives from four teachers with over eighty years combinedexperience on their choices of content of communications in English 7. The reason forconducting this study is that in English 7, which is the last English course in Swedish uppersecondaryschool, the teacher may face a diverse group of students with different programgoals, which may lead to different content needs. The aim of the study is to explore thisquestion, considering factors that affect choices in the course and what social domain it will besituated in.Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with four experienced teachers andanalyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study reveals that one strategy for solving theabove-mentioned problem is student influence, which, in short, means that the teacher lets thestudents pick content that matches the requirements in the content of communications. Otherfindings reveal that relationships with other teachers can affect the communication content incross-subject work, the teachers second subject and personal interests affect have differentamounts of influence, what method the teacher choose in course units and what part of thecurriculum the teachers consider a priority. This essay is useful for several purposes,policymakers will be able to see how teacher reason and practice particular parts of policydocuments, teachers will be able to ask themselves the same questions and reflect on whataffects their own teaching, and teaching students will be able to see how they can include theirpassion or knowledge into subject matter.

Based on a two month-long fieldwork in a Swedish upper secondary school, this thesis examines student attitudes and strives to increase the understanding of how they are formed, how students and teachers are positioned to the collective habitus, as well as how the students’ views of their attitudes relates to their practical expressions of them. The study is placed in a scientific debate regarding student resistance and conformity but shifts the focus from the implications they have to the motivations they are the result of. The analysis is grounded in research suggesting that the main factors for the formation of attitudes is the means to obtain what you desire as well as the freedom to choose that you desire. The conclusion settles around speculations to why the student attitudes look like they do, such as lack of symbolic capital or adoption of social roles given to them, as well as a need to fit in to the collective habitus or experiencing feelings of shame and hopelessness. It is also suggested that there is a disjuncture between the students’ narratives and practices of the attitudes and that the reason behind this might be feelings of shame and hopelessness created by not fitting in.

The aim of this study was to show whether there was a correlation between teachers’ opinions on the use of English in the EFL classroom and the students’ grades. The participants were four classes consisting of 75 students and four teachers from two Swedish upper secondary schools. A mixed-method was used consisting of two questionnaires and the students’ final grades from their English 5 course. The questionnaires were self-administrated and distributed via Google drive. Findings from this study indicate that there was no relationship between the teachers’ opinions and the students’ grades, but that Extramural English seems to affect the students’ grades. The extent of this has, however, not been established in this study. Further research within this area is needed.

With the rising societal awareness of inclusivity and accurate representation in films and other forms of media, it has become increasingly important that cultural and sexual diversity are not neglected in the material used in education, especially in English Language Teaching (ELT) where the chosen material is supposed to represent the whole English-speaking world. Previous research often focuses on the difference between national and international textbooks and compares the results between them. While some studies have focused on either cultural or sexual diversity, none have included both and there are not many studies that focus on Swedish ELT. Four textbooks were analysed in this study; Short Cuts to English 1 (2001), Streams 1 (2004), Pick & Mix 1 (2013), and Blueprint A (2017). Inclusivity and representation of cultural and sexual diversity were analysed using three models. Analytical methods focused on the aesthetic and sociological senses of culture, the circles of countries, and the levels of heteronormativity in the textbooks. Ourfindings show that there is a lack of inclusivity and representation of sexualities other than heterosexuality, and that even for culture there is a lack of inclusivity outside of English-speaking countries. Results indicate that the four textbooks used in this study did not display a high level of inclusivity regarding sexual diversity. Although still small, levels of inclusivity and representation of different cultures were greater.

Abstract.In Sweden today, a collaboration was formed between the Swedish Sport Confederation andthe Swedish upper secondary school education. While this process was taking place, theSwedish Sport Confederation also tried to collaborate with the Swedish Academy. However,at the time the Academy did not have any involvement with the former.The purpose of the study was to research when and how the Swedish Sport Confederationcreated a collaboration with the Swedish Education Systems both on a National and Locallevel. I have also done a research on both the Knowledge Society and Elite sport talents tofind out if Elite sport will be affected in any way because of the existence of Knowledge Society,and also the reactions of the sports talents if any. My final pursuit was also to find out ifthe Knowledge Society can bring about a quick change to this silent conflict between theSwedish Sport Confederation and the Swedish Academy.For my study, I have used two different theories. One of the first sociological theories, whichwere applied with sports, was the reflection theory, and I wonder whether this theory is stillapplicable in todays society. The other theory was the reproduction theory. This theoryoriginated from the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieus key concepts. I have decided to useBourdieus key concepts in my study for understanding the battles between the Swedish SportConfederation and the Swedish Academy.The result of my study shows that sport talents on the local level in Malmoe are in agreement,that it is important to pursue further studies to the academic level, which means that the reflectiontheory can be used in todays society. Malmoe is one of the fastest growing cities,concerning the Knowledge Society, and therefore its a perfect example to this theory.With regards to the sports battle in the academic field, one can see a similar pattern, which isprevalent in the Swedish Academy, is now being followed by the upper secondary schooleducation. Through projects and agreements, elite sport has managed to position themselvesin the academic field, however they are in the periphery of the field. Prestigious universities inSweden still do not want to be involved with elite sport.

The aim of this study was to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students’ attitudes toward English in school as well as to identify in what ways and to what extent they interact with English outside of school. An online questionnaire was used to collect data. The participants were three groups consisting of a total of 31 students at a school in northern Sweden. Findings from this study indicate that although the attitudes differ significantly within and between the different groups, the consensus was that English is a moderately difficult subject where they learn as much as or less than they learn outside of school. Additionally, all groups were shown to spend a lot of time engaging in a variety of different English activities outside of school, among which listening to music, using social media and watching different kinds of online visual media were the most prevalent.