ABSTRACT This licentiate thesis is a study of the curriculum of the school subject Swedish from a socio-cultural perspective. The aim of the study is to obtain insights into how pupils in the seventh grade of the Swedish secondary school system read films, and further to investigate how the education in Swedish can manage and make the most of various approaches to film. The survey was conducted in a class which I teach myself, and the empirical data consists primarily of oral and written statements by the pupils, concerning the films they have seen. Furthermore the social context around the reception of the films has been mapped. As part of the empirical data there is also a record of a discussion in the classroom concerning filmmaking. With the reception model of Kathleen McCormick as a point of departure, the filmic repertoires of the pupils are analyzed, described and interpreted as they stand out within the framework of the study. The general repertoires of the pupils are also dealt with to some extent. The representations and non-representations of the readings are further discussed in a social semiotic perspective. The research shows that the pupils bring rich experiences of fiction from television as well as film to school. The research also indicates that there is a potential for specific learning processes in the reading of film, since the reception of film entails a possibility to widen the general and filmic repertoires as well as to be conscious of them. The most important potential for learning is in the meeting with films that create a tension between the general repertoires of the reader and the film itself, since the film in those cases stands for something hitherto unknown for the reader. The pupils in my survey do not, however, primarily watch film in order to obtain new experiences, or to learn something; they watch film as a means to feel and share experiences with others in order to strengthen their sense of belonging to a group. One exception appears to be films that the pupils interpret as based on reality, since there is a tendency among the pupils to be more openminded for clashes between their own repertoires and the repertoires in films when it comes to fiction anchored in reality. The true challenge of the teaching is to attract the pupils to develop conscious relationships to films that imply a tension between repertoires. The reasons for these tensions have furthermore to be investigated. When it comes to films based on reality, the study makes it clear that the population of pupils represents a diverse set of attitudes towards the films; some pupils read the films as pure facts, while others read them in a more reflective way, comparing the mediated images of reality in the actual films with other types of experiences. The teaching of Swedish with the intention to take care of the reception of film among school children must be conducted in an awareness of the fact that not all pupils are representing their readings in a way that makes it possible to create meeting places around them within the educational framework. In my view, the education in Swedish for the secondary school must in a more active way open up for the possibility for the pupils to acquire strategies for a conscious handling of their film readings, as well as access to a language by which they can make their representations. The fact that not all pupils are aware of how film can mediate constructions of reality makes it important to take care of the children’s readings in such a way that makes them aware of the semiotic resources of the cinematic medium. This is one reason why one should allow them make their own films. It is also important to use a diversity of semiotic resources when pupils are representing their readings in order to underline the plurality of interpretations and filmic repertoires. Finally, I discuss the results of my research in relation to the new curriculum of Swedish education as it is presented in the syllabus “Lgr 11” which will take effect as from the autumn semester of 2011. In my analysis I find that the space for work of the kind I have conducted in the classroom will be diminished due to the new curriculum. There are, however, still possibilities and a learning potential for a teaching in Swedish that in an active way will take care of film experiences, as well as other kinds of textual experiences.