Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka några svensklärares inställning till populärlitteratur, både generellt sett och i undervisningen. Uppsatsförfattarna strävar efter att belysa inställningen till aktuella populärlitterära böcker som läses av ungdomar. Hur förhåller sig lärarna till denna typ av litteratur? Är det något de använder i sin undervisning? Den teoretiska bakgrunden för uppsatsen utgörs av forskning om föreställningar om hög och låg litteratur men också en problematisering av själva begreppet populärlitteratur. Andra aspekter som tas upp är vad som skrivs om litteratur-undervisning i skolans styrdokument samt hur populärlitteraturen har behandlats traditionellt sett inom skolan. Metoden för undersökningen är kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomförs med fem verksamma lärare. Två av dessa arbetar inom gymnasieskolan medan de andra tre arbetar inom grundskolans år 6-9. Lärarna strävar mot att få eleverna att läsa överhuvudtaget, men i synnerhet mot att läsa en viss sorts högre litteratur. Detta förhållningssätt påminner om trappstegsmodellen – en tanke om att eleverna ska gå från seriealbum via ungdomsbok till klassiker. Lärarna ser framför allt populärlitteraturen som en möjlig ingång till vidare läsning. Uppsatsen påvisar en fortgående tradition, hos de intervjuade lärarna, att relatera litteratur mot en abstraktion av högt och lågt och därmed förmedla en tradition av läsning av högre litteratur. Uppsatsförfattarna framhåller att det inte finns stöd för detta tankesätt i dagens ämnesplaner.

I approach the subject of adult readers of young adult fiction through an analytical framework influenced by Cultural Studies, implicating that young adult fiction is caught up in a system of distinction between popular literature and high literature. I contrast this with theories that suggest that there has been a loosening of this hierarchy and that they now coexist, even borrowing features from one another. I also examine questions of ideology, namely the ideology of mass culture, the ironical attitude and the ideology of populism. I also use Andreas Huyssen’s theory of mass culture as a woman, seeing as popular literature often tends to be categorized with feminine traits. The empirical data is gathered through interviews and blogs, and the result gives us a complex image, where we can see both a quite strict hierarchy between high and low, as well as a loosening of this hierarchy. The informants all use the ideology of mass culture and the ideology of populism, which shows that seemingly opposing ideologies can coexist within the same individual. The informants also impose the characterization of young adult fiction as a woman, and many of them try to raise its low status. The result also shows that a discourse of age is working, a discourse that limits what is appropriate for an adult to read, and within this discourse there is little room for young adult fiction. But the main conclusion however is that the hierarchical system at least is beginning to lose its firm hold, which gives the individual greater potential to combine high and low.

This master thesis deals with the Nobel Prize and highbrow culture as portrayed in Karin Alvtegen’s Skugga. From a sociology of literature perspective, it aims to analyze how these highbrow themes can be understood in relation to Alvtegen’s position in the literary field as a lowbrow crime novelist. The method used is hermeneutic, and the analysis is based on two theoretical models: Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural sociology, and the postmodern tradition where the distinction high/low and its traditional hierarchy is said to be decomposed. The analysis shows how Alvtegen gets inscribed in a detective genre she doesn’t really fit into, which is of great importance for our understanding and reading of Skugga. In relation to the history of the detective genre, this essay explains how Alvtegen uses both the whodunit’s integrating of highbrow symbols, as well as the social critique frequently used in more recent crime fiction. The conclusions drawn are that Alvtegen’s use of highbrow symbols illustrates the literary field, while they also discuss her own position on the very same field – text and context here operates closely intertwined. The highbrow theme in Skugga functions as both a dissociation from as well as a rapprochement to highbrow culture, while it also criticizes a contemporary commercialized culture. The Nobel Prize here plays a significant role, as it has become a highbrow symbol known to everybody. Skugga illustrates that intertextual markers in our contemporary post-modern culture is transformed in both directions in the cultural hierarchy – which doesn’t mean that it has vanished.