Denna studie har undersökt samhällskunskapslärares tolkning av och pedagogiska arbete med finansiell litteracitet. Resultaten indikerar en bristande förståelse för ämnet och osäkerhet kring dess integrering i undervisningen bland lärarna. Den didaktiska osäkerheten beskrivs av lärare som en följd av ämnets vaghet i kursplanerna för samhällskunskap och bristande didaktiska kunskaper om finansiell litteracitet. Dessutom uppstår meningsskiljaktigheter mellan grundskole- och gymnasielärare när det gäller undervisning i privatekonomi, vilket antyder att ämnet finansiell litteracitet inte är tydligt förankrat i den svenska utbildningskontexten. Undervisningen i ämnet utmanas även av elevers bristande ämneslitteracitet, heterogena förkunskaper inom ämnet ekonomi och ett svagt intresse för ekonomi.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how social studies teachers in Sweden’s upper secondary school view the democratic challenges we face today in Sweden, as well as how they integrate these into their teaching with connections to what appears in the curriculum. These challenges come in the form of antidemocratic values, threats to the democratic conversation and democratic exclusion. The study is based on a qualitative interview study. The material that forms the basis for the work is the social studies teachers in Sweden’s upper secondary school based in Southern Sweden and from the Swedish curriculum for the upper secondary school and the syllabus for social science. Human rights, gender equality and people’s equal value are some of the fundamental values that counter democratic challenges. On the other hand, the so-called democracy mission faces challenges, as the school has doubled missions. The results have then been analyzed through Robert Dahl’s democracy model. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the previous challenges to democracy still exist, while increasing at lower ages.

The aim of the study is to investigate social studies teachers’ idea of the importance of students’ agency for their future citizenship and how social studies teachers in upper secondary school assist students’ agency in their teaching. The methodologically the study is based on, is 6 interviews with social studies teachers of different ages and with different experience. The results show that the social studies teachers’ teaching have two main themes. The themes are to contribute to the students’ analysis of the world around them and assist the students’ future life as employees. Two theoretical starting points have been used to discuss the results, Ninni Wahlström’ capacity strategy and John Dewey’s communication theory. Social studies teacher’s teaching with a focus on students’agency means that the students should develop the future skills to set goals, reflect on their learning, to be able to make independent decisions, which leads to become competitive in the labor market with general competencies such as creativity, language skills and social competence. This results in that the students become competitive in the labor market where they have the capacity to become independent individuals with general skills such as creativity, language skills and social skills. The social studies teachers view that it is crucial for the students ’agency that they develop an analysis of the world around them, which means that the students can analyze current events such as the Ukraine war in 2022 and be able to discuss this with other people. The students can use this in their future citizenship. Social studies teachers encourage students’ agency in social studies by using project work in social studies for students to learn to solve problems in creative ways to solve real problems as future citizens. The social studies teachers encouragea linguistic ability through their social teaching that encourage students' agency. It means being able to reason, see connections and draw conclusions about current events. The social studies teachers believe that this encourages the students’ personal development and their future citizenship where the students have a self-esteem to succeed in projects in the future and to understand modern society. According to the social studies teachers, the students should socialize with other students through group exercises in teaching, which they believe gives the students expanded opportunities in life. The social studies teachers believe that dialog as a pedagogical method encourage the student’s democratic competence, which means that the students develop a thought structure about the democratic rules within a democratic society and it is also important for the students’ agency that they develop a democratic competence which means that the students are critical of the information in a global community so they know which information can be trusted. The pedagogical approach among the social studies teachers is that it should be a creative social environment where the students learn to think independently with the teacher as a supervisor in the classroom who does not impose knowledge on the students. The main pedagogical method to assist students’ future citizenship in social education is to use news in the social studies. Keywords: Social studies, Citizenship, Media, Language skills, Agency, Social competence, Creativity, Upper Secondary school

Abstrakt Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka och belysa vilka strategier som samhällskunskapslärare i årskurs 7-9 anser vara mest effektiva för att öka elevernas motivation och positiva inställning till lärande. Vår frågeställning: Hur arbetar samhällskunskapslärare för att öka elevers motivation? genomsyrar hela arbetet. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer där fem lärare från olika skolor har intervjuats.  Studien inleds med att ge perspektiv på elevers motivation där kopplingar till skolans styrdokument dras. Inledningen följs sedan av tidigare forskning som belyser perspektiv på elevers motivation i skolan, som ger en inblick i forskningsområdet. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna för arbetet är inre och yttre motivation, den didaktiska triangeln och relationskompetens. De här har bidragit med olika dimensioner för att tydliggöra och fördjupa resultatet. Resultatet kategoriseras i stor utsträckning utifrån de kategorier de teoretiska utgångspunkterna skapar: motivation, undervisningsstrategier och relationer. I resultat och diskussion framgår det att elevernas intresse för ämnet, tro på sin egen förmåga och relation till läraren är de stora påverkansfaktorerna på deras motivation.

Democracy is an ever so current topic, especially since we are facing a negative trend of decreasing voting participation in Sweden. This is, according to some, evidence of a democratic failure, while others are of the opinion that democracy is ever changing and that voting participation is not the only way of assessing the strength of a democracy. The younger generation is often at the center of the discussion of democracy, and are often seen as uninterested or even unconvinced of the point of democracy.  In this study I seek to understand how pupils in upper secondary school understand and construct democracy and citizenship, hoping that this will further my understanding of the purpose of the Swedish social science subject. To do this I have interviewed 16 students in three focus groups, focusing on how they as a group discuss and construct democracy and citizenship.  The interviews have been analyzed by three different theoretical points of views. Firstly I have used Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne’s (2004) work along with Erik Amnå’s (2008) study about democracy and different types of citizenship. I then focused on social interaction and how language can be used to transfer power and responsibility, mainly using James A. Holstein and Gale Miller’s (2013) study. Lastly this is put in the context of social science, using Gert Biesta (2020) to understand the split mission of education and social science specifically.  Pupils understand democracy and citizenship in different ways, but have a mutual understanding of what the ”right answer” to the question of what democracy is. This is something they probably have been socialized into knowing from their years in school. As the title of this study insinuates, pupils are inclined to transfer the power of change to politicians or adults when discussing the topic more freely, which also transfers the responsibility of society from themselves and makes them passive. This is something the students seem to think is fair, due to their lack of knowledge in politics. This in turn makes it clear that the pupils' expressed needs concerning social science education is focused on deeper factual knowledge, which might be a part of what social science should be but makes the task of allowing students to be active citizens invisible.

Denna studie belyser kunskapsområdet sexualitet, samtycke och relationer genom tematisk analys och kvalitativa intervjuer med elever från högstadiet. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur elever på högstadiet har upplevt sin undervisning i sexualitet, samtycke och relationer inom samhällskunskapen efter att den nya läroplanen trädde kraft 2022. Studien genomfördes med nio semistrukturerade intervjuer på en skola i Stockholm. Den insamlade datan har transkriberats för att sedan tolkas utifrån studiens metodansats, tematisk analys. Det empiriska materialet har sedan analyserats och kategoriserats i fyra huvudteman: undervisningsstruktur, undervisningsinnehåll och riktlinjer, andra informationskällor och förbättringar i undervisningen. Resultatet visade att flera elever uppfattar undervisning av sexualitet, samtycke och relationer som helt utebliven eller bristfällig i samhällskunskap och beskriver att en förbättring vore önskvärt. Utsagorna från resultatet är av samhällskunskapsdidaktisk relevans eftersom att de bidrar till ny kunskap över hur eleverna uppfattar kunskapsområdet. Från studiens resultat och tidigare forskning kan man se att det är viktigt att läraren är kompetent i ämnet och att undervisningen tillämpas och konstrueras på ett bra sätt, för att eleverna ska tycka att undervisningen är relevant och utöka sitt intresse kring området. Resultaten från denna studie kan hjälpa framtida samhällskunskapslärare att veta vilka brister som finns i undervisningen i sexualitet, samtycke och relationer från elevernas perspektiv.

Time and space is not regulated in the Swedish curriculum. In regard to that freedom, the aim of this study is to examine the choices teacher make when teaching social studies in primary school. The study proceed from the following questions: Which are the didactic tools, in special regard to how the tables are organized, how the time is used and other material resources? Which impact will the didactic tools have on the social relations in the classroom? Which effect does the two questions above have on the constitution of social studies as a school subject? The study is based on a qualitative method including both observations and interviews. The theoretical frame is the one of multimodal design. The results show that teachers’ choices are both conscious and unconscious. Their choices also impact on the social relations in the class and the pupils possibilities to participate. The pupils do not have as much freedom in time and space to express themselves as the teachers do. A fact teachers doesn’t seem to reflect. In what way teachers’ choices have an impact on the constitution of social studies is harder to show.

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of language development in social studies. Questions that will try to be answered are: How do teachers in social studies regarding grades 4-6 account for pupils’ language development in planning, teaching and grading? What difficulties do teachers experience while working with language development? What kind of support do teachers feel that they need in order to work effectively with language development? Research has showed that language is our primary tool for learning in all subjects. A language developing education is contextual, contains scaffolding and a lot of opportunities for interaction. Teachers have an important role to play in creating context that benefits pupils’ knowledge, linguistic and personal development. Earlier studies have showed that many teachers lack competence in how to work with language and knowledge development. This study concludes that teachers take into account pupils’ prior knowledge and that they understand the importance of working with different methods based on interaction and scaffolding to develop their pupils’ subject and linguistic capability. The main difficulty that teachers reported was the difficulty in adapting the education to the pupils’ different abilities. They also acknowledged the development of the specialized school language with its abstract words as a difficulty. Teachers reported that the best support in this process was collegial learning, internal education and language development models/tools.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie som syftar till att undersöka hur mellanstadielärare, verksamma inom ämnet samhällskunskap, resonerar kring kunskapsområdet samhällsfrågor och mer specifikt elevnära samhällsfrågor. Vidare undersöks lärares uppfattningar av undervisning i elevnärasamhällsfrågor och hur det arbetet kan kopplas till skolans demokratifostransuppdrag. För att undersöka detta har semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med sju verksamma lärare för att få en förståelse för deras tankar, upplevelser samt erfarenheter kring undervisning i elevnära samhällsfrågor. Studiens resultat visade bland annat att lärarna aktivt arbetar med elevnära samhällsfrågor och att de anser att det är en viktig del av samhällskunskaps-undervisningen. Resultatet antyder också att lärarna tolkar begreppet elevnära med ett bredare perspektiv än geografiskt. Lärarna delade uppfattningen av att eleverna behöver ha kunskap om samhället för att kunna verka i det. Vidare hade de föreställningen att samtal samt diskussioner är betydelsefulla och att de som lärare behöver skapa lärandemiljöer där eleverna lär sig att se olika perspektiv och får uttrycka sina åsikter. Lärarna såg få utmaningar med samhällsfrågor men att det då är upp till lärarna att göra det greppbart för eleverna. De belyser också att intresse och delaktighet vid undervisning med elevnära samhällsfrågor har betydelse för elevernas bildning till demokratiska samhällsmedborgare. / This essay is a qualitative study that aims to report how teachers active in middle school reasons about the subject civics with social issues and also pupil-related social issues. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate the purpose with teaching pupil-related social issues and if this study can be connected to the democratic task of nurturing citizens that teachers have. In order to do this, seven teachers have been interviewed in semi-structured interviews to get their thoughts and experiences on teaching pupils-related social issues. The results of the study showed, among other things, that the teachers are actively working with pupil-related social issues and that it is an important part of social science studies. The result also indicated that the teachers views the pupil-related perspective broader than only geographical. The teachers shared the opinion that the pupils need to have knowledge of society in order to be able to live in it. Additionally, the teachers held the notion that conversations and discussions are important and that the teachers need to create learning environments where the pupils learn to see different perspectives and also are able to express their opinions. The teachers in the study saw few challenges with teaching social issues but that it is up to the teachers to make it understandable for the pupils. They also demonstrate that interest and participation in pupils-related social issues are significant for the pupils´ formation into democratic citizens.

Denna studies huvudsakliga syfte har varit att analysera hur kvinnor representeras i läromedel i ämnet samhällskunskap. En särskild serie läromedlen har utgjort studiens material för att undersökningen även ska behandla ett perspektiv över tid. Den metod som använts är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys, där totalt fyra läromedel utgivna under en period som sträcker sig från år 1995 till 2017. Den tidigare forskningen har bland annat utgjorts av läromedelsgranskningar i förhållande till genus genomförda utav Skolverket och DEJA, Delegationen för jämställdhet i skolan. Studiens resultat har sedan analyserats och diskuterats, där genusteori varit den valda teoretiska utgångspunkten. Trots ett ökat innehåll av diskussioner om jämställdhet över tid, visar studien även hur de granskade läromedlen fortsättningsvis har innehåll som utgörs av stereotypa föreställningar och en kvinnlig underordning gentemot män.