Developing students’ ability to think critically is an important goal of Swedish upper secondary school education. The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse critical thinking at the classroom level from a didactic perspective. Using participant observation and interviews, two groups of students and their two course teachers are being studied during two months. The groups study philosophy and social studies respectively. The thesis explores in what way critical thinking is manifested in the classroom and how the teachers view critical thinking in relation to their teaching. Didactic decisions and challenges are identified and discussed. The findings show that critical thinking is manifested in the classroom dialogue. Focus, relevance and precision are distinctive qualities of critical discussions. The teachers use different strategies to scaffold critical thinking, such as developing what the students say, questioning assumptions and supporting with distinctions. Some of the challenges facing the teachers are finding ways of assisting students to be independent in their thinking, disputing what they say without being perceived as biased and creating the right atmosphere in the group allowing for critical thinking to take place. It’s concluded that critical thinking at the classroom level is a highly complex phenomenon that involves more than just thinking skills which is the dominant view among researchers in the field.

The purpose of this essay is to study how the Swedish school’s democratic mission is expressed within three different curriculas from the Swedish upper secondary school aswell as what expectations the democratic mission put on the teachers. The study’s central purpose is centered around the following questions: "How is the school’s democratic mission expressed in Lgy70, Lpf94 and Lgy11?", "What kind of similarities and differences are there in the democratic mission between Lgy70, Lpf94 and Lgy11?" and "What expectations are put on the teacher from the democratic mission in Lgy70, Lpf94 and Lgy11?". The essay uses qualitative text analysis as it’s method and curriculum theory and the traditional didactic questions as theories to answer the study’s purpose and questions. In conclusion the study identifies a change in the curriculas content, from a focus on the nation and communities to democratic rights and obligations, it also presents the complexity of the democratic mission.

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.

Källkritiken tycks vara ett svårorienterat undervisningsinnehåll för historielärare på gymnasiet enligt resultatet av denna uppsats. Syftet var att ta reda på hur lärare reflekterar kring källkritik som undervisningsinnehåll och genom intervjuer med sju lärare har många insikter kommit till ytan. Intervjuerna visar bland annat att lärarna tycker att det är svårt att rymma källkritiken i ett pressat tidsschema och att läroplanens mål är svåra att uppnå. En prioriteringsordning där historiskt stoff ställs före källkritiken syns i många av lärarnas redogörelser och eleverna har enligt flertalet lärare svårt att applicera källkritik och uppnå höga betyg i kunskapskravet. En anledning till deras svårigheter tycks enligt vissa lärare vara deras bristande historiska förkunskaper, och intresset verkar också vara av betydelse. Många lärare efterfrågar tips på bättre uppgifter för att komma åt dessa problem och tycker att det är svårt att formulera givande uppgifter på egen hand.

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.

Läsåret 2019/2020 ställde svenska gymnasieskolor om till distansundervisning under perioden 18 mars-15 juni. Syftet med denna studie var att belysa hur lärarna uppfattade sin undervisning när undervisningen förändrades från klassrumsundervisning till distansundervisning. Lärarnas uppfattning av sin undervisning undersöktes kvalitativt med utgångspunkt i ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och med analysverktyget Paradigm grid for online learning. Intervjuer med fyra matematiklärare som vid studiens genomförande arbetade på gymnasieskolor i Mellansverige har redovisats. Intervjuresultaten visade att och hur lärarna upplevde att undervisningen hade påverkats. Aktivitet och samspel mellan lärare och elev samt elever emellan hade minskat under perioden för distansundervisning. Vidare framgick i ett paradigm gridperspektiv att lärarens undervisning förändrades vid övergången till distansundervisning. Undersökningen visade att undervisning och lärande blev mer lärarstyrt, exempelvis genom det sätt som uppgifter utformades och hanterades, vilket i en avslutande diskussion har problematiserats. / During the school year 2019/2020, Swedish upper secondary schools switched to distance education from 18 March-15 June. The purpose of this study was to shed light on how teachers perceived their teaching when the teaching changed from classroom instruction to distance education. The teachers' perception of their teaching was examined qualitatively based on a socio-cultural perspective and with the analysis tool Paradigm grid for online learning. Interviews with four mathematics teachers who at the time of the study worked at upper secondary schools in central Sweden have been presented. The interview results demonstrated that the teachers experienced that the teaching had been affected and how it had been affected. Activity and interaction between teachers and students, as well as between students, have decreased during the period for distance education. Moreover, the paradigm grid perspective illustrated that the role of the teacher changed during the period of distance education. The study showed that teaching and learning became more teacher-controlled, such as how tasks were designed and handled, which has been problematized in the concluding discussion.

This study explores the possible relationship between extramural English (EE) and students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in the EFL classroom in the Swedish upper secondary school. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, and the data was collected through a questionnaire and interviews. The results of the study suggest that EE usage positively affects students’ language proficiency and their self-perceptions of their English ability, which in turn is beneficial for their WTC in all contexts inside the classroom. The results also show that the students who spend the most time in EE contexts reported higher levels of WTC than the non-frequent users of EE. Productive EE activities were also found to be more beneficial for raising students’ WTC than receptive activities. The connection between EE and WTC is, however, not absolute since a minority of the students reported a high frequency of EE but low WTC, which indicates that several other factors might also be influencing upper secondary school students' WTC.

Reading English literature can help learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to develop their reading ability as well as other language skills. Reading can also have other benefits for EFL students such as learning about the target language’s culture or learn about an English variety in written form. This present study investigates what types of literature are used in Swedish upper secondary school, the EFL teachers’ attitudes towards short stories compared to simplified novels/graded readers and their preferred assessment methods associated with literature teaching. The majority of the teachers that took part in this survey have a positive attitude towards short stories and use them in their EFL classes. The results also show that after the students have completed reading a short story, most of the teachers that participated in this survey preferred to combine examination methods such as a group discussion with a written test. The title of this paper comes from one of the informants’ comments when asked if she would rather use a short story or a graded reader in her English class. This informant had used graded readers in her English language classroom, but she and everyone that took part in this survey chose short stories over graded readers.

In the past decades, Sweden’s asylum policy known for its humanitarianism has taken a significant turn toward restrictiveness. In 2016 a temporary law was introduced in Sweden to restrict asylum seekers in reaction to the refugee crisis 2015. The group that has been hit hard by this law is the unaccompanied young refugees. In 2018 another temporary law referred to as the Upper Secondary School Act was enforced to allow certain unaccompanied young refugees to complete their upper secondary education studies. Those young refugees who received temporary resident permits may only extend his or her resident permit if he or she finds a permanent employment within six months after graduation from the second upper school. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of how the Upper Secondary School Act affects the lives of those young refugees, and how those young people orientate themselves in their everyday lives to live up to the law’s requirement. The study’s data has been gathered through a qualitative research method and six interviews are conducted with six young refugees affected by the Upper Secondary School Act. The study’s theoretical approach is based on orientation/disorientation, deserving, SOC(a sense of  Coherence) and human capital theory. The study shows that the Upper secondary school Act has led to negative consequences for those unaccompanied young refugees due to the law’s difficult requirement. It causes stress, mental problems and disorientation for the young refugees. The study also shows that the young refugees worked very hard to navigate the uncertainty in their lives, to fulfil the law’s requirement and claim for belonging in Sweden.  The study concludes that the political context shapes the lives of young refugees.

The aim of the study is to examine how the labour market is depicted in course booksfor Sweden's upper secondary social studies courses, by comparing textbook contentfor different educational tracks. The case study is based on qualitative text analysiscombined with some quantitative elements. It investigates themes, language andassignments as well as the extent and depth of depictions of the labour market. Thetheoretical lens used draws on Basil Bernstein's concept of knowledge organisation;the distinction between vertical and horizontal knowledge structures.Although the results show some similarities between the tracks, the findings point todifferences in expectations placed on students in different tracks in terms of languageproficiency, cognitive load and their expected societal roles. The study aligns withprevious research within the field suggesting that tracking contributes to sustainingsocial divisions. / <p>21-01-20</p>