The Swedish school system is based on basic, democratic values. A fairly new addition to the value system is that the education should provide attention to equal rights between men and women. A way of doing this can be to use fiction in the Swedish language classroom. It can allow students to reflect on other’s living conditions and develop their critical thinking. But fiction has an uncertain future in the language classroom. Studies show that working specifically with the value system is often not prioritized by teachers. Instead, the education focuses on qualities that can be measured. This kind of priority makes fiction lose its potential to provide an opportunity for students to have meaningful conversations about human society. The aim for the study is to explore the didactic potential of the gothic literature, a genre know for its hidden critique towards society. Two gothic short stories from the 1800s are analyzed based on how the characters engage with each other regarding gender power and gender relations. This is conducted through a two part analysis. The first part is a close reading of the short stories based on a gender perspective and the other from a sociohistorical perspective. The analysis show that the characters from both stories uphold gender norms from when the stories were written. The stories’ potential is that they encourage discussions about the interaction between fiction and the living conditions during the 1800s. To further explore the didactic potential of the gothic literature, studies should be conducted where either the students’ experiences of the literature is examined or swedish teachers viewon the gothic literature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-226115 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Sundin, Hanna |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för tillämpad utbildningsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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