Concept-laden and important

– six teachers’ didactic reflections about reading in civics in grades 5 and 8

Abstract

This article investigates teachers’ didactic reflections through thematic analyses of semi-structured interviews. The participants are six teachers in grades 5 and 8 in Swedish school, who in their teaching take as starting point three different ways of working with texts and reading: Reading to Learn, Läslyftet (a Swedish government intervention), or no specific model. The aim is to reach a deeper knowledge of teachers’ didactic reflections regarding disciplinary literacy in civics, focusing on reading, as well as if, and in that case how, their didactic reflections relate to their teaching. Foci in the study are: What purposes of education are foregrounded in the teachers’ didactic reflections focusing on reading in civics? What aspects of disciplinary literacy focusing on reading stand out in the didactic reflections? What aspects of disciplinary literacy focusing on concepts stand out in the didactic reflections? How do the teachers’ didactic reflections about disciplinary literacy focusing on concepts relate to their teaching of concepts in the introductory lesson? Theoretically, the study is aligned with the research field of Disciplinary Literacy (Fang & Coatoam, 2013). The results show that all teachers foreground the purpose qualification, while socialisation and subjectification stand out in different ways among the teachers (cf Biesta, 2015). Further, the results show that the teachers reflect about methods and support regarding students’ disciplinary literacy, students’ varying abilities in relation to disciplinary literacy, and the specific texts, language and use of texts in civics. The teachers also point to the function and complexity of concepts in civics, as well as concept-developing teaching methods. The study shows that more varied ways of teaching are expressed by and appear in the teaching of the teachers that work with the methods more clearly geared towards supporting reading offered by Reading to Learn and Läslyftet.