Skrivundervisning i gymnasieskolan. Svenskämnets roll i den sociala reproduktionen.

Abstract

Abstract Title: Teaching writing in upper secondary school. The role of the Swedish subject in social reproduction. Author: Pernilla Andersson Varga Language: Swedish with an English summary ISBN: 978-91-7346-803-9 (tryckt) ISBN: 978-91-7346-804-6 (pdf) ISSN: 0436-1121 Keywords: writing repertoire, instruction, Bernstein, framing, horizontal and vertical discourse, teachers’ conceptions, vocational, social class The importance of developing a literacy characterized by the ability to analyse, reason and communicate, in order to it make possible to have an impact on society, is emphasized in international and national educational policy documents. This study explores the writing repertoires that are made available to upper secondary school students in the school subject of Swedish. The results reveal a differentiation between the teaching of writing to students on academic programmes and vocational programmes, even though the students study the same course, with the same goals to be attained, at the same school. Students on academic programs are given the opportunity to produce expository and argumentative texts moving in a vertical discourse, whereas texts produced by vocational students mainly move in a horizontal discourse, and typically involve reproducing facts. However, the study also provides an example of interruption of social reproduction – the vocational business and administration students are offered a strongly framed curriculum characterized by explicit instructions that meet the requirements of the syllabus and the final national test. It is evident that the teaching of writing is affected by the students’ social class and gender, and that the educational system itself produces inequality by having low expectations of the performance of vocational students, in particular that of working-class young men. The implications of the study are that there is a need to challenge school actors’ ideas about vocational students and a need for teachers to develop didactic tools to meet the demands of this category of students.