Reading and learning from civics textbooks: exploring challenges and opportunities from students’ and teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

Textbooks in civics are one of the main sources of knowledge and a primary instructional tool for teaching civics in Swedish compulsory schools. Given the importance of civics texts for students’ knowledge construction and their development into active and informed citizens in a democracy, developing reading abilities is key, particularly considering the dense, abstract, and discipline-specific nature of civics texts. L2 students, with diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds, represent over 26% of the student population in Swedish compulsory schools. Despite this, research on L2 students’ difficulties in relation to reading and understanding civics textbook texts is limited. Moreover, in studies focusing on L2 students’ civics learning, teachers’ perspectives often dominate over those of the students. This thesis aims to explore possible sources of difficulties that L2 students encounter in comprehending Grade 9 civics textbook texts, focusing on the students’ perspectives. It also investigates resources that L2 students and their civics teachers perceive as useful for enhancing comprehension of civics texts.

To closely study the complexities of challenges with civics texts, a four-field model has been constructed and serves as the theoretical framework and analytical tool with which the data in each of the four studies in the thesis are analyzed. This model illustrates four key components and their interplay with each other. These are: a) literacy abilities, b) disciplinary literacy abilities, c) prior knowledge, and d) content-area knowledge. The four studies collectively explore L2 students’ civics learning from various perspectives. The first study is a thematic literature review, examining how components a–d interact in teachers’ descriptions across the ten reviewed studies. The second study employs think-aloud sessions with eighteen L2 students to understand their perceptions of challenges and opportunities with civics texts. In the third study, individual semi-structured interviews with the L2 students’ civics teachers are conducted. In the fourth study, data from think-aloud sessions are revisited, focusing on L2 students’ use of prior knowledge when engaging with civics texts.