När man skriver för barn kan begreppet barnperspektiv vara användbart. I detta kapitel undersöks hur begreppen barnperspektiv, barns perspektiv samt barnets perspektiv kan användas när man skriver texter som vänder sig till barn och unga och hur man kan använda sig av gestaltning för att uppnå ett barnperspektiv och skriva inifrån de barn man skildrar. Att tänka kring begreppen kan hjälpa författaren i skrivprocessen att få syn på det man vill gestalta. Det är viktigt att tänka igenom vad man lägger in i begreppet barnperspektiv och hur man förhåller sig till detta begrepp samt hur man kan använda sig av det för att man ska kunna välja att gestalta ur ett barnperspektiv om berättelsen kräver det. Det kan också vara intressant att låta sig inspireras av hur andra författare har tänkt kring och använt barnperspektivet för att stärka gestaltningen och därför är det viktigt att läsa barnlitteratur med detta i minnet. Barnperspektiv används inte bara inom litteraturvetenskapen och därför görs också en utblick mot angränsande forskningsfält för att vidare belysa hur man kan tänka kring och inspireras av begreppet.

The aim of the proposed paper is to increase the knowledge on fiction in use. A combination of reader reception studies (cf. Fish, 1980) and discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992), which I would like to call discursive reception studies (Eriksson & Aronsson, 2009): that is, a discursive-psychological analysis of reader-reception data is used in the paper. Such approach provides possibilities to analyse the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the experience of a film or a play (or the reading of a book). Drawing on detailed analyses of video-recorded pair or group conversations before, during and after the viewing of a stage play or a film, empirically-driven research questions will be addressed: f ex How is fiction used to create ourselves and position each other, to be seen as smart or well-informed, as being part of the cultural elite or as not high-brow? How is talk about fiction used to quarrel, flirt, tie bonds of friendship et cetera? To analyse talk about fiction as interaction makes it possible to understand the potential of action in interpretation of fiction contains, the participants in a conversation around a play or a film do not only report their reading of the piece, they also use their interpretation in social interaction. Hereby, it becomes possible to analyse how readings of fictive stories are created in social interaction and how they are used for different purposes. Hence, the knowledge on fictive characters becomes more dynamic.

Data from conversations after seeing Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliette and films as One Day, Jane Eyre, Real Steel and Arrietty the Borrower is analysed in the paper.

Några månader efter att jag själv blivit förd över Parnassen – krönt av en lagerkrans och med ett vackert diplom i handen – fick jag uppdraget att arbeta som biträdande handledare. Som ett led i min egen kompetensutveckling på detta område deltog jag i en kurs om Forskarhandledning (CUL, Linköpings universitet). Föreliggande essä tillkom under kursen.

I texten behandlas hur min egen erfarenhetskunskap som doktorand blir en del av min ”handledningsfilosofi”. De samtal jag haft med kollegor som jag träffade under min doktorandtid, en konferens om forskarhandledning som jag deltagit i, de diskussioner som fördes vid kurstillfällena och den litteratur jag läste under kursens gång reste en rad frågor som jag i det följande kommer att resonera kring: I vilken grad kan jag grunda mitt eget handlande på min egen erfarenhet? Och hur omsätter jag erfarenheten i praktiken? På vilka sätt skiljer sig min doktorands situation från min egen? Vilka implikationer får det för handledningen?

Jag utgår från min egen erfarenhet och försöker ur den belysa generella fenomen, därmed kan man säga att jag använder mig av en autoetnografisk metod (cf. Hayano, 1979).

Förhoppningsvis kan essän vara av intresse för andra juniora forskare som nyligen börjat handleda. De variabler som kommer att behandlas är Intresse för doktorandens forskning, Ledning och planering, Tid och tillgänglighet samt Uppmuntran och stöd. Texten kring varje variabel startar i min egna ganska färska erfarenhet av att ha ingått i doktorandkollegiet och därefter reflekterar jag över variabeln i relation till min roll som handledare.

I essän utforskas ”den goda handledningen”. Vikten av att utnyttja sina egna erfarenheter av att ha varit doktorand betonas, liksom vikten av att komma ihåg att doktorandens situation inte är identisk med ens egen. Ledord för god handledning är ödmjukhet, tydlighet och öppenhet. I praktiken innebär det att lyssna, att föreslå men inte påtvinga, att ingjuta mod men granska kritiskt och att vara ”chef” i betydelsen arbetsledare. Handledaren ska uppmuntra doktoranden att artikulera sina förväntningar så man kan diskutera dem. Handledaren ska också se till att preliminära arbets- och tidsplaner upprättas.

I handledningen bör ingå att förmedla hur man hanterar den kritiska miljön inom universitetet och att inte bygga upp hela sin identitet kring forskaridentiteten.

The Swedish educational system states that work in schools should depict and mediate equality. One way of achieving this is through fiction, which according to the syllabus provides students with knowledge about the living conditions of women and men during different epochs and places. The present paper examines gender in a Swedish school, analysing ‘book club’ discussions, using a discursive approach. The data consist of video-recorded teacher-led booktalk sessions, involving small groups of pupils in grades 4_7. It was found that the teachers and/or the pupils invoked gender issues in all book club sessions. The fictive events were, at times, discussed in gender-stereotyped ways. Yet, the teachers and pupils also transcended gender stereotypes in several cases. In many of those cases, there was a generational pattern, in that the participants tended to apply less stereotyped thinking when talking about fictive characters of their own age.

Hur kan skolan hjälpa barn att bli bokslukare?Boksamtalets dilemman och möjligheter handlar om litteraturläsning och boksamtal i skolan. I boken beskriver författaren hur boksamtal mellan lärare och elever kan gå till, och analyserar vad som händer i samtalen. Författaren ger också sin syn på nyttan och dilemman med boksamtal. I boken presenteras åtta böcker som användes på en skola för att locka elever att läsa. Författaren beskriver hur eleverna och lärarna tillsammans skapar olika läsaridentiteter i samtalen. Hon visar också hur genusfrågor och frågor om ”de andra”, som inte är som ”oss”, synliggörs i samtalen samt hur eleverna relaterar texterna till sina egna liv.Avslutningsvis ger författaren några didaktiska perspektiv på boksamtal, vad lärare bör hålla i minnet när de organiserar samtalen och hur de kan stödja elevernas lärande. Boken vänder sig till studenter som utbildar sig till lärare, bibliotekarier och litteraturvetare samt till redan yrkesverksamma lärare och barnbibliotekarier.

I boken presenteras åtta böcker som användes på en skola för att locka elever att läsa. Författaren beskriver hur eleverna och lärarna tillsammans skapar olika läsaridentiteter i samtalen. Hon visar också hur genusfrågor och frågor om ”de andra”, som inte är som ”oss”, synliggörs i samtalen samt hur eleverna relaterar texterna till sina egna liv.Avslutningsvis ger författaren några didaktiska perspektiv på boksamtal, vad lärare bör hålla i minnet när de organiserar samtalen och hur de kan stödja elevernas lärande.Boken vänder sig till studenter som utbildar sig till lärare, bibliotekarier och litteraturvetare samt till redan yrkesverksamma lärare och barnbibliotekarier.

The syllabus for mother tongue teaching in Sweden states that an essential goal is that pupils, in conversation with others, should be able to express feelings and thoughts evoked by literature. The present paper addresses how schools try to promote pupils' reading, examining authentic school-run booktalk conversations from a discursive approach. The data consists of video-recorded sessions with small groups of pupils in Grades 4-7. A series of booktalk dilemmas were identified. The so-called book clubs studied were aimed at promoting reading for pleasure. Yet, literary practices were, at times, transformed into calculating tasks, vocabulary lessons or reading aloud exercises. Another complication concerned the synchronising of the pupils' reading, which led to extensive negotiations on the part of teacher and pupils.

The syllabus for mother tongue teaching in Sweden states that an essential goal is that pupils, in conversation with others, should be able to express feelings and thoughts evoked by literature. The present paper addresses how schools try to promote pupils’ reading, examining authentic school-run booktalk conversations from a discursive approach. The data consists of video-recorded sessions with small groups of pupils in Grades 4–7. A series of booktalk dilemmas were identified. The studied so-called book clubs were aimed at promoting reading for pleasure. Yet, literary practices were, at times, transformed into (i) calculating tasks, (ii) vocabulary lessons, or, (iii) reading aloud exercises. Another complication concerned the synchronising of the pupils’ reading that led to extensive negotiations on the part of teacher and pupils.

The study of mainstream consumers of fiction is still limited, as is research of naturalistic reading situations. In this paper I argue that a combination of reception theory and discursive psychology – discursive reception research – can be a fruitful method for empirical literary studies. Reception theory gains both a way to adequately analyze conversations about literature (and other aesthetic products), and the opportunity to study how the reception is done and how literature is used, while discursive psychology, in turn, gains the opportunity to »dementalize« a practice that has previously been surrounded by a strict cognitivist paradigm. Literature and other aesthetic products such as film and theater often deal with existential questions. In this way, conversation data on aesthetic reception provides a greater breadth of such content than does other natural conversation data. I argue that discursive psychology provides systematic tools and concepts for analyzing talk that can be useful for literary scholars who mostly deal with fiction. In addition, discourse analysis of conversation transcripts resembles the analysis of literary texts, making talk seem less alien to analyze for those who are accustomed to studying written text. The analytical tools used in discursive psychology thus provide literary scholars with adequate help for the analysis of conversations. The advantage of using discursive psychology and discourse analysis when researching reception is that a detailed analysis of the interaction reveals how participants create a shared reading of literature (Fish 1998). In much of the previous reception research, the researcher has only considered the respondent’s answer and not how the answer, or the reading, emerges in the conversation. In some examples, I show how an interactional focus on booktalk enables us to highlight children’s voices as part of a common social practice, for example in a discussion about withdrawing when one is feeling sad. I also show how the booktalk participants refer to traditional gender positions in a conversation about the characters in a book. I show how a teacher presents his own hypothesis about people from other parts of the world in booktalk. My hope is to add another dimension and in this way highlight the importance of teachers taking careful consideration when they use fiction – books as well as film – in an attempt to create contrasting images to undemocratic conditions, as the Swedish school curriculum requires. In addition to the experiences conveyed in the conversations, I also show examples of how people in conversation about literature – can position themselves as, e.g., a booklover, a guy or as enlightened. This type of analysis also gives insights into how booktalk reception is done. Detailed analyses of conversations about books provide opportunities to study the connection between fiction and life. In this way, our knowledge of literature in practice increases, allowing us to address questions such as: How is literature used to create ourselves and position others, to portray us as good or well-read, as belonging to the cultural elite or as not being a snob? How can discussions about literature be used to quarrel, flirt, make friendships, etc.? How are the concepts ›reader‹ and ›non-reader‹ construed in young people’s identity work?

Här ger arton forskare som alla varit doktorander till professor Karin Aronsson sin beskrivning av olika former av vardagliga fenomen. Det handlar om hur människor i olika sammanhang samspelar och skapar mening. Gemensamt för de författare som bidrar i boken är att de är eller har varit doktorander vid Institutionen Barn och tema Kommunikation, vid Linköpings universitet. Sedan mitten av 1980-talet har institutionen erbjudit en dynamisk forskningsmiljö för personer med intresse för samtal, kulturella uttryck och socialt liv i och utanför institutionella sammanhang.

Drawing on a one-year-long ethnographic reader-response study of a book club activity in a Swedish school, the present article offers a narratological analysis of books used in the book club, as well as some didactical implications for practice. The analysis of the books shows a preponderance of male protagonists, foreign settings, and first-person and omniscient narrators. The books used were characterized by classic folktale plots. A majority of the books were about animals and adventures. And, many of them dealt with existential themes. When it comes to leading book clubs, the author suggests keeping in mind that struggling readers might be the greatest book lovers, and that stereotypical texts can be used to counteract stereotypes. Interpretations of what is “real” emerge in the book club were shown to be potential starting points for discussions on the conditions of fiction. To avoid ideological dilemmas, it is important to make clear what the aim of a book club is.

Thepaper is based on an interdisciplinary empirical research project on theuse of fiction. Reader response/reception theories and discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992) are combined in theproject. The approach, called discursive reception studies (Eriksson Barajas& Aronsson, 2009), provides possibilities to analyse the role of socialinteraction in the co-construction of the experience of, in this case, a filmor a play. Thepaper deals with methodological issues: i) how to get access to ‘naturally’occurring practices around fiction – when people went to cafés after seeing afilm together and in the pause at the theatre; ii) how to record data in suchpractices; iii) how to use data collection methods and analysis methods adaptedto the type of data collected. One advantage with the used method for datacollection is that I have come across “dream participants” – that is correctmatch between participants and film content.

Det finns en rad kartläggningar av vilka skolor som använt skolfilm. Det finns också anvisningar för hur skolorna bör arbeta med skolbio. Men det saknas forskning om hur skolbiofilmerna faktiskt används ute på skolorna. En grupp forskare vid Linköpings universitet har just börjat undersöka det.

The Swedish educational system states that work in schools should depict and mediate equality. One way of achieving this is through fiction, which according to the syllabus provides students with knowledge about the living conditions of women and men during different epochs and places. An arena for unveiling gendered power patterns is heterosexual love relations. School may fear that feature films transmit gender stereotypes and unrealistic romantic images of heterosexual love. However, researchers such as Radway (1984) and Walkerdine (1990, 2007) stress the importance of not only studying the text itself (be it a book, a film or a video game), but also the use and the reception of it, in the analysis of fiction as a meaning-making artefact. The present paper examines pupils- constructions of heterosexual love analysing the use of film as an educational tool, from a discursive approach. The data consist of pupil-produced film manuscript and essays and video-recordings of pupils- group conversations, after watching one of the film About a Boy during school hours in Year 9 and 10. The pupils discussed the protagonists whereabouts- putting leading a calm fulfilling life alone (-an island-) against a meaningful life together with a partner and children - necessarily your own biological ones - (-a family- or an -archipelago-). The present paper contributes new empirical knowledge about how young people are -doing gender- (West and Zimmerman 1987) in a natural setting - an educational context - that celebrates equality values.

This study examines booktalk, that is, teacher-led group discussions about books for children in a Swedish school. The empirical data comprise 24 hours of videorecorded booktalk in grades 4–7. In total, 40 children (aged 10–14 years) were recorded during 24 sessions. The present approach diverges from previous readerresponse studies in that it draws on authentic data, and in that it examines talk at a micro level, applying an approach from discursive psychology. By focusing on authentic book discussions, the study contributes to the development of readerresponse methods.

All eight books applied in the booktalk sessions involved some type of  existential issue: freedom, separation, loyalty, and mortal danger (Chapter 4). Yet, such issues were rarely discussed. An important task of the present thesis was to understand why such issues did not materialise, that is, what did not take place. In Chapter 5, a series of booktalk dilemmas were identified. The booktalk sessions were generally lively and informal. Yet, booktalk as such was often transformed into other local educational projects; e.g. time scheduling, vocabulary lessons or reading aloud exercises.

Gender was invoked in all booktalk sessions (Chapter 6). In line with predictions from reader-response theory, progressive texts were, at times, discussed in gender stereotypical ways. The findings also revealed a generational pattern in that the pupils discussed fictive children in less traditional ways than adult characters.

The interface between texts and life was invoked in all booktalk sessions (Chapter 7). There was, again, a generational pattern in that children entertained ideas other than those of their teachers concerning legitimate topics in a school context. Also, the discussions revealed a problem of balance between pupils’ privacy, on the one hand, and engaging discussions on texts and life, on the other.

In her article "Methodological Reflections on Investigating the Reception of Fiction in Public Spaces" Katarina Eriksson Barajas discusses how to find and approach research participants in public spaces. Eriksson Barajas's study is based on tenets of the empirical study of literature. Reader response and reception theories and discursive psychology are both employed in the analysis. This approach, called discursive reception studies, enables researchers to analyze the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the experience of, in this case, a film or a play. Eriksson Barajas discusses the following methodological issues: 1) how to gain access to "naturally" occurring practices such as when people meet to talk at cafés after seeing a film together and during the intermissions at the theater and 2) how to record data on such practices. The results of Eriksson Barajas's study show that gaining access to participants in cinema settings is difficult, but not impossible.

The overarching aim of the present paper is to suggest a new way of looking at fiction in use. Genette argues that the duration of an oral narrative is measurable, in contrast to the duration of a written narrative, which is determined by its performance (1988: 33-34). The duration of a written narrative must be converted into length of text, then into duration of reading in order to compare the duration of the narrative with the duration of reading. The present paper deals with yet another temporal relation: that between actual film or play duration and experienced duration, and how this relation is used in conversation. The paper provides insights into how cinema- and theatregoers use pace as a value measure. Hume asks how the speeded up pace of contemporary fiction "affect[s] audiences and their attitudes towards the text" (2005: 105). The paper examines variations in what slow and fast can mean when used to express a view on a cinema experience in a multiparty conversation. Baetens and Hume (2006) describe how a book can be judged as too fast or too slow paced. In the present study, a combination of reader-reception studies (cf. Fish, 1998) and discursive psychology (Edwards and Potter, 1992) is used as the point of departure. This approach has been called discursive reception studies (Eriksson Barajas and Aronsson, 2009), which entails a discursive-psychological analysis of reader-reception data. Such an approach provides opportunities to analyse the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the experience of watching a film or a play.

The overarching aim of the paper is to contribute knowledge on fiction in use. The paper deals with the temporal relations between fictional duration and experienced duration (cf. Genette, 1988). More specifically, the paper gives insight in how cinema- and theatregoers use pace as a value measure. The analysed empirical material consists of recordings of naturally-occurring conversations in theatre pauses and at cafés after seeing a movie. In the study, discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992) is used on reader-reception data. This  approach is called discursive reception studies (Eriksson Barajas & Aronsson, 2009). Such approach provides possibilities to analyse the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the “reading” of a fictional oeuvre. An initial result is that cinema- and theatregoers orient towards emotions, temporalities and narrative pace. Examples of how a long film can be experienced as having had a short duration and vice versa will be presented.

Written by an international roster of more than 300 authors, the Encyclopedia comprehensively documents and interprets the books read by children throughout the world. With a global perspective that pays attention to significant international trends and the multicultural expansion of the field, it includes brief biographies of every major author and illustrator. Also included are feature essays on all genres of children's literature, individual works, and prominent trends and themes, as well as general essays on the traditions of children's literature in many countries throughout the world

The present paper concerns the use of film for eliciting discussions of fundamental values in an upper secondary school setting. In this case, Lilya 4-ever, a feature film about sex trafficking, is used. The present paper contributes some empirical knowledge about how young people are “doing gender” in a natural setting—an educational context—that celebrates equality values. The examples from a group discussion between pupils reveal a balance between performing the school task, discussing the questions on the sheet the teacher provided, and working on their private identities, which here includes social interplay that among teenagers could involve rejecting an academic identity. The analysis concerns how pupils use discourses drawn from a film in that balancing act. The paper explores how discourses on sex are used to gain power in conversation, to challenge male sexuality, and to reject victimization.

 The present paper concerns the use of film, in the current case Lilya 4-ever (Moodysson, 2002) ,in education in upper secondary school in Sweden. Theoretically, the paper departs from discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992). To analytically include the discursive interaction in the film, I-m drawing on Billig-s (1997) work to add the use of psychoanalysis to analyse conversations about film and the film itself, like Walkerdine (1997). Hence, the viewer position becomes as important as the discussions. The data was collected in two Swedish towns, in six classrooms in grades 1-3, i.e. pupils aged 15-19 years. Overall, the pupils- discussions of the film were sensible and serious (Sparrman, 2006). However, in one class, I found a group that at a first glance just fooled around. It interested me firstly since it was quite rare in the data corpus, secondly since it offended me that they could behave, what I considered insensitive, after seeing a movie about such a serious problem, namely trafficking of young women their own age. A closer look at the extract show that the pupils in the group are balancing between doing the school task, i.e. discuss the questions on the sheet the teacher provided, and working on their private identities, i.e. the social play, that among teenagers involves refusing a swat identity (Benwell & Stokoe, 2002, 2004; Stokoe, 2000). Specifically the use of sexualised positioning in that balancing act interested me. The aim of the present paper is to examine gender and sexuality through what can and what can not be said in the group discussions and through how the pupils take up certain subject positions. This is partly displayed via the participant-s orientation towards the recording device (Speer & Hutchby, 2003).

Den kände barnlitteraturforskaren Perry Nodelman erkänner i en artikel om att undervisa lärarstuden-ter att han blivit kallad intellektuell snobb i en utvärdering, han tillstår dessutom att studenten faktiskt har rätt: ”I AM an intellectual snob” (Nodelman, 1986: 203). Hans snobbighet består i att han ”belie-ve[s] that people who use their intellects to develop a deeper awareness of the world are better off than people who do not”; hur uppmuntrar, eller utmanar, man då studenter att tänja sina intellektuella gränser? Att lära?

Om lärande i linje med Ramsden (1992: 39f) ska ses som en förändring, hur vill jag då att mina studenter ska ha förändrats efter genomgången kurs i barn- och ungdomslitteratur? Jag vill till exem-pel att de ska har förändrat sin syn på barnlitteraturfattare som enbart mysiga sagotanter och –farbröder som ”bara hittar på” sina berättelser. Denna essä handlar om hur jag som lärare kan skapa de bästa förutsättningarna för denna förändring. Jag utgår från en befintlig kurs och kommer att reso-nera kring möjliga omdaningar av den. Kursen heter Barn- och ungdomslitteratur och ges på Lärar-programmet, Linköpings universitet, inom ramen för Svenskinriktningen. Kursen är på 5 poäng och ingår i ett block som kallas Litteratur och skola. Alla studenter som ska bli lärare i svenska går kursen samtidigt, oavsett vilka åldersgrupper de ska undervisa. I föreliggande essä utgår jag delvis från de ut-värderingar studenterna lämnat in under de senaste två läsåren då jag varit kursansvarig.

Delkursens syfte enligt gällande kursplan lyder så här:

Kursen syftar till att den studerande aktivt skall förvärva och utveckla:

– förmåga att utifrån barn- och ungdomslitteratur samt viss övrig skönlitteratur läsa, tolka och estetiskt värdera litterära texter och samband med detta diskutera litterära normers och värderingars förhållande till litteraturvetenskapliga metoder och synsätt

– ett ämnesdidaktiskt synsätt med sikte på den egna yrkesrollen genom verksamhetsförlagda studier (Kursplan Svenska för lärare - Litteratur och skola, 10 poäng, : 1)

In the present paper, we argue for a combination of reader reception studies and discursive psychology that we would like to call discursive reception studies: that is, discursive-psychological analyses of reader reception data. Such approaches provide possibilities to analyse the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the reading of a given book (or talk on a film or other reader reception data).

Drawing on detailed analyses of video-recorded teacher-led booktalk sessions in grades 4­7, pupils’ self presentations and other types of co-construed categorizations of readers are examined and discussed in relation to the pupils’ and teachers’ co-construction of two contrasting categories of reader positions: avid readers (bokslukare; literally, book-devourers), on the one hand, and struggling readers, on the other.

These categorizations in turn involve two different sets of continua in terms of the participants’ (pupils’) spontaneous positionings: one based on motivation (willing versus unwilling readers) and one based on reading speed (fast versus slow readers). Both sets of contrasting categories involve implicit local hierarchies, yet these two continua do not necessarily overlap. An important finding is that the position of a fast reader does not imply the position of a book-lover.

Through detailed examinations of the participants’ co-construed local hierarchies in booktalk, this study documents ways in which discursive reception studies may contribute to a deeper understanding of reading as a situated social practice. Our findings have implications for teacher training, with respect to the promotion of literary reading among children.

In the present paper, we argue for a combination of reader reception studies and discursive psychology that we would like to call discursive reception studies: that is, discursive-psychological analyses of reader reception data. Such approaches provide possibilities to analyse the role of social interaction in the co-construction of the reading of a given book (or talk on a film or other reader reception data).

Drawing on detailed analyses of video-recorded teacher-led booktalk sessions in grades 4­7, pupils’ self presentations and other types of co-construed categorizations of readers are examined and discussed in relation to the pupils’ and teachers’ co-construction of two contrasting categories of reader positions: avid readers (bokslukare; literally, book-devourers), on the one hand, and struggling readers, on the other.

These categorizations in turn involve two different sets of continua in terms of the participants’ (pupils’) spontaneous positionings: one based on motivation (willing versus unwilling readers) and one based on reading speed (fast versus slow readers). Both sets of contrasting categories involve implicit local hierarchies, yet these two continua do not necessarily overlap. An important finding is that the position of a fast reader does not imply the position of a book-lover.

Through detailed examinations of the participants’ co-construed local hierarchies in booktalk, this study documents ways in which discursive reception studies may contribute to a deeper understanding of reading as a situated social practice. Our findings have implications for teacher training, with respect to the promotion of literary reading among children.

In criticism of children’s literature, notions of ‘fantasy’ and ‘realism’ are pivotal. In school ‘booktalk’ conversations, pupils referred to what is ‘real’ in three different ways: (i) by referring to feelings or semblance of ‘real’ life, (ii) by invoking shared facts, and (iii) by making references to personal experiences. In cases when teachers or pupils initiated so-called text-to-life or real-world connections, two types of dilemmas occurred. First, engagement was at times bought at the cost of quite literal reader responses. At other times, engagement was accomplished at the price of intrusiveness. There was thus, a delicate balance between life-world references, on the one hand, and literal readings or intrusion, on the other. Moreover, students sometimes resisted life-world probing, but volunteered privileged information about their parents, displaying different notions from teachers about legitimate information in a school context.

The present paper addresses how ‘Otherness’ is co-construed in booktalk in a Swedish school. The data consist of video-recorded teacher led booktalk sessions, involving small groups of pupils in grades 4–7. Seven of the eight books discussed were – at least partly – set in settings foreign to the present pupils. We found that a basic teacher device for constructing the ‘Other’, was to implicitly or explicitly compare a group of others to the participant children themselves, ‘us Swedish children’, accomplishing ‘Otherness’ by foregrounding differences, setting up a series of implicit or explicit contrasts between ‘them’ and ‘us’ (cf. Dickerson, 2001; Sampson, 1993). Such contrasts concerned: literacy and language skills (Extracts 1–2), ways of ‘sticking together’ (Extracts 3–4), as well as contrasts in terms of the distribution of material educational resources and work demands on children (Extracts 5–8). Moreover, the last extracts also illustrate how pupils co-construct the teachers’ implicit or explicit underlying moral agendas.

Den ökande kunskapstillväxten ställer krav på att dagens lärare ska kunna hantera nya forskningsrön och kritiskt värdera fakta. Systematiska litteraturstudier i utbildningsvetenskap tar upp hur man söker, analyserar och värderar information om forskningsrön samt hur man beskriver och presenterar resultatet. Med hjälp av systematiska litteraturstudier kan resultat från flera vetenskapliga studier vägas samman så att ny, evidensbaserad kunskap fås inom ett område. Boken riktar sig till studerande på lärarutbildningen och är utmärkt i samband med uppsatsskrivande.

The “justified” bully. Conceptions of bullying drawn from school cinema activities. The present paper addresses how bullying is co-constructed among teenagers in a Swedish school. The ethnographic data consist of pupilproduced film manuscripts, essays and video recordings of pupils’ group conversations, made after they had watched one of the films Evil or About a Boy during school hours in Years 8 and 9 of compulsory education (age group 14–15). The films and the follow-up work were presented by the teachers as being about bullying. The use of fiction as an educational tool was shown to free the pupils from possible real-life experiences of bullying in the discussions. Being perceived as different was seen as a reason for being bullied; however, the pupils admitted that the “real” reason would be not liking someone’s personality, i.e. because they had too much self-esteem or were scared. The bully was discussed as either being “evil”, i.e. wanting to exercise power, or “justified”, i.e. claiming rights. Both the evil and the justified bully were seen as products of circumstances, rather than as responsible for their actions.