”Självet – Texten – Världen: Subversiv litteraturundervisning för transformativt lärande” är en sammanläggningsavhandling bestående av fyra studier genomförda i (direkt anslutning till) gymnasieskolans litteraturundervisning. Genom fokusgruppssamtal med lärare och skolbibliotekarier och klassrumsstudier i kursen Svenska 3 utforskas hur litteraturens och läsningens transformativa potentialer kan förverkligas i undervisning som bygger på läsloggar och begrepp avsedda att synliggöra både det lästa verkets inneboende egenskaper och vad som händer i läsningen.

Transformativt lärande innebär omförhandling av invanda, ofta outtalade, föreställningar och litteraturundervisning som är subversiv visar alternativ i och till instrumentellt präglad utbildning. Genom att prioritera verk från olika delar av världen kan förståelse byggd på flera sinsemellan motstridiga perspektiv bidra till att det transformativa lärandet både breddas och fördjupas på sätt som stärker såväl enskild omdömesgillhet som gemensam bildning i rörelse. Avhandlingen erbjuder praktiknära perspektiv på gymnasieskolans litteraturundervisning och framhåller det litteraturdidaktiska forskningsfältet som en möjlig arena för prefigurativa alternativ till pedagogisk strömlinjeformning.

This thesis focuses on subversive literature teaching and learning in Swedish Upper Secondary School. That is, rather than directing education towards easily assessed, measured, and ticked off criteria, the thesis explores how reflective judgement and Bildung can be brought to the forefront of education through literature teaching which encourages the experience and use of multiple perspectives. Such teaching aims at initiating and maintaining learning processes which sensitize students to their own presumptions, and, by extension, challenge and transform their views of themselves, literature, and the world.

Methodologically, the four studies of the thesis adhere to the umbrella term participatory research (PR). PR sets out to include the experience and views of research participants – teachers, librarians, and students – as valuable resources to all parts of the research process. Also, PR seeks to make the research relevant to the participants, who are seen as subjects rather than objects of knowledge, and their practice area. In three out of four studies, focus group sessions with teachers and school librarians have been either part of preparing classroom interventions, or the main research method. The classroom interventions have been conducted as part of the students’ regular coursework to create realistic research conditions. These interventions focus on the use of reading journals and other written reflection fora, subject specific terminology, and frames of reference. The studies target: 1) students’ readings of Let the Right One In (Ajvide Lindqvist, 2004); 2) teachers’ experiences of initiating and being part of a local reading promotion project; 3) students’ readings of curriculum excerpts and two short stories by Gao (“The Cobbler and His Daughter”, 1983) and Salih (“A Handful of Dates”, 1966) respectively; and 4) students’ readings of Season of Migration to the North (Salih, 1966).

The focus group transcripts and journal-/reflection-outcomes have been thematically analyzed in a back-and-forth process between collecting and reading data, writing the research outputs, and returning to data, inspired by the method presented and amended by Braun and Clarke (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Braun et al., 2019). Aligning with the key aspect of PR to contribute to the field of practice, reports back to participants have been given both during and after the writing and publishing processes. In addition, an autoethnographic lens has been applied in retrospect, to bring further transparency to the relationship between the researcher and the participants, and to ethical considerations.

The major findings of the studies show that students and teachers experience that transformative learning can be strengthened using subject specific terminology, which focuses on both the works read and students’ reading processes. By using reading journals and subject specific terminology, students can gain knowledge about themselves (as readers), literature, and the world. Moreover, the results show that orchestrating literature teaching and learning situations, which promote reflective judgement as part of collective and progressive Bildung, does not have to be complicated, if the works read and taught offer both recognition and outlooks on the world, as well as prepare for estrangement effects through their literary structures. However, such subversive literature teaching needs to manage student antagonism or listlessness caused by a sense of futility towards education which is not instrumentally connected to short-term assessment and grading. The thesis displays a possible way to counter such reluctance by treating it as a reading mode amongst others and encouraging students to explore it as such throughout their reading processes.

In conclusion, this thesis makes clear that literature itself – with all its diversions and detours from the route to instant meritocratic rewards – must be put in a pivotal position in the classroom, since it carries both the potentials and limits for what is possible to achieve. Even though there is institutional support in the curriculum for teaching aimed at multiple perspectives which open for transformative learning, it is necessary to orient literature teaching and research towards development of practices to fully implement these aims. Precisely because explorative and transformative literature teaching and learning does not fit with hegemonic school efficiency practices, it can lead the subversive way to reflective judgement and collective Bildung.