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In this paper we will report some results from a project (funded by the Swedish Research Council) with an aim to develop knowledge of existing reading practices to better understand what kind of support students receive at school to develop reading skills. In this we lean on earlier research that stresses the importance of many hours of diverse reading practice to develop necessary reading skills to be an active part of a democratic society. Data were collected 2017 and relate to the findings of a similar study conducted in 2007. The main research questions addressed in this paper are:

To what extent do students in grade 6 and 9 read continuous text, nonfiction as well fiction, as part of their school work?What differences in the amount of reading between grade 6 and 9, among boys and girls respectively, can be detected?What can be noticed about changes in students´ reading at school during the last decade?

In the year 2017 data were collected by a questionnaire, distributed to schools with grade 6 and grade 9 in a mid-Swedish region, the same was done in 2007 for all students in grade 5 and 8 in one of Sweden’s largest municipalities.  Students were asked to estimate how many pages of continuous text, fiction and non-fiction, they had read in class during the day of the questionnaire. For the 2017 study we also asked about the amount of text read out of school as some kind of school assignment (e.g. homework). In total 1526 (2007) and 3289 (2017) answers remained after data cleaning.We found that reading at school has declined substantially the last decade (e.g. 22% had read less than one page/day in 2007, 30% in 2017). An even higher percentage of students don’t read any pages of continuous school texts in grade 9 compared to grade 6, and girls still read more than boys. We also found that the amount of text read as part of the students’ schoolwork out of school (2017) is lower than for text read at school. These patterns are the same for non-fiction as well as for fiction.  In the next part of the study we are taking a closer look at the actual reading practices in a selection of these classrooms trying to understand the results. There is also a need for more studies of the amount of text read at school.

Introduction: In the last decade, there seems to have been a boom in the marketing of popular history magazines in Sweden. At the turn of the millennium, there was only one such magazine; now more than ten can be found in news stands and stores. This raises many interesting questions, for instance, how history is presented to lay-people under commercial conditions, and what particular didactic means and strategies are used to make the content of the magazines appealing to the reader. There is no doubt that strategies used in these magazines seem to be successful to some extent, judging from the growing number of history magazines on the market and the numberof copies sold. 

The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the history magazine market in Sweden, with a closer look at the two biggest magazines that were the first on the Swedish market to have a content devoted entirely to history. Popular and typical historical subjects on the front cover will be examined in order to find out the kind of content that seems to be central and important for each magazine. The interpreted meaning will be analysed further by means of a comparison with the image presented by the magazines themselves. Hopefully this will facilitate an understanding of the selection of topics and design of the front covers and help us raise newquestions that can be analysed further in a future study.

De överväganden och förslag som redovisas i detta betänkande har tagits fram med utgångspunkt i en kunskapsbas. Kunskapsbasen består av dels översikter över aktuella forskningsresultat inom ett antal områden som har bäring på frågan om flexibel skolstart i grundskolan, dels några internationella utblickar. Vetenskapligt förankrade kunskapsöversikter har för utredningens räkning sammanställts av fyra forskare, nämligen professor Anders Arnqvist, Karlstads universitet, professor Sven Persson, Malmö högskola, fil dr Monika Vinterek, Umeå universitet och fil lic Helena Ackesjö, Linnéuniversitetet. Var och en har haft i uppdrag att inom respektive område redogöra för resultat inom svensk och internationell forskning från mitten av 1990-talet och senare. I uppdraget har ingått att uppmärksamma eventuella skillnader mellan olika elevgrupper samt effekter på både elevers kunskapsutveckling och sociala utveckling. I detta kapitel redovisas forskarnas egna sammanfattningar av forskningsöversikterna. Dessa återges i sin helhet i bilagorna 2–5. Av dem framgår också de frågeställningar och områden med bäring på flexibel skolstart som forskarna finner behov av att följa upp, utvärdera och beforska. Kunskapsbasen innehåller även en internationell utblick. I den återges hur barn på Nya Zeeland börjar skolan successivt på sin födelsedag och hur barn i England kan börja skolan vid fler tillfällen under läsåret. Lite mer utförligt redovisas dessutom diskussionen inför och införandet av rullande skolstart i Danmark och flexibel skolstart i Norge.

The aim of the study presented in this article is to explore the teaching of pupils in relation to their behaviour and attitudes in everyday work in the classroom. It is the educational objectives associated with democracy linked to the teacher’s teaching and fostering actions that are of main interest. The results are based on an analysis of data from 120 hours of classroom observations and contextualised interviews with a primary teacher during a period of one and a half years. Using data from audio recordings and notes taken from observations, I have analysed the pupils’ behaviour and attitudes in relation to educational objectives and the teacher’s teaching and fostering actions. A democracy stance and democracy signs are important concepts used in the study. My conclusion is that the way democracy is thought and lived in this classroom seems to hold great potential for promoting knowledge in and about democracy.

Kunskapsöversikten nedan rör fältet individualisering och åldersblandade klasser med aspekter som har bäring på utredningens uppdrag enligt kommittédirektiven 2009:98. Regeringen har gjort bedömningen att förutsättningarna för eleverna att nå målen förbättras genom att man ökar individanpassningen så att man utgår från varje elevs förutsättningar och behov. Forskning om individualisering kan ge information om möjligheten att realisera detta i kombination med flexibel skolstart. En av tankarna bakom flexibel skolstart sägs vara att barn mognar i olika takt och implicit att barn bör börja skolan vid en viss mognad. Detta behov av att börja skolan vid viss mognad är tänkt att mötas med möjligheten att starta skolan så nära den mognadspunkten som möjligt. Flexibel skolstart kan organiseras på olika sätt antingen vid helt fria tidpunkter under läsåret eller vid ett begränsat antal tillfällen, exempelvis vid vår och höst. Väljer man den helt fria modellen får det till följd att klasserena blir årskursblandade där elever hela tiden fyller på klassen successivt. Väljer man att ha fasta startpunkter under året kvarstår möjligheten att årskursindela klasserna. Som stöd för den ena eller andra organisationsinriktningen kan forskningsresultat som jämför effekter från att organisera klasser på olika sätt vara vägledande. Begreppen individualisering och åldersblandning kommer inledningsvis att problematiseras. Därefter presenteras svensk och internationell forskning kring individualisering och effekter av olika sätt att gruppera elever. Hur olika elevgrupper påverkas kommer även att beaktas.