"Om något jag gör frivilligt skulle bli till skolarbete skulle jag förmodligen sluta gilla det". Fyra svensklärares och deras elevers attityder till läsundervisning i förhållande till elevers fritidsläsning

Abstract

Throughout the last two centuries, the school’s relationship towards popular culture has varied. The school’s stance has differed from exclusion of popular culture to “vaccinate” against it and finally to include it in the teaching of reading. While reading in a school and in a non-school context have been proven to differ, not much have been researched about teachers’ thoughts and opinions about how to best relate students’ leisure reading to reading in school. According to the teachers, how should reading in school best relate to student’s leisure reading? In order to fill this gap, the aim of this mixed-methods study is to investigate the relation between school reading and students’ leisure reading. This is done by interviewing four teachers from a Swedish upper secondary school and by analysing 28 student questionnaires. The results show that the teaching of reading relates to students’ leisure reading in three ways: 1. As a contrast to students’ leisure reading. 2. As an integration of students’ leisure reading. 3. As a development of student’s leisure reading. This result is compared to the result of the student questionnaires which show that students have mixed feelings about integrating their leisure reading in a school context. Implications for education and further research are discussed.