Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 2020
Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' cha... more Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.
Den svenska lararutbildningen – en arena for politik eller en utbildning for en skola pa vetenska... more Den svenska lararutbildningen – en arena for politik eller en utbildning for en skola pa vetenskaplig grund?
Lasformagan hos elever i den svenska grundskolan ar langt under vad den var 20 ar sedan, samtidig... more Lasformagan hos elever i den svenska grundskolan ar langt under vad den var 20 ar sedan, samtidigt som fritidslasandet fortsatter att minska. Skolan har darfor ett viktigt kompensatoriskt uppdrag d ...
Enligt Hogskolelagen ska all utbildning vid svenska larosaten vila pa vetenskaplig grund och bepr... more Enligt Hogskolelagen ska all utbildning vid svenska larosaten vila pa vetenskaplig grund och beprovad erfarenhet. Sedan 2010 stipulerar Skollagen att samma sak galler for den verksamhet som bedrivs ...
This paper reports on some preliminary results from the project “To read or not to read: A study ... more This paper reports on some preliminary results from the project “To read or not to read: A study of reading practices in compulsory school” funded by the Swedish Research Council. The aim of the pr ...
Lasforstaelsen bland svenska grundskoleelever har enligt internationella kunskapsmatningar gradvi... more Lasforstaelsen bland svenska grundskoleelever har enligt internationella kunskapsmatningar gradvis sjunkit sedan millennieskiftet. Trots en liten uppgang i 2015 ars PISA-undersokning ligger resulta ...
This article looks at how cultural and national subject positions are constructed and negotiated ... more This article looks at how cultural and national subject positions are constructed and negotiated in Frank McCourt’s award-winning memoir Angela’s Ashes (1996). The memoir has enjoyed tremendous commercial and critical success, especially in America, where it not only won two of the most prestigious literary prizes in the category of autobiography, but also managed to stay on the New York Times bestseller list for more two years, and three years after its first publication it had sold over two million copies in the US alone. However, critical voices were also raised against the memoir, especially from Irish readers who resented the way in which the expatriate McCourt commercializes their past misery.The memoir thus clearly has the power either to make the reader feel secure and confident in his or her own cultural identity, or to cause him or her to react very strongly to the identity positions that it constructs. But which are these subject positions that are constructed and negotiated in the memoir? Where, how, and by whom are they constructed? This article will show how the memoir is built around a number of binary oppositions between what is constructed as “Irish” and “American” subject positions. Whereas the “Irish” position is characterized by religious intolerance, social determinism, selfish pride and personal guilt, the “American” position is characterized by religious pluralism, social mobility, communal solidarity and personal fulfilment. Other binary oppositions that the memoir constructs between the “Irish” and the “American” positions are wet vs. dry, cold vs. warm, tradition vs. popular culture, past suffering vs. future opportunities, sexual inhibition vs. sexual freedom, narrowness vs. openness, authority vs. liberty, failure vs. success, and so on.The construction of these opposite subject positions will be analysed by looking at the different “truth regimes” that the protagonist is exposed to during his childhood and adolescence. Drawing on Foucault’s claim that a subject can only recognize itself, and others, within a specific regime of truth, the article will show how McCourt’s memoir operates on two narrative levels simultaneously. At the story level the protagonist has to abandon his “Irish” subject positions in order to recognize himself as an “American”. At the discourse level it is the reader who has to make the same identification with the “American” position and to accept the “American” regime of truth as constructed by McCourt the author in order to appreciate the memoir. The analysis will be further guided by Judith Butler’s claim that “telling the truth about oneself comes at a price, and the price of that telling is the suspension of a critical relation to the truth regime in which one lives” (Giving an Account of Oneself pp. 121-122). The article will thus argue that the enormous success that the memoir has enjoyed in the United States is, to a large extent, dependent on its uncritical acceptance of an “American” regime of truth.
Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature, 2013
PUBLISHED SIXTEEN YEARS after the end of the Vietnam War, Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer-winni... more PUBLISHED SIXTEEN YEARS after the end of the Vietnam War, Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer-winning short-story cycle A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (1992) is an imaginative attempt by a EuroAmerican writer to come to terms with the consequences of the armed conflict for the many thousands of Vietnamese refugees who emigrated to, and settled in, the USA during and after the conflict. The stories dramatize the internal and external conflicts that the predominantly Vietnamese-American protagonists experience owing to their cultural and national relocation as firstgeneration immigrants, or due to their cultural and ethnic hybridity as secondgeneration immigrants. This essay aims to show how both the form and central theme of the volume can be understood not only as a negotiation between American and Vietnamese identities, but also as going beyond the compulsion to identify self and other along national and ethnic lines. It will argue that Butler's text transcends national and ethnic determinations by imagining a transcultural subjectivity, according to which characters can enjoy something close to mutual understanding. As will be shown, this transcultural transcendence takes place on different levels in the text: on the level of the characters, on the level of the narrators, and on the level of the author. Thus, the text itself can be seen as an example of transculturality in the sense that the author crosses cultural boundaries in order to imagine and narrate his stories from a Vietnamese-American perspective.1By using the genre of the short-story cycle, Butler also stresses the volume's affinities with other cycles dealing with similar themes of ethnic and national border-crossings in contemporary American fiction.2 However, as I will argue, his stories not only depict characters who manage to cross these borders in order to construct new hybrid identities; they can also be seen as questioning the very idea of fixed identity-formations based on nationalism and ethnicity. In other words, the concept of transcultural subjectivity can be understood as going beyond, or transcending, the idea of subjectivity constructed along cultural, ethnic, and national lines. Butler allows his narrators and characters the agency to transcend fixed subject-positions by imagining, and identifying with, a cultural "other."3 In this way, the author shifts his focus from the otherwise so dominant theme of individualism and selfexploration in American fiction to what I will argue can be described, drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, as a kind of "humanism of the other human being."4 Whereas most American fiction dealing with the Vietnam War tends to explore its effects on the American individual, as well as internal conflicts caused by a growing incredulity toward the grand American narrative of freedom and democracy,5 Butler's stories constantly focus on the "other."In my analysis of what I see as the main theme and ethical message in Butler's short-story cycle, I will apply some of Levinas's ideas, primarily those articulated in his response to the poststructuralist and anti-humanist critique of subjectivity in Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. My reading of Levinas is also influenced by Simon Critchley's post-deconstructive understanding of Levinas's humanist ideas in the light of contemporary critical theory. I aim to show that Butler's narrators and characters are at odds with their own culturally given identity, and that, instead, they identify with the "other" as a human being, rather than as an ethnocultural subject. Although they remain subjected as 'Vietnamese' or 'American' on an epistemological level, they manage to transcend this subjection on the ontological level; that is, these national and ethnic determinations cease to define their 'being'. They show a sensibility and proximity to the "other," which can be explained by the Levinasian concept of substitution, whereby the subject's ethical subjectivity is characterized by a corporeal obligation to the "other. …
The article addresses the didactic questions of what, why and how aspects of culture and history ... more The article addresses the didactic questions of what, why and how aspects of culture and history can be-and should be, it is argued-an integral part of all foreign and second language teaching and learning. In particular, it is argued that the study of literary fiction within tertiary foreign language education can function as a gateway for students to develop not only a stronger interest in and knowledge of cultural history, but also a better understanding of the complexity of historical representation, public memory and self-identity. Drawing on current theories of narrative discourse and historical representation, as well as the experience of having taught a foreign language course in Sweden dealing with fictional representations of culturally important periods in US history, the paper shows how a personal engagement with these "little narratives," to use Lyotard's term, can enhance foreign language students' understanding of, not only important historical events and periods in the shaping of contemporary American culture, but also of the importance of textual representation and cultural "grand narratives" in the shaping of collective identities and personal subjectivities.
This is a study of the American writer Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going Aft... more This is a study of the American writer Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato, and The Things They Carried. Unlike previous O'Brien scholarship, which is either historical-bi ...
Litteraturstudier i granszonen : Internationella studenter laser ”Samtida amerikanska berattare” ... more Litteraturstudier i granszonen : Internationella studenter laser ”Samtida amerikanska berattare” vid Hogskolan Dalarna
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 2020
Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' cha... more Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students' changing leisure-time reading habits, knowledge of how much students read at school is still limited. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle (Grades 4-6) and lower secondary (Grades 7-9) school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. More students in middle school compared to lower secondary still read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.
Den svenska lararutbildningen – en arena for politik eller en utbildning for en skola pa vetenska... more Den svenska lararutbildningen – en arena for politik eller en utbildning for en skola pa vetenskaplig grund?
Lasformagan hos elever i den svenska grundskolan ar langt under vad den var 20 ar sedan, samtidig... more Lasformagan hos elever i den svenska grundskolan ar langt under vad den var 20 ar sedan, samtidigt som fritidslasandet fortsatter att minska. Skolan har darfor ett viktigt kompensatoriskt uppdrag d ...
Enligt Hogskolelagen ska all utbildning vid svenska larosaten vila pa vetenskaplig grund och bepr... more Enligt Hogskolelagen ska all utbildning vid svenska larosaten vila pa vetenskaplig grund och beprovad erfarenhet. Sedan 2010 stipulerar Skollagen att samma sak galler for den verksamhet som bedrivs ...
This paper reports on some preliminary results from the project “To read or not to read: A study ... more This paper reports on some preliminary results from the project “To read or not to read: A study of reading practices in compulsory school” funded by the Swedish Research Council. The aim of the pr ...
Lasforstaelsen bland svenska grundskoleelever har enligt internationella kunskapsmatningar gradvi... more Lasforstaelsen bland svenska grundskoleelever har enligt internationella kunskapsmatningar gradvis sjunkit sedan millennieskiftet. Trots en liten uppgang i 2015 ars PISA-undersokning ligger resulta ...
This article looks at how cultural and national subject positions are constructed and negotiated ... more This article looks at how cultural and national subject positions are constructed and negotiated in Frank McCourt’s award-winning memoir Angela’s Ashes (1996). The memoir has enjoyed tremendous commercial and critical success, especially in America, where it not only won two of the most prestigious literary prizes in the category of autobiography, but also managed to stay on the New York Times bestseller list for more two years, and three years after its first publication it had sold over two million copies in the US alone. However, critical voices were also raised against the memoir, especially from Irish readers who resented the way in which the expatriate McCourt commercializes their past misery.The memoir thus clearly has the power either to make the reader feel secure and confident in his or her own cultural identity, or to cause him or her to react very strongly to the identity positions that it constructs. But which are these subject positions that are constructed and negotiated in the memoir? Where, how, and by whom are they constructed? This article will show how the memoir is built around a number of binary oppositions between what is constructed as “Irish” and “American” subject positions. Whereas the “Irish” position is characterized by religious intolerance, social determinism, selfish pride and personal guilt, the “American” position is characterized by religious pluralism, social mobility, communal solidarity and personal fulfilment. Other binary oppositions that the memoir constructs between the “Irish” and the “American” positions are wet vs. dry, cold vs. warm, tradition vs. popular culture, past suffering vs. future opportunities, sexual inhibition vs. sexual freedom, narrowness vs. openness, authority vs. liberty, failure vs. success, and so on.The construction of these opposite subject positions will be analysed by looking at the different “truth regimes” that the protagonist is exposed to during his childhood and adolescence. Drawing on Foucault’s claim that a subject can only recognize itself, and others, within a specific regime of truth, the article will show how McCourt’s memoir operates on two narrative levels simultaneously. At the story level the protagonist has to abandon his “Irish” subject positions in order to recognize himself as an “American”. At the discourse level it is the reader who has to make the same identification with the “American” position and to accept the “American” regime of truth as constructed by McCourt the author in order to appreciate the memoir. The analysis will be further guided by Judith Butler’s claim that “telling the truth about oneself comes at a price, and the price of that telling is the suspension of a critical relation to the truth regime in which one lives” (Giving an Account of Oneself pp. 121-122). The article will thus argue that the enormous success that the memoir has enjoyed in the United States is, to a large extent, dependent on its uncritical acceptance of an “American” regime of truth.
Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature, 2013
PUBLISHED SIXTEEN YEARS after the end of the Vietnam War, Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer-winni... more PUBLISHED SIXTEEN YEARS after the end of the Vietnam War, Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer-winning short-story cycle A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (1992) is an imaginative attempt by a EuroAmerican writer to come to terms with the consequences of the armed conflict for the many thousands of Vietnamese refugees who emigrated to, and settled in, the USA during and after the conflict. The stories dramatize the internal and external conflicts that the predominantly Vietnamese-American protagonists experience owing to their cultural and national relocation as firstgeneration immigrants, or due to their cultural and ethnic hybridity as secondgeneration immigrants. This essay aims to show how both the form and central theme of the volume can be understood not only as a negotiation between American and Vietnamese identities, but also as going beyond the compulsion to identify self and other along national and ethnic lines. It will argue that Butler's text transcends national and ethnic determinations by imagining a transcultural subjectivity, according to which characters can enjoy something close to mutual understanding. As will be shown, this transcultural transcendence takes place on different levels in the text: on the level of the characters, on the level of the narrators, and on the level of the author. Thus, the text itself can be seen as an example of transculturality in the sense that the author crosses cultural boundaries in order to imagine and narrate his stories from a Vietnamese-American perspective.1By using the genre of the short-story cycle, Butler also stresses the volume's affinities with other cycles dealing with similar themes of ethnic and national border-crossings in contemporary American fiction.2 However, as I will argue, his stories not only depict characters who manage to cross these borders in order to construct new hybrid identities; they can also be seen as questioning the very idea of fixed identity-formations based on nationalism and ethnicity. In other words, the concept of transcultural subjectivity can be understood as going beyond, or transcending, the idea of subjectivity constructed along cultural, ethnic, and national lines. Butler allows his narrators and characters the agency to transcend fixed subject-positions by imagining, and identifying with, a cultural "other."3 In this way, the author shifts his focus from the otherwise so dominant theme of individualism and selfexploration in American fiction to what I will argue can be described, drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, as a kind of "humanism of the other human being."4 Whereas most American fiction dealing with the Vietnam War tends to explore its effects on the American individual, as well as internal conflicts caused by a growing incredulity toward the grand American narrative of freedom and democracy,5 Butler's stories constantly focus on the "other."In my analysis of what I see as the main theme and ethical message in Butler's short-story cycle, I will apply some of Levinas's ideas, primarily those articulated in his response to the poststructuralist and anti-humanist critique of subjectivity in Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. My reading of Levinas is also influenced by Simon Critchley's post-deconstructive understanding of Levinas's humanist ideas in the light of contemporary critical theory. I aim to show that Butler's narrators and characters are at odds with their own culturally given identity, and that, instead, they identify with the "other" as a human being, rather than as an ethnocultural subject. Although they remain subjected as 'Vietnamese' or 'American' on an epistemological level, they manage to transcend this subjection on the ontological level; that is, these national and ethnic determinations cease to define their 'being'. They show a sensibility and proximity to the "other," which can be explained by the Levinasian concept of substitution, whereby the subject's ethical subjectivity is characterized by a corporeal obligation to the "other. …
The article addresses the didactic questions of what, why and how aspects of culture and history ... more The article addresses the didactic questions of what, why and how aspects of culture and history can be-and should be, it is argued-an integral part of all foreign and second language teaching and learning. In particular, it is argued that the study of literary fiction within tertiary foreign language education can function as a gateway for students to develop not only a stronger interest in and knowledge of cultural history, but also a better understanding of the complexity of historical representation, public memory and self-identity. Drawing on current theories of narrative discourse and historical representation, as well as the experience of having taught a foreign language course in Sweden dealing with fictional representations of culturally important periods in US history, the paper shows how a personal engagement with these "little narratives," to use Lyotard's term, can enhance foreign language students' understanding of, not only important historical events and periods in the shaping of contemporary American culture, but also of the importance of textual representation and cultural "grand narratives" in the shaping of collective identities and personal subjectivities.
This is a study of the American writer Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going Aft... more This is a study of the American writer Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato, and The Things They Carried. Unlike previous O'Brien scholarship, which is either historical-bi ...
Litteraturstudier i granszonen : Internationella studenter laser ”Samtida amerikanska berattare” ... more Litteraturstudier i granszonen : Internationella studenter laser ”Samtida amerikanska berattare” vid Hogskolan Dalarna
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