The aim of the study is to discursively identify student teachers' perceptions of the teaching profession early in their education and their motives for this career choice. Students wrote a letter sharing thoughts on why they want to become a teacher, how they regard the teaching profession and if someone inspired them in their career choice. The empirical data consists of 259 student texts from three Swedish teacher education programmes. The study employed a qualitative method denoting different categorizations compared to previous studies, emphasising the idea of multiple motives for career choice and the link to student teachers' evolving pedagogical identity. Major differences can be distinguished among the programmes, emphasising different main motives and shifting incipient pedagogic identities. The results indicate the value of organising teacher education programmes drawing on multiple motives, which is expected to contribute positively to completion of teacher education and teacher retention in future profession.

The measurable fiction reader. A tendency in Lgr11 and a consequence for teacher education. Based on the new syllabus for Swedish in the primary school, this article discusses measurable knowledge and scientific foundations in relation to reading and teaching literature. In addition, some possible consequences for teacher education regarding the school subject of Swedish following these changes are discussed. The results show that the explicit scientific base of the school subject Swedish, that is Comparative Literature and the Swedish Language, is insufficient as a foundation for the subject. Furthermore, Swedish as a school subject has been distanced from the established scientific basis of Comparative Literature. Our analysis also shows that the explicitly expressed intention of clarity behind the syllabus results in lists of content that are characterised by measurability, while the democratic values promoted in the curriculum are not even mentioned in the educational purpose of the subject. Finally, the article problematizes the scientific foundations of the teacher programme in Swedish.

This article presents an analysis of a recent, award-winning Swedish novel for children and young adults, The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius, and digitally published reviews of the novel. In the first part of the paper, we provide an intersectional analysis of the novel, focusing on gender, profession, species and class. The protagonist and narrator of The Murderer's Ape is not easily categorized, as she is a mute but literate, highly intelligent and technically proficient gorilla in a man's world; an ape among human beings, a working engineer and not a pet or an attraction at a zoo. Neither class nor social standing constrain her as they do the human fictional characters. In the second part of the paper, we contrast commentaries by professional readers with comments from young readers, paying particular attention to how they have responded to the protagonist. The overarching aim is to examine how features admired by critics and professional readers are, in practice, understood by engaged, active readers, including children. Some intersectional categories represent acquired qualities, whereas others represent socially set boundaries. Posthumanist and intersectional perspectives provide tools to understand Sally Jones' position beyond both the other fictional characters and the Annbritt Palo is a senior lecturer in Swedish and Education at Luleå University of Technology. She is primarily interested in issues of literature, literature and education, gender, intersectionality, media literacy and curriculum theory. Lena Manderstedt works as a senior lecturer in Swedish and Education at Luleå University of Technology. Her research interests are mainly literature, literature and education in relation to the media, children, youth and online cultures and different aspects of ideology and power.

Fansites as literary venues This article discusses fansites as literary venues. The point of view is descriptive; how fansites function, which activities are taking place and what participants find interesting. The discussion is based on material from five fansites, i.e. websites where readers share material posted by other readers and publish their own material, and participants engage in storytelling, reading and literary activities, albeit not in the same manner as students taking literature at universities. The digital technology offers possibilities to explore and expand massive text archives beyond geographical and economic limitations. It has been implied that new media bring about new narrative alternatives and possibilities, but new media do not necessarily bring about new, narrative structures. However, both the material from the fansites as well as scholars specializing in narrative and media indicate that the existence of digital media give the readers other possibilities to develop a sense of transmedial thinking and reading. Therefore, this article also discusses narrative and media forms, the construction of meaning through fan fiction as well as fansites as interactive and dialogical rooms.

Today, Sweden enjoys a positive international reputation for its commitment to human rights issues, for instance, in relation to the recent migrant crisis. Abuses committed by the Swedish state against certain ethnic groups within the country are less well known, both within and beyond its borders. These included systematic attempts to curtail the use of indigenous and local languages, thereby causing communicative and ideological rifts between children and their parents. These policies were enacted through the school system from the 1920s until the 1970s, and particularly affected people living in the Arctic region where the national borders are disputed. In this article, we examine two twenty-first-century films set during this era, featuring feisty female characters responding to the school policy. Elina: As though I wasn’t there is a children’s film created by people “outside” the cultural group represented; and Sámi Blood features an adolescent protagonist (and her older self), created by “insiders” of the cultural group represented. In both films, the female protagonists’ relative lack of agency within the state school system is contrasted with their powerful connections to the Arctic landscape. We seek to examine how these films contribute to the work of apology, beginning with a public acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past. Whilst one of the films concludes with a celebration of the female protagonists’ agency, the other proffers a more ambiguous portrayal of power in relation to culture, nationality, and identity.