This study aims to shed light on the cultural models of literature and literature education reflected in Nordic L1 curricula by investigating how literature is given discursive significance in the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish L1 curricula for lower-secondary school, both within and across those four countries. Education in the Nordic countries is a field well suited for comparative analysis as the languages used are closely related and the countries' educational systems and policies are similar. In the study, we discuss how literary texts are given significance compared with other texts and what purposes of literature education are given a prominent place in the L1 curricula. The theoretical framework used derives from Gee's (2014) description of cultural models; we understand the national curricula as linguistically created realms of reality. The comparative analysis suggests that there are similar tendencies as well as distinct national differences. Prominent cultural models identified across the countries are a double position of literary texts and a high expectation on literature education. The study points to a need to discuss the status and purpose of literary texts in the Nordic L1 subjects in order to promote further mutual understanding and inspiration across borders.

Scandinavian writing research forms a relatively new field, with an increased number of studies conducted in the last two decades. In this qualitative synthesis review of 87 peer reviewed journal articles from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden published between 2010 and 2020, the aim was to outline the landscape of current educational writing research from the region. The sample included research articles published in both Scandinavian and international journals. Our analysis focused on the articles’ research approaches and main themes regarding the object of investigation. The main themes identified were Writing Instruction, Writing Assessment, and Students’ Text. We found a predominance of studies conducted in the context of language arts/first language (L1) education, concerning either disciplinary or general aspects of writing. We also found a predominance of approaches based on either sociocultural or social semiotic theory. Furthermore, a majority of the reviewed studies were explorative and small-scale, and, for the Writing Assessment studies in particular, directed at the secondary stages of school. The results suggest a call for future studies focusing on writing interventions and studies deploying a wide range of methodological approaches, as well as studies based on inter-Scandinavian collaborations across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

This article contributes new insights into grammar teaching in Danish L1 by examining the three most frequently used learning materials concerned with grammar in upper primary school in Danish L1. An analysis of the why, what and how in the three materials shows that they state a prescriptive purpose, pay particular attention to spelling and punctuation rules, and suggest a repetitive grammar teaching approach. The analysis also shows that recent pedagogical trends such as process writing and genre pedagogy are not reflected in these popular upper primary Danish L1 grammar teaching materials. Thus, the article sheds light on an under-researched content area in L1 education in Denmark, and it aims to contribute to a qualified debate about the role of grammar teaching and grammar teaching materials in L1 education, in dialogue with existing empirical research.

Studies exploring grammar teaching in first and foreign language subjects in Scandinavia are very rare. In this article, we present findings from a focused ethnographic study (Gramma3, 2018(Gramma3, -2019 of grammar teaching practices in the three major first and foreign language subjects at lower-secondary level (age 13-15) in Denmark: Danish L1, English L2 and German L3, with data collected at seven schools. The dominance of traditional school grammar content in all three classrooms is one main finding. However, the approaches vary across the three subjects, mirrored also in different traditions and cultures for language learning within first and foreign language subjects. The co-existence of concurrent and even contradictory practices within each language subject is another main finding. Thus, the cross-curricular perspective of the present study leads to detailed findings suggesting new ways of understanding explicit grammar teaching in compulsory education. In this way, the study helps to shed light on an under-researched, yet key curricular content area in all three subjects, suggesting opportunities for cooperation between first and foreign language teachers. In turn, it contributes knowledge, which is valuable beyond the national context of the study, with the potential for comparative studies across borders.

In 2013, four of our five guest editors for this special issue were early career PhD researchers meeting in Paris at the 9 th conference of the International Association for the Improvement of Mother Tongue Education (IAIMTE). Affiliated at four different universities in four different Nordic countries, we shared the experience that the L1 literature education research community consisted of a rather small number of researchers at each of our institutions. Meeting in the international (although rather European) setting of the conference for IAIMTE (now the International Association for Research in L1 Education, ARLE) highlighted the sense of regional belonging to the Nordic countries. From these experiences, the idea of founding a research network within the Scandinavian speaking region was born a couple of months later. In November 2014, we organized the first seminar in Stavanger, Norway and, as a result, established the Nordic Research Network on Literature Education.Neither the experience of limited, local research communities, nor the initiative to look across neighbouring borders to cooperate, compare and seek inspiration, represented something new in the international L1 community. Rather, this seems to be a recurring pattern in the L1 research field. Internationally, similar experiences and initiatives established networks and associations like the International Mother Tongue Education Network (IMEN) and IAIMTE/ARLE, and even motivated the foundation of this journal (Araujo et al., 2021). Within the Nordic region, parallel initiatives motivated the foundation of networks like Nordfag.