This thesis is a study of the cultural history of children’s reading. It is argued that it is important to apply a wider historical perspective to the contemporary debate on the rapid changes in children’s and young people’s reading habits, and that existing historical research rarely deals with reading as a practice, but rather with its institutional and textual conditions such as the school, the library system and children’s literature. The thesis thus aims to explore the practice of reading and its relations to historical circumstances. Through a close reading of 30 retrospective interviews conducted in the 1970’s and 80’s, the analysis deals with some of the experienced motives, inter- pretations, materialities and social dimensions of children’s reading practices experienced in the first decades of the 20th century. It offers a discussion of these practices as related to wider historical contexts. Theoretically, the analysis is in- spired by the conceptualizations of a ‘history of reading’ in the works of Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton and Jonathan Rose. It is concluded that even if the informants in principle had access to different models, motives and genres for reading, the practice of reading often had to take on the character of improvisation in contexts where material resources and soci- al sympathies for reading were lacking. Furthermore, in relation to the complex social tensions and dynamics surrounding reading, the practice may also be defined by its degree of legitimacy and/or autonomy in a given context. These results imply that further research and debate is needed on the con- nections between the value attributed to reading in relation to changing concepts of work and “usefulness”, on the collective historical experiences of cultural progression, and on issues of the identity of the modern children’s library.

Flera institutioner i samhället arbetar på olika sätt med barns och ungas läsning. Dels handlar det om att barn och unga behöver utveckla läsförmågan för att kunna delta i utbildning, arbete och samhällsliv, dels eftersträvas ofta att utveckla läsintressen och läsvanor. På politisk nivå sätts läsandet i samband med såväl individuella som samhälleliga värden och ses ofta som en tillgång för demokratin (se t.ex. Litteraturutredningen 2012a, och Proposition 2013/14:3). I artikeln tas upp en omfattande forskning om läsning som kan vara av intresse för detta arbete.

1900-talet skulle bli barnets århundrade, tänkte sig Ellen Key alldeles innan seklet bröt in. Idag, alldeles efter dess slut, finns det goda skäl att tänka sig 1900-talet också som ett folkbibliotekens århundrade. Biblioteksreformerna i början av 1900-talet markerade en tydlig vilja från statsmakterna att stödja och underbygga bibliotek avsedda för breda befolkningslager. Samma sorts vilja kom sedan till politiskt uttryck flera gånger under de följande hundra åren.

25 år av tvärvetenskaplig, internationell forskning visar alltjämt att bemannade skolbibliotek som samspelar nära med undervisningen kan ge högst meningsfulla bidrag till elevers lärande. Det menar sex forskare vid institutionen för Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap vid Högskolan i Borås. I en lång replik (7/10) i debatten om skolbibliotek, där Gabriel H Sahlgren generöst presenterar färdiga och kategoriska lösningar på svåra och omstridda metodologiska problem inom samhällsvetenskaplig och tvärvetenskaplig forskning, bemöts vårt tidigare inlägg (4/10). Vi noterar att Sahlgren, som professionell opinionsbildare med uppdrag att finna argument för en fri skolmarknad, framhärdar i sin övertygelse om att en enda indisk studie är en bättre indikator på hur skolbibliotek i Sverige kan fungera, än den helhetsbild som övrig forskning presenterar. Skälet för detta är att den indiska studien använder sig av en experimentell metoddesign. Studien ifråga finner inget stöd för att anta att orsakssamband finns mellan förekomsten av skolbibliotek och elevers studieresultat.

Relevansen och effektiviteten hos skolbibliotek har diskuterats på DN Debatt de senaste dagarna. Det är glädjande att forskning används som stöd för politisk debatt i detta sammanhang, men forskningsresultaten bör inte användas selektivt för att stödja en viss politisk ståndpunkt, skriver forskare och lärare vid institutionen för Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap vid Högskolan i Borås.

This study aims to identify and analyse how aesthetic reading was problematised in Swedish educational policy 1940- 1962, in order to create a better understanding of the politics of reading in an era that has been of great importance for how reading is understood in contemporary Sweden. The empirical material consists of reports from three school commissions, laying the foundation for the new compulsory and comprehensive school that was introduced in 1962. The reports have been analysed using a discursive methodological framework, focussing on problematisations of aesthetic reading. The main problem that aesthetic reading was meant to solve, according to the analysis, was a lack of aesthetic taste. There is a shift in emphasis during the period from problematisations of what to read towards problematisations of how to read. Thus, the solution to the problem of aesthetic reading during the period transformed from a governing of taste to a governing of skills. Educational and cultural policy shares the problematisation of aesthetic upbringing, made possible by its roots in modernist ideas of general character formation and the ideals of free public education. We argue that research on the politics of reading in Sweden can be reinvigorated by exploring the governance of cultural practices emanating from policy fields other than explicit cultural policy

I detta projekt har vi analyserat inspelade svensklektioner från slutet av 1960-talet med fokus på hur läsundervisningen organiserades. Resultaten visar att faktaorienterad informationsläsning gavs stort utrymme vid denna tid. Möjligheterna att försjunka i skönlitteratur var däremot få. Idag ses faktaorienterad läsning ofta som problematisk och som en ny företeelse som hänger samman med teknikutvecklingen. Vårt projekt visar att denna typ av läsning är en del av en längre tradition.

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to analyse how a particular reading activity in a post-war Swedish comprehensive school, was part of the larger social and political project of the welfare state, and tied to the notion of good citizenship. Thereby, and secondly, the paper aims to illustrate how dialogical document theory enables the study of reading, and possibly other types of document work and practices. The analysis of a speech by a teacher about what can be learnt from a short story during a Swedish lesson in a primary school in 1968 illustrates how document work such as reading activities are value-laden, and tied into ideologies and political projects. In this specific case, reading is in dialogue with the political project of realising the democratic and egalitarian “People’s home” which, somewhat paradoxically, required the disciplining of its young citizens. It is concluded that a dialogical document theory, which focuses on document work as it unfolds in localised activities and at the same time on situation-transcending documentary practices, can be useful for studies within Library and Information Science on reading in both utilitarian and pleasure oriented empirical contexts.

Under det senaste decenniet har det i Sverige pågått en debatt om hur barns och ungas läsning förändras och hur läsaktiviteter i skolan bör utformas. Dessa diskussioner tar ofta sin utgångspunkt i förändringar inom medielandskapet och huruvida digitala verktyg är lämpliga att använda i läsundervisningen i den svenska skolan. För att kunna bedöma och förklara lä sandets förändringar behövs historiskt orienterade studier som utforskar de sociala och kulturella förutsättningar för läsning som byggts upp under 1900 - talet. Idag inympas nya tekniker för produktion, distribution och konsumtion av skriven text i den läsk ultur som utvecklades i efterkrigstidens Sverige. Det är genom denna kultur som vi förstår nya medievanor, och som vi kan tolka dem som hot eller löften för läsandets framtid som kulturellt, samhälleligt fenomen.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as information behaviour or information practices within Library and Information Science (LIS).

Design/methodology/approach An empirical example – a lesson on how to read railway timetables – is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour.

Findings It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices.

Research limitations/implications The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS.

Social implications The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work.

Originality/value The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people’s behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to historicise research conducted in the fields of Information Seeking and Learning and Information Literacy and thereby begin to outline a description of the history of information in the context of Swedish compulsory education.

Design/methodology/approach. Document work and documentary practices are used as alternatives to concepts such as information seeking or information behaviour. Four empirical examples of document work – more specifically informational reading – recorded in Swedish primary classrooms in the 1960s are presented.

Findings. In the recordings, the reading style students use is similar to informational reading in contemporary educational settings: it is fragmentary, facts-oriented, and procedure-oriented. The practice of finding correct answers, rather than analysing and discussing the contents of a text seems to continue from lessons organised around print textbooks in the 1960s to the inquiry-based and digital teaching of today.

Originality/value. The paper seeks to analyse document work and documentary practices by regarding “information” as a discursive construction in a particular era with material consequences in particular contexts, rather than as a theoretical and analytical concept. It also problematises the notion that new digital technologies for producing, organising, finding, using, and disseminating documents have drastically changed people’s behaviours and practices in educational and other contexts.