Filosofiämnets didaktik: En studie om det svenska gymnasieämnet filosofi och dess didaktik

Abstract in English

This thesis aims to study the subject-didactic concepts and problems of the philosophy subject in the Swedish upper secondary school.

The study’s research design is based on four of John Goodlad’s (1979) domains of curricula. These have guided four of the dissertation’s sub-studies.

The first study, which deals with the domain of ideological curricula, analyzes debates between Swedish philosophers during the years 1978–1986 regarding the purpose and content of the subject. The second study, which deals with the domain of formal curricula, analyzes the historical syllabuses that guide philosophy in Swedish upper secondary school from the year 1935 until today.

The third study, which deals with the domain of perceived curricula, is an interview study with experienced philosophy teachers. The fourth study, which deals with the domain of experienced curricula, is a survey study where students in philosophy have answered questions before and after their philosophy studies.

The data collections have been analyzed through grounded theory, resulting in clusters of themes emerging from the statements of teachers and students.

The key findings are analyzed as six subject-didactic problems, typical problems philosophy teachers have to deal with in their teaching: 1) Given the limited time and the extensive content, the teacher must significantly reduce the subject, and can only present the most important aspects of philosophy. 2) Philosophy can have several purposes, with intrinsic and utility-oriented purposes being the most important dividing line. 3) There are different views on whether it is worth teaching the history of philosophy, because there are several risks, but some teachers still think it is important. 4) Philosophy teachers and many philosophy students have different views on argumentation. For the teachers, argumentation is a tool for thinking in philosophy, while the students express a more rhetorically oriented view of argumentation. 5) Teaching independence in philosophy seems to be particularly difficult, several teachers describe that it is something that must be developed from within the student. 6) Several teachers perceive that students today often are opinion-relativistic oriented, which is partially confirmed by the fact that the students in the survey support an opinion-relativistic statement.