Hela världens skönlitteraturer? : En diskursanalytisk studie om svensklärares förhållningssätt till icke västerländsk skönlitteratur

Sammanfattning: This study investigates teaching of fiction from outside of the Western world. The study was conducted via a discourse analysis of five semi structured interviews with upper secondary school teachers in Swedish language and literature. The aim is to describe how the discourse of fiction from outside of the Western world is depicted by the teachers’ dictums about literature in general and their own teaching of literature. This is done by adapting Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s theoretical conception of signs, floating signifier, moment, articulation, chains of equivalence and subject position along with the pedagogical conceptions inclusion, integration and exclusion. The result shows that the signs “cultures” and “knowledges” were central in the discourse. The signs had the character of floating signifiers, due to the difference in the teachers’ statements. The chains of equivalence showed that fiction from outside of the Western world often was associated with negativity while the European and western fiction often where given a more positive approach. A majority of the teachers’ approach was further characterized by exclusion of fiction from outside the Western world, even though an individual teacher’s approach were characterized by inclusion. Based on the results, we also claim that the discourse concerning fiction from outside of the Western world in the Swedish subject is in a state of change, since the discourse in general was characterized by instability.