"Men han är väl snäll? Han är ju snäll tycker jag..." : En kvalitativ studie om framställandet av funktionsvariationen autism i en barnbok samt nio elevers uppfattningar kring bokens huvudkaraktär

Sammanfattning: Children’s literature that includes characters with functional variations is viewed as a tool to increase understanding in classrooms. However, this assumes that the characters are portrayed in a good light and present a positive image to pupils. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the functional variation of autism is portrayed in the book The Dog that Saved Christmas (2018) and whether there are any similarities or differences regarding student perceptions of the main character. Qualitative text analysis and semi-structured interviews with nine students constitute the essay method. The interviews are coded by using thematic analysis. The book content and student reasoning are both further analyzed from a norm-critical perspective. The result shows that there is no uniform image of the character with the functional variation of autism as only positive or negative. Instead, a combination of both these emerges. Where the student perceptions emerge most clearly is also where certain similarities and differences with the book's depiction can be discerned.