Literary texts in upper secondary science teacher education

This presentation discusses why and how literary texts could be incorporated in science teacher education as a step towards increasing the relevance of school science. Previous research has suggested that using literary texts in science teaching can facilitate science learning as well as contribute to enhanced social justice in various ways. The presentation describes and evaluates experiences from a non-mandatory book-club project that was implemented in science teacher education. Five upper secondary pre-service science teachers took part in the book club (1 year, 4 meetings) and shared their experiences in a focus-group interview at the end of the project. The analysis of the interview shows that the pre-service teachers expect the same kind of benefits from using literary texts in their teaching as suggested in previous research, but that these expectations do not fully align with their ideas of how their future teaching might be orchestrated. We discuss how an incorporation of literary texts in science teacher education must be accompanied by opportunities for didactic analysis related to different choices for teaching, and the consequences of such choices for students’ possibilities to learn and take part in science.