”Att lyssna på lärarna”

en metodologisk utmaning

Abstract

Teacher education today is expected to strongly focus on pedagogical content knowledge. This means, among other things, increased attention to practice. However, how practice is to be analyzed and for what purpose practice is analyzed is still up for debate. In this article we turn to the growing field of civics didactics to shed light on these questions. The analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis of twelve Swedish dissertations in civics didactics. Our findings suggest that the field of civics didactics has contributed with important suggestions on how practice and academic knowledge may enrich each other. However, we also find that the ways that practice has been analyzed are characterized by methodological challenges. To overcome these, and to contribute to the civics didactics research and future independent research projects within the teacher education, we call for a broader research agenda. This means a stronger focus on methodological questions, on other kinds of research projects and on developing the practice of teaching, rather than solely describing it.