Lärarstudenters ekonomididaktiska kunskapsutveckling i samhällskunskap

Abstract

The focus of this article is on how civics/social studies student teachers develop in their ability of transforming theoretical knowledge into pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). It does so by exploring how the student teachers transform economic theory into teaching economics to pupils in primary, secondary, and upper secondary education. The study draws its findings and conclusions on qualitative in-depth interviews with four student teachers in civics/social studies. The main conclusions are that the student teachers develop PCK like a process depending on theoretical and practical studies, and that they develop both didactical skills and knowledge that influence their teaching. However the study also shows that the student teachers’ individual PCK are rather weakly developed after taking the courses. One further conclusion is that the topic of economics is perceived to be difficult to teach, however the ‘difficulty’, lies within the many concepts used and how these are interrelated with each other. As a result of these findings the article discusses the role of using threshold concepts in the context of teaching and learning economics.