To legitimize reading literature in schools

This essay will treat questions regarding why we should read literature, more specifically fiction, in schools. My issues regards how the curriculums of the swedish school subject legitimizes reading of literature, and my main focus is on the curriculums themselves. As a complement, I have completed three interviews with professional teachers to see how they legitimize reading for the pupils and for themselves. I have also discussed the potential democratic values of teaching and reading literature in schools, and I discuss my results in relation to the "values" of the swedish schools. My study is based on a study of the old curriculums, completed by Magnus Persson in 2007. To analyse my material, I have used a series of questions created by him. Using both curriculums and interviews with active teachers gives this study both a theoretical and practical perspective. I find nine legitimations, some of them rich of political, ethical and ideological content, there is for example one legitimation regarding the fact that literature can be used to learn pupils to take other peoples perspectives and in this way evolve empathy. There are however a few legitimations without this kind of perspective, for example the ones regarding how reading affects the language development with the pupils. The legitimations I find differ quite a lot in comparation with Perssons studie, mostly in the way that the legitimations I find seem to have less of a ideological content