Criminology on the school schedule? : A qualitative study about social studies teachers possibilities to teach criminology in high school.

The forthcoming essay is a study whose purpose is to investigate the opportunities social studies teachers in Swedish high school have had, currently have, and are expected to have in teaching criminology within the subject of social studies. The study is a curriculum study examining four Swedish curricula for highschool: Lgy 70, Lpf 94, Gy 11, and the upcoming Gy 25. The analysis focuses on how criminology is represented in the curricula for social studies in highschool and how the conditions for teaching criminology have changed over time. The findings show that social studies teachers' conditions for teaching criminology have evolved and that Gy 25 is providing the most favorable conditions both in terms of interpretive and explicit content in the curricula. These findings can be linked to the societal relevance of criminology, its alignment with the curricula didactic approaches and the strengthened scientific foundations that have evolved in the newer versions of the curriculum. The greater clarity regarding the subjects content in Gy 25 may also be interpreted as an attempt to reduce the influence of subject traditions that have been dictating the subjects content, thereby enabling a broader and more varied teaching content.