Samhällskunskapslärares upplevelser av elevinvolvering och delaktighet. : En studie ur ett lärarperspektiv.

Student influence and enhancing motivation learning are often emphasized in educational policy documents but there is a lack of deeper understanding of how teacher in social studies interpret and practice participation, involvement and how this affects students’ motivation. It is not always clear which strategies or methods that are used to give students’ chance to have influence in a subject and at the same time engaged students to get knowledge as a future democratic citizen. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers in social studies work with student participation and involvement in teaching and how this influences their motivation there. The study is based on a qualitative research method where six semi-structured interviews were conducted with high school teachers in social studies. The interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed in purpose to identify recurring patterns in teachers’ perceptions and approaches. The result of the study shows that teachers in social studies perceive participation as students’ active engagement in teaching, and involvements as a deeper influence over content, structure, and shape. Teachers state that students’ motivation is enhanced when they are given opportunities to influence their education, such by choosing forms of assessment or topics/methods while they emphasize that organizational aspects can affect the extent to which student involvement is possible. The discussion connects these findings to significance of the concepts in teaching, previous research as well as the theoretical framework and how teachers approaches/methods can create conditions for increased student motivation in social studies. Suggestion for future research have also emerged from this study, in particular interviews with students and their perspective on this. Keywords: Social studies, Involvement, Participation, Motivation, Student influence, Self- determination theory (SDT), Experiences.