Vetenskaplighet och vetenskapligt skrivande i gymnasieskolan: Gymnasiearbetet på två högskoleförberedande gymnasieprogram

Abstract in English

In Swedish upper secondary education, academic inquiry and academic writing are emphasized as central aspects of students’ preparation for higher education. This dissertation examines what that entails when students in the Natural Science and Social Science programs—two programs shaped by distinct disciplinary traditions and epistemic organizing principles—conduct their own studies and write academic reports in the mandatory upper secondary diploma project (Gymnasiearbetet). The study examines how academic inquiry is articulated in policy and guidance documents and how it is enacted and communicated in approved student reports.

The thesis draws on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT)—particularly the epistemic pedagogic device and the specialization dimension—to analyze how disciplinary knowledge is transformed into pedagogic discourse and then realized in student reports. The LCT framework is further combined with discourse analysis and rhetorical genre analysis to examine policy and guidance documents, as well as 181 approved diploma project reports from six schools. This integration of LCT’s specialization dimension with rhetorical genre analysis has not previously been explored. Thus, by linking knowledge structures to their rhetorical genre realization, the dissertation extends the explanatory scope of genre analysis while simultaneously operationalizing LCT’s otherwise abstract theoretical concepts.

The findings reveal substantial differences between the two programs. In the Natural Science program, both guidance for the diploma project and reports demonstrate relatively strong epistemic alignment with established principles of the natural sciences. The reports typically exhibit clearly defined research questions, systematic methodology, theoretical grounding, and analytical rigor. In the Social Science program, alignment with corresponding principles of the social sciences is weaker in policy and guidance, resulting in reports with broadly framed aims, limited theoretical and methodological engagement, and frequent reliance on personal or value‑based reasoning. To ensure coherent and equitable enactments of academic inquiry across the higher-education preparatory programs, clearer conceptual definitions, more explicit methodological guidance, and greater attention to the rhetorical functions of academic genres are required in classroom instruction.