Pupils in remedial classes

Abstract: The aim of this dissertation is to increase understanding of being a pupil in a remedial class. The thesis is based on interviews, questionnaires, and observations and includes parents, teachers, and pupils in ten remedial classes. Fifty-five percent of the studied pupils had no specific diagnosis. The thesis is based on five articles emanating from the interdisciplinary BASTA project (Basic skills, social interaction and training of the working memory). Article I focuses on self-concept, with a rating scale completed by the children. In Article II ethical issues related to the methodology of interviewing children are stressed. Article III focuses on teaching children in remedial classes, and is based on questionnaires completed by teachers and parents. Article IV is based on interviews with pupils. Article V is based on interviews with teachers and on classroom observations, and highlights the classroom climate.The theoretical approach used is a sociocultural perspective. From this perspective, learning is seen as becoming involved in different discourses, where interaction is seen as part of learning and development.The results of the thesis show that the pupils become bearers of the school’s perspective and blame the referral to remedial class on shortcomings in themselves. In transferring to the remedial class the pupils can lose their friends. Factors that reinforce this construction are the structured teaching and organisation of the classroom. These may hinder the pupils both in terms of friendship and of learning of subject knowledge. The main result is, however, that what the pupils in remedial classes primarily learn is to be pupils in remedial classes.