Mid Sweden University

This essay intends to examine the linguistic challenges of the subject of social science. Swedish schools today are not a homogeneous group but consist of individuals with completely different linguistic, cultural and socio-economic conditions. According to skollagen, teachers must compensate for all individuals' different conditions, at the same time as different linguistic aspects place high demands on both teachers and students. The essey uses a socio-cultural framework to, with the help of semi-structured interviews, investigate social studies teachers' experiences of working with the subject's linguistic challenges. Teachers' views on the connection between language and grades and the conditions behind working with these aspects are examined. The results show that all teachers experienced language challenges linked to concept comprehension and cognitively difficult language activities. All teachers stated that there is a clear connection between language and grades. At the same time, only one teacher worked on the basis of a language development model and only one of those teachers worked at a school where language development methods were prioritized. Despite this, the teachers described how they adapted their teaching in different ways to meet these challenges. Time and group of students were considered to be the factor that most influenced the teachers' opportunities to work with language development.