Abstract

This master thesis examines what support for pupils in primary school looks like and how different actors in the field would like it to look. The scientific theoretical standpoint for the thesis is the critical realism as it is formulated by i.a. Roy Bhaskar.
Bhaskar criticizes naive empiricism and radical social constructivism. Within critical realism, science is about getting ‘behind’ the phenomena and exploring the depths of reality. It is therefore a matter of exposing the mechanisms that generate the phenomena. The study is a mixed methods research, which means it combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research for the purposes of breadth and depth understanding and corroboration.
In the present survey, data are collected through a questionnaire survey as approx. 80 students in 7th, 8th and 9th grade have completed. The students answered closed as well as open questions with a focus on how and when they felt they needed support in participating in the teaching. Subsequently, a focus group interview was conducted with the 7 teachers of the classes. Here, the students' need for support in teaching is treated from a teacher's perspective. Both students and teachers also talk about how they envision a teaching where all students can participate.
The subsequent analysis is based on didactic models, and it shows, among other things that students who need support in teaching use different strategies when they experience that they have difficulties with participating in class teaching.
In the focus group interview, it becomes clear that the teachers have an implicit scale they see the students' behavior and difficulties in relation to.
At the end of the thesis, readings by two researchers within the field: Nina Berg Gøttsche and Thomas Thyrring Engsig contributes to understand students' evasive strategies as coping strategies and to catch sight of an underlying dichotomy, where a student is either seen as "a good student" or a " bad student ". Finally, pedagogical and didactic recommendations for a teaching, where students who need support can participate, are presented.