This study examined how teachers relate literacy teaching to their ordinary subject teaching in professional development settings. The study is conducted within the large Swedish professional development program the Literacy Boost (in Swedish “Läslyftet”), which can be viewed as an example of an international focus on reading ability beyond early and beginning reading. Such a focus may be well-grounded, but it also raises concerns of how teachers of different school subjects are addressed in such programs. The findings of this study show that participating teachers express four approaches of relating literacy teaching to subject teaching, indicating different types and degrees of coherence between professional development content and teachers’ teaching practice. While all teaching activities described by teachers aimed at improving students’ general literacy, this was mostly done in the form of additional activities rather than being embedded in the ordinary teaching concerning curricular objectives of school subjects. These results suggest that differences in how texts are used and interpreted in different school subjects should be given higher priority in the design of both content and form of professional development programs to better support subject teaching.
Throughout his long life span Marcus Meibom (c.1630–c.1710) was active as philologist, historian, librarian, music theorist and mathematician, but is today chiefly remembered for his writings concerning ancient Greek sources and artefacts. Meibom’s controversial personality caused great academic and personal conflicts, but appears also to have been an important factor in his scholarly preferences, his methods and the results therefrom. Through his residence at institutions throughout Europe (in present Sweden, Denmark, Holland and England) he has left his mark in many disciplines, which in turn enable scholars from a diversity of branches in the humanities to convene at this symposium, marking the tercentennial commemoration of Meibom’s death. Alongside the interdisciplinary exchange between specialised scholars that is the main purpose of the symposium, it is also hoped that the programme will attract interest from a broader audience with interest in the history of learning and European scholarly culture. The aim is to publish the conference proceedings in order to contribute to a deeper understanding of Meibom and to the particular research topics and contexts to which he contributed. The symposium will be held at the Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm (thus with an indirect connection to Meibom’s service in the Swedish court library). Applications are invited for short papers of 10-15 minutes duration, but the main focus of the conference will be panel discussions concerning different aspects of Meibom, his life, works and contexts. Proposals for papers and round-table sessions should be presented in the form of an abstract of c:a 250 words. Deadline for submitting proposals, which should be addressed to Mattias Lundberg (mattias.lundberg@muslib.se) is 1 November 2009. A full programme and practical details of the symposium will be communicated to participants and made available on-line before November 15 2009. The symposium is arranged with financial support from Sven och Dagmar Saléns stiftelse. For further information, please contact the symposium organising committee: Dr. Mattias Lundberg (Rare Collections, Music Library of Sweden) mattias.lundberg@muslib.se Dr. Janis Kreslins (Research Department, National Library of Sweden) janis.kreslins@kb.se