"You can´t become Harry Potter, but you can be like him." Minor Field Study : A study of how some teachers in Thailand reason about working with the development of an identity through fiction.

Abstract: BACKGROUND: In the background we describe research on fiction and identity. Wedescribe Thailand’s steering documents as well as Sweden’s steering documents. One section describes the Thai school and changes made in Thai education. The section about Thai identity describes Thai values and Thai culture. We also explain the purpose of reading and how fiction and identity are used in schools.AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of the study is to reach an understanding of how somepedagogues in Thailand reason about their work with fiction as a tool for the development of an identity, both in the teaching of mother tongue and in the teaching of English.METHOD: We chose to conduct our research with the method of qualitative interviews.This study is based on nine interviews, five interviews with five teachers teaching in Thai and four interviews with four teachers teaching in English as a second language, working in two middle-class high schools in a major city in Thailand.RESULT: By the interviews it is clear that the teacher engage the students in efferent reading, fiction is mostly used to teach the students how to use the language and is often connected to religion and Thai society. The most prominent explanation of identity is cultural identity which is the identity that is dominating in Thai schools. The teachers’ aims are to teach thestudents about good and bad, values and moral and the fiction used in their teaching all represent this.