A potential research direction for didactic classroom studies

This volume grew out of a series of conversations between researchers with different specialisations in the Swedish field of didactics. Thinking about the similarities, differences, and possibilities of our work, we compared research interests and outcomes from our respective fields, finding similar questions in different research contexts, compatible methodological starting points and challenges, and a shared ambition to contribute to classroom practice. The classroom—an arena for organised and intentional teaching and learning—offers both focus and a natural delimitation to our shared interests. Further, the empirical studies we worked on were rooted in scientific didactics (Hudson 2007), all featuring a focus that could be framed by the traditional didactical triangle of pupils, teacher, and content, but with different emphases. This is a distinct feature compared to the larger field of classroom studies (cf. Sahlström 2008), and also compared to the field of didactics (cf. Öhman 2014; Hopmann 2007). Further, the complexities of understanding, predicting and shaping instances of teaching and learning in the classroom in combination with the fundamental character of such research point to its potential value. An interest in these questions is in no way limited to the present volume (see, for example, Klette 2007), but looking at this collection of work as a whole, we discern a potential research direction that we refer to here as didactic classroom studies. The individual studies in this volume have some distinctive common features, while still having clear interfaces with the wider research community.