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In this article, we explore power and perspectives as lenses for critical thinking embedded in Jon Klassenʼs fictional picturebook trilogy I want my hat back (2011), This is not my hat (2012), and We found a hat (2016). Drawing on ideas from critical literacy and democratic citizenship, we conduct a close reading of the picture-text interaction and selected visual features through a critical content analysis (Johnson et al., 2019). The scarcity of hats drives the narrative in the three books and may stimulate reflections on ownership. We argue that the different affordances of these picturebooks may prompt critical thinking regarding power relations and perspectives, and may be a step towards fostering critical thinking and encouraging democratic citizenship in young readers.

Skolen er stadig i medienes søkelys, og i denne artikkelen ser vi nærmere på hvordan forskere bidrar med sine fagkunnskaper i skoledebatten i mediene. Den problemstillingen vi ønsker å besvare, er: Hvilken rolle har forskere i norske avisers dekning av skole? For å svare på dette har vi gjort en analyse av samtlige artikler om skole i VG, Bergens Tidende og Aftenposten i 2013. Resultatene viser at det forekommer en navngitt forsker i ca. 12 % av avisenes artikler om skole (209 av 1712 artikler). Det er imidlertid forskjell mellom avisene, og i VG opptrer det forskere i ca. 24 % av artiklene om skole, mens andelen både i Aftenposten og BT er ca. 11 %. Undersøkelsen viser videre at det er mange forskere som får mulighet til å uttale seg om skole i disse tre avisene, men det store flertallet av disse uttaler seg kun én gang. Vi fant også at forskere ofte uttaler seg om rammene for skolens undervisningsvirksomhet, og sjelden om det som foregår i klasserommene. Resultatene av vår empiriske undersøkelse stemmer i stor grad overens med hovedtendensene i tidligere studier av forskere i media, noe som indikerer at forskernes rolle i norske avisers skoledekning ikke skiller seg markant ut fra den rollen forskere har i media generelt. Våre resultater peker imidlertid på én viktig forskjell: Forskere ser ut til å være uvanlig godt synlige i norske avisers dekning av skole. Nøkkelord: skoleforskning, media, forskningsformidling Abstract School is a frequently debated topic in the media, and this article investigates how researchers contribute with their knowledge in this media debate. The research question is: What characterizes researcher participation in Norwegian newspaper coverage of school? To answer this question we have analyzed all articles about school in the Norwegian newspapers VG, Bergens Tidende and Aftenposten during 2013. The results show that there is a named researcher in about 12 % of the newspaper articles about school (209 of 1712 articles). However, there are differences between the newspapers: In VG researchers appear in about 24 % of the articles about school, while the corresponding number in both Aftenposten and BT is about 11 %. The analysis shows that although many researchers comment on school issues in the three newspapers, a large majority of these appear only once; indicating that few educational researchers are continually active in such media debates. Furthermore, researchers often comment on context factors, and rarely about what goes on in the classrooms. The results in this study concur to a large extent with the findings in previous studies about researchers in the newspapers, indicating that researchers’ participation in Norwegian newspaper coverage of school does not differ significantly from researcher participation in newspapers in general, in most of the variables we have examined, except from one important difference: Researchers seem to have an unusually visible presence in Norwegian newspaper coverage of school. Key words: school research, media, science communication