The Center for Social Science Didactics (CSD) at Karlstad University is a center for subject-specific research and development in geography, history, religious education, civics and political science.
CSD was set up in 2006, and approximately 20 researchers at Karlstad University are connected to the center. We also collaborate with researchers from other universities in Sweden, the Nordic countries and elsewhere.
The subject didactic (subject specific) research we pursue has a distinct focus on educational practices. CSD is also involved in teacher education at Karlstad University and had has numerous assignments for the Swedish National Agency for Education. For example, CSD has been responsible for developing national tests and assessment support in various forms. CSD is today an important meeting place for Swedish and Nordic subject didactic research in the social sciences.
CSD is an environment where different perspectives meet. Being able to collect researchers from the different social science subjects in a common research milieu is a potent force. The connection to the academic disciplines is explicit and a long-term ambition is to link subject didactic perspectives to social science theories. The majority of researchers at CSD have a base in both the disciplines and the subject didactic research.
The research has a deliberate focus on teaching and learning practices. We want to help strengthen students' ability to learn in social science subjects. We do this with a particular interest to how content is transformed and how this transformation interplay with students' perceptions and learning. In several projects we use development- and research circles with teachers in-service. Through various collaborative projects with municipalities we have the ambition to bring subject didactic research closer to the practice in school.
