Knowledge linked to programming has been extensively strengthened in curricula and syllabi in Swedish compulsory school, mainly regarding the subjects of mathematics and technology. The introduction of this content requires that technology teachers be trained in programming and how to teach it. In this chapter, we present an observation study of a professional development course for practicing teachers in compulsory education, focusing on introductory programming. The whole professional development course context, including the teachers’ teaching practices and presentations of classroom projects, is explored as a discourse with the aim of finding governance steering strategies, normative values and knowledge content. The analysis shows that norms and values from the programming discourse within this professional development course become more important than the participating teachers´ professional view on how classroom teaching should be conducted. The code-content knowledge is taken for granted, but the artifacts tend to take away the focus from the specific code-content. A gender perspective is also highlighted, where coding is regarded as suitable for the stereotypical image of a female student. The overall aim seems to be that the students should find programming fun and interesting.
QC 20240212