Sander Mathisrud

PhD candidate at UiS

I am a research fellow at the Faculty of Arts and Education at the University of Stavanger since January 2024 and former secondary school teacher. My research interests include media, language, literature and technology. I have a background in film and philosophy. My bachelor thesis was a philosophical exploration of the 2011 film The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick. From that onset I have studied Nordic language and literature, pedagogy and social science. While doing my master’s in educational science, I worked part-time at the Knowledge Centre for Education and got interested in systematic reviews as a research method. This led to me using this method myself and my master’s thesis is therefore a systematic review of the use of educational technology in secondary school Norwegian language arts. My doctoral work is continuing in the same vein, focusing more specifically on research-practice partnerships in literature education.

Tell us about your project!

My project is examining a research-practice partnership where teachers and researchers collaborate in developing teaching resources to be published online. My focus is on collaboration around literature education in Norwegian language arts in lower secondary school. In this stage of their development, a lot of pupils have trouble sustaining the reading habits they have developed through primary school. Social media and other digital distractions are often blamed for this. I am interested in what constitutes reading in the digital age and what is lost if paper-based media use continues to dwindle. Should we continue deeper into the realm of electronic literature, audio- and video-based media, video games and their ilk? Can these media also claim to be treated as literature? How should schools and educators of language and literature respond as contemporary society continues to digitize and AI steps up as a disruptor of modern life?

“ I am interested in what constitutes reading in the digital age and what is lost if paper-based media use continues to dwindle”


- Sander Mathisrud on his PhD project “Litteraturdidaktisk partnerskap: Desentralisert kompetanseutvikling innen litteraturundervisningen på ungdomstrinnet”