Týðandi og minni týðandi lærugreinar: ella søgan um hugvísindahugaða skúlan

Results from a school s urvey of Faroese pupils in 8th and 9th grade (14-15 years old) are compared with the responses of trainee teachers. The survey used the same questions that have been used in a similar study from Iceland (Bjørnsdóttir et al., 2014). In particular the importance of the different school subjects is discussed. It is obvious that both pupils and trainee teachers consider the more academic subjects (e.g. language, history, culture and science) as being of greater importance than the more creative subjects (including arts, cooking and sports). Statistical analyses show that pupils - especially boys - have more interest in physics and chemistry than do the trainee teachers. Girls, on the other hand, seem to have more interest in biological topics such as genetics. The results indicate a lack of interest in natural sciences in general, and a traditional gender gap where boys as more interested in questions related to natural science than girls. Also, some of the trainee teachers show considerably less interest in subjects that the pupils are very interested in. This is not a surprising result as it is seen in most of Europe. If this is to be changed, it is necessary to focus both on subject qualifications and on subject didactics in teacher education, ensuring that the natural science subjects are made more attractive.