In this study, we investigate the spaces and the limitations of spaces, where students can critically and creatively explore their position in society, in discussions about issues that are brought on by literature, and other forms of art. The paper reports on conversations with four young women, Lily, Thelma, Anna, and Mike, on their experiences of the conditions of reading literature in school.

Literature has often played the role of instigator, mediator, and mirror for discussions on pressing issues in society. Many researchers in Literary Didactics have emphasized the democratic potential of literature reading in and out of school (Author 1, 2019; Author 2, 2005; Alkenstrand, 2016; Thavenius, 2003). This study assumes that reading and discussing literature can be an important path to democratic endeavors, such as critical reflection and awareness of power structures in society. There is a need for more empirically informed scientific knowledge about the conditions for students' identity formation and agency when reading literature, as well as on the students' engagement with critically informed dialogue where concerns of the current state of the world and awareness of power structures in society might be addressed. Our aim with the paper is to investigate in what ways literature reading can be realized in literary encounters in line with the principles of radical aesthetics (RA) (Thavenius, 2003) as a way for students to reason, problematize, and reflect on pressing topics. The paper contributes with knowledge on how RA can invite young readers into a critically reflexive and responsive engagement of issues of equality, social justice, and inclusion, and RA could thus function as a vital part of school's democracy education. 

RA comprises criticality both towards the arts and society, towards old traditions and new trends, towards sacred truths, taken for granted opinions and not least of oppressive structures and ideas. Thus, RA can be seen as an activist and democratic endeavor in school where students develop curiosity and critical questioning. Drawing on the Freirean legacy of critical literacy (CL), RA can here be regarded as both a mode of inquiry as well as a theoretical perspective on how reading foregrounds power, resistance, and agency (Freire, 1970/1993; Freire, 1998; Janks, 2010; Johnson and Vasudevan, 2012; Luke & Freebody, 1997; Morrell, 2008; Vasquez, 2016). While the CL and RA framing contribute important concepts on how, for example, gender tied to wider unequal systems of power, this project investigates issues are students' experiences of reading and discussing literature within these power structures (Brady, 2004; Weiler, 2004). 

Earlier studies that comprise a radical aesthetics perspective (Author 1, 2019; Author 1, 2020) has shown different forms of empowerment in literary reading processes. These results have guided our understanding of the potential of creating 'critical spaces' in schools, spaces where students can (re)formulate and (re)define themselves and become empowered as students and readers. However, in these critical spaces, empowerment can occur in different ways: through students' development and growth by complying to educational expectations and through resistance to educational expectations. Reading literature as RA cannot be considered mainstream practices in school today, which is why this project will give us more knowledge on young adults' compliant, as well as resisting reading practices. Furthermore, the paper presents important contributions to critical literacy research about young adults' understanding of texts, negotiation of voice, and identification with and against their perceived position in a social and global space, specifically their gendered space. 

The empirical material of the present paper consists of a group interview with four eighteen-year-old female students from a Swedish upper secondary school selected because they have chosen Literature as an extra-curricular subject. The students in the interview were informed that they could withdraw from participation at any point before publication. Besides, we do not use the students' real names due to confidentiality. The analysis of the transcribed interview draws on notions from CL and RA. Our understanding of "critical" is when empowerment, transformation, and/or resistance are evident – in the transaction with someone or something. That means that analytical questions about the relations involved in critical or radical aesthetic moments are posed: Empowerment – in relation to whom/what? Transformation – from what? Towards what? Resistance – to whom/what? An analytical tool consisting of three concepts that reflect an application of material semiotics and critical literacy is used to analyze the data. The concepts help us understand what elements are involved, their relation to each other, and the effects of their links and transactions. 1) Relationality refers to the ways in which the actors involved become identified as parts of a network of transacting elements, defining, and shaping each other (Author 1, 2019; Law, 2004; Leander & Lovvorn, 2006). 2) Positionality refers to the interplay of the individual's social, emotional, and political space which is dependent on negotiation and power (Maher & Tetrault, 1993). 3) Criticality refers to a social dimension of critical thinking that also involves acting "against established norms and practices with which they are confronted" (Davies, 2015). These concepts are operationalized by the following analytical questions posed to the empirical material. 1) In what relations do "criticality" appear in this context? 2) What are students' possibilities of exploring their positionality through literature as radical aesthetics (RA)? 3) How do the material, emotional, and socio-political identities occur, and how are they negotiated when working with and beyond texts?

We conclude that the students experience their literature education as being managed, controlled, and even restrained. These students do comply with educational expectations, and they do well in school. Still, nothing in our material suggests that these young women experience empowerment in and through their Literature classes. The students experience that they are seldom invited into more overarching discussions about the literature they read in school or about the choices of books. Even connecting literature to the students' own experiences seems to be controlled and restrained by the matrix driven and 'constructively aligned' curriculum. They tell us how they come up with suitable, however often invented or exaggerated, personal experiences that will fit well and comply with the requirements for the higher grades. The students express concern and frustration over the fact that the discussions on #metoo have been totally absent from their classroom teaching. These young women experienced that women's loud voices in many parts of the Swedish society (as well as globally) were silenced in school. The exploratory analytical approach of the study is intended to highlight the complexity involved in teaching and engaging in discussions about critical issues, and to address readers' positionalities, which is dependent on the situatedness as well as agency in relation to the act of reading and its potential of identification and resistance. Thus, the issues at hand for educational research concern not only facts and knowledge about the actual causes and solutions to global and societal problems, but also how educators can take on a responsibility to allow and make space for students to address their concerns. The conclusion is that education, not least Literature education as RA, should aim to create spaces where students can explore and develop themselves and their position in society — critically and creatively.

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