This presentation highlights the ongoing Quality Literature Education (QUALE) project within QUINT. QUALE is a small-scall qualitative intervention of an inquiry-oriented approach to literature education carried out in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In the project, we explore how learning resources designed for a large-scale intervention project in Denmark that tested a program theory for inquiry-oriented literature teaching (the so-called KiDM project, cf. Hansen et al., 2019) could be translated and transformed into Swedish and Norwegian and used in local Swedish and Norwegian schools. We hypothesize that the empirically supported KiDM model of quality teaching will be transformed, to a lesser or higher degree, when used by participating teachers and students in different school contexts, and this variety is co-shaped by the unique constellation of didactic reality, didactic theory and didactic practice in different countries (O'Dowd, Winther-Jensen, & Wikander, 2015). However, we also hypothesize that due to the existential structure of literature as well as language and cultural similarities in Nordic L1 subjects, it is possible to extend, in meaningful ways, the KiDM program theory and learning resources across Nordic borders. Methodologically, the QUALE project applies a multi-case qualitative comparative design across national contexts which involves researchers from both Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Sharing and analysing data in a joint intersubjectively validating effort, we ask: i) How do students and teachers in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish classrooms transform inquiry-oriented design material for literature education in L1 classrooms?; ii) how do teachers perceive the effects and interpret an inquiry-based approach in relation to contextual factors, needs and potentials for conducting literature education of a high quality?; and iii) to what extent does local and/or national contexts, such as curricula, systemic constraints and local school resources, co-shape teachers’ and students’ transformations and understandings? Preliminary analyses of the project’s developmental and first intervention phases (Christensen, 2021; Gabrielsen, 2021; Randahl, Olin-Scheller, & Blix, 2021) suggest that the basic model and resources for inquiry-oriented teaching resonate with and at the same time challenge Nordic L1 teachers’ literature teaching practices. For discussion, we argue that the QUALE project could be interpreted as one case of a pluralistic approach to teaching quality. Engaging in subject-specific studies of teaching help us understand that a ‘surplus of quality’ (Elf, 2021) is found in teaching. Dependent of the subject- and domain-specific unit of analysis and the situated nature of teaching, a rich variety of qualities for teaching is found.

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