This present paper takes its staring point in School-Cinema programmes in Sweden. Such programmes aim at using popular culture as an educational tool, as a part of learning processes and as learning sites (Ashcraft, 2003; Buckingham, 1998; 2000a; 2000b; Buckingham & Sefton-Green, 1994; Duncan-Andrade 2004). The films within School-Cinema programmes are commercial films and seldom singled out as specific films for children or youth. Moreover, the films are selected by public institutions such as the Swedish Film Institute and schools (Sparrman & Eriksson 2005). As this indicates, School-Cinema programmes transgress traditional borders of commercial- and educational films (Lindgren, Sparrman & Erikson, 2005).

A standard procedure in School-Cinema programmes is that pupils watch films at a theatre and then meet in class-room discussions about the films, even though other forms of follow up activities can be initiated. The paper presents data collected in a media ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the autumn 2003 around two films concerning political and societal issues: The Evil (2003) treats penalism at a boarding school in the 1950s and Lilya 4-ever (2002) treats sex trafficking in women and children (Sparrman & Eriksson, 2005). The school-framing of Lilya 4-ever was to discuss trafficking in women and children (cf. Sparrman 2007; Eriksson, forthcoming), and The Evil was supposed to prompt talk about bullying. The films are fictional but both have strong connections to real life events; The Evil is based on an autobiographical book, and Lilya 4-ever is based on a real trafficking case that got a lot of attention in Sweden through a Swedish investigative news program 2000. Both films have been launched internationally, The Evil after its Oscar nomination and Lilya 4-ever by, among other things, being presented in the Russian Duma and The White House as a means to discuss trafficking in women and children.

The aim in the present paper is to highlight different meanings young people create about welfare and responsibility when discussing popular films in joint discursive activities. The analytical framework is critical discourse analysis (cf. Fairclough, 1992; 2003) in an educational context. Moreover, the focus is on the participating pupils' meaning constructions and not on teachers' role in knowledge production (cf. Sparrman 2007). By analysing the talk-in-interaction it is possible to understand how young people co-construct meanings concerning important contemporary issues such as welfare and agency. Three topics will be addressed in the paper, all emanating from pupils’ film-talk: Discourses on sameness and difference, Discourses on solutions and Discourses of responsibility. The paper will end with a discussion film-talk about visual popular culture, learning and young peoples political engagement in relation to film-talk.