The degree project is a literary study, investigating whether Mats Wahl’s young adult novel Vinterviken (1993) is suitable to use in the teaching of literature in upper secondary education. The purpose of the study is to analyse how gender and ethnicity are portrayed in the novel as well as to examine how it can be connected to a teacher’s duty of knowledge and duty of democracy. Using previous empirical studies who have also investigated Vinterviken, suggests how this could be further developed so that the duties of knowledge and democracy in the upper secondary school can be converged. The result of the study shows that gender and ethnicity are central themes of Vinterviken and that these are expressed in various ways in the novel. The result also shows that the wide-ranging content of Vinterviken makes it a potential and valuable tool in the teaching of literature, both as applies to the duty of knowledge and that of democracy. Including the novel in the teaching of literature may also be an opportunity for both duties to converge.