Kolonisatör eller turist? Frågor och arbetsuppgifter i svenska historieläromedel under en tid av kunskapsideologisk förhandling

Abstract

Coloniser or Tourist?: Questions and Exercises in Swedish History Textbooks, 1927–2015. The history of History as a Swedish school subject has usually been based on two sources: curriculum plans and textbook narratives. Drawing upon more than 900 exercises that occur in 72 history textbooks published 1927–2015, this article primarily examines which different approaches to history that have been prearranged to the pupils during the second half of the last century. It is shown that a great majority of the exercises, throughout the whole period of time, prescribes a simple reproduction of unchallenged truths. It is also argued that both disciplinarian assignments and aesthetic tasks, seem to appear at least as often before, as after, the 1970s. Subsequently, especially in the 1990s, the exercises occasionally ask for the individual student’s own opinions - without demanding them to consider any historical circumstances. Accordingly it is argued that while the former category of exercises most often enjoin the distanced view of the uninvolved tourist, the latter rather instructs the pupil to embrace the coloniser’s self-centred perspective of the past.