This thesis studies teachers’ and students’ conceptions of history and history teaching and aims to explain the importance of an interest in history among teachers and students of the subject. Research on teachers’ conceptions (e.g. Martin 2005) shows that the didactical question “Why?” influences the “How?” and “Why?” questions and that teachers’ thinking about their own practice is mainly influenced by their background and their experiences from teaching. Research on students’ opinions (e.g. Youth and History, 1997) shows that they enjoy history shown in films, that they appreciate museums, and that the preferred topic is 20th century history. In this thesis learning is envisaged as something individual but it is the learners’ social context that defines what is important, meaningful and interesting to learn. The research methods consist of a survey study concerning the pupils’ attitudes towards history and history education, and an interview study with their teachers about their teaching and their opinions about history in general. Nine teachers and their 217 pupils participated. It is mainly topics from 20th century that are described as interesting by both students and teachers. The teachers had different views on the didactical whyquestion, which they described either as student oriented or subject oriented. Their views on why history is important influenced their teaching methods. The student oriented teachers stated that their pupils’ needs and wishes affect their methods while the subject oriented teachers said that they give varying lessons, and have a more student active teaching, but decide for themselves what teaching methods are to be used. The subject matter is influenced by the teachers’ personal interest in history, in most cases a Eurocentric political history. This choice of content, and the teachers own interest, are explained by the historical culture of Swedish society rather than the curriculum. The teachers state that exciting stories and dramatic events related in books or films were, and still are, important to their interest in history. Their individual interpretation of what is important and meaningful in their historical culture influences teachers’ personal interest, their knowledge, and the content of their history teaching. The students’ attitudes to history are also influenced by various factors, of which history education at school is merely one.

Under 2000-talet har det producerats och spridits mängder av betydande forskning som publicerats via databaser. En betydelsefull länk i kunskapsspridningen utgörs av akademin som i dag står för den största andelen av vetenskapliga publikationer. I denna historiografiskt inriktade undersökning kartläggs och undersöks en del av svensk historieforskning och historieskrivning som ägt rum under 2000-talet. Den vetenskapliga disciplin som undersöks inom det humanistiska fältet är historievetenskapen, avgränsat till de resultat av forskning som studenter gjort runtom på de svenska universiteten och högskolorna, i ämnet historia. Källmaterialet består av studentuppsatser som publicerats i databasen Digitala vetenskapliga arkivet, DiVA vilket i dag ses som det nationellt mest använda systemet för publikationsdata, med över 400 tusen publicerade fulltexter varav antal nedladdade uppgår över 53 miljoner gånger. Genom empiriska och teoretiska studier och bruket av både kvantitativa och kvalitativa metoder analyseras metadata, för att ge svar och resultat över frågan om vad studenter i det svenska utbildningssystemet, på universitet och högskolor skriver historia om under 2000-talet. För att få fram svar fungerade bibliometri som kunskapsområde och frågan om vilka nyckelord som dominerar och var de mest frekvent använda i taggningen (definitionerna) av forskningsresultaten ställdes. Delfrågan om hur bruket av nyckelord ser ut över tid användes för att få fram och se trend över resultat. Teoretiskt ramverk i undersökningen och läsning av de kvantitativa resultaten utgick från Kuhns teori om paradigm. Resultat visar att Genus, Historiebruk, Arkeologi, Historiemedvetande, Historiedidaktik, Identitet, Osteologi, Andra världskriget, Diskursanalys, Kalla kriget, Samer, Laborativ arkeologi och Utbildningshistoria utgör några ledande sakområden som studenterna skrivit historia om under 2000-talet. Resultat visar också att det nationella paradigmet är ledande för studenternas historieforskning, även om USA, Sovjetunionen, Jugoslavien, Japan, Finland, Sápmi och Israel förekommer frekvent. Avslutningsvis visade föreliggande undersökning att metadata kan användas som resurs i historieforskning samtidigt som det historiska perspektivet vidgas. / During the 2000s, numerous significant researches have been produced and disseminated through databases. An important link in the dissemination of knowledge consists of the academy, which today accounts for the largest proportion of scientific publications. In this historiographically oriented study, a part of Swedish history research and history writing that took place during the 2000s is mapped and examined. The scientific discipline that is investigated in the humanities field is the science of history, limited to the results of research that students have done around the Swedish universities and colleges, in the subject of history. The source material consists of student essays published in the database Digital Scientific Archive, DiVA, which today is seen as the nationally most used system for publication data, with over 400 thousand published full texts, of which the number downloaded is over 53 million times.  Through empirical and theoretical studies and the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, metadata is analyzed, to provide answers and results on the question of what students in the Swedish education system, at universities and colleges write history about during the 2000s. To obtain answers, bibliometrics functioned as an area of ​​knowledge and the question of which keywords dominated and were the most frequently used in the tagging (definitions) of the research results was asked. The sub-question about how the use of keywords looks over time was used to bring out and see the trend over results. Theoretical framework in the study and reading of the quantitative results was based on Kuhn's theory of paradigm.  Results indicate that Gender, History Use, Archeology, History Consciousness, History Didactics, Identity, Osteology, World War II, Discourse Analysis, the Cold War, Sami, Laboratory Archeology and Educational History are some leading subject areas that students wrote history about during the 2000s. Results also point out that the national paradigm is leading for students' history research, although the United States, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Japan, Finland, Sápmi and Israel occur frequently. In conclusion, the present study showed that metadata can be used as a resource in history research while broadening the historical perspective.

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka hur lärare på mellanstadiet förhåller sig till historisk tid. Fokus var de undersökta lärarnas utsagor om hur de resonerar kring sin egen och sina elevers förståelse för historisk tid samt om lärarnas resonemang kring användandet av artefakter i undervisningen. Det är fem medverkande lärare i studien med olika erfarenheter i att undervisa i skolämnet historia. Lärarna har intervjuats och därefter har jag analyserat deras redogörelser utifrån Joel Rudnerts fyra beståndsdelar: sekvens, berättare, aktör och kanon. I undersökningen har det konstaterats utifrån lärarnas narrativa mönster om hur de resonerar kring sin undervisning att beståndsdelen sekvens är mycket framträdande. Förutom lärarnas intervjuer baseras detta arbete på tidigare forskning om barn och ungdomars förståelse för historisk tid. Joel Rudnert och Nanny Hartsmar är två framträdande forskare i syftet om att förstå hur barn och ungdomar ser på historisk tid. En av slutsatserna blev utifrån det att tidsuppfattning och historiemedvetande är sammanlänkande, samt att förståelsen för då-, nu- och framtid är en utvecklingsprocess. Mitt syfte med detta arbete är att öka kunskapen om hur elever på mellanstadiet uppfattar historisk tid och hur vi kan arbeta med begreppet i historieundervisningen. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how middle school teachers relate to historical time. The focus was on the teachers´ statements about how they reason about their own and their students´ understanding of historical time, as well as the teachers reasoning about the use of artifacts in the education. There are five participating teachers in the study with different experiences in teaching of the school subject history. The teachers have been interviewed and then I have analyzed their statements based on Joel Rudnert's four components: sequence, narrator, actor and canon. In the study, it has been established from the teachers' narrative pattern of how they reason about their teaching that the component “sequence” is very prominent. Definitions of sequence can appear in different ways, such as a large narrative or year mark on a timeline. In addition to the teachers 'interviews, this work is based on past research on children and adolescents' understanding of historical time. Joel Rudnert and Nanny Hartsmar are two prominent researchers with the aim of understanding how children and young people see history. One of the conclusions was based on the fact that time perception and historical consciousness are interconnected, and that understanding of the past, now and future is a developmental process. Scientist are also debating about if the children needs to have the understanding about their own personal time before they can handle historical time. In this study, historical time will not be defined based on the period when the written sources emerged. Instead the study will focus on the aspects of time that are a result of history. My aim with this work is to increase knowledge about how middle school students perceive historical time and how we as teachers can work with this in our teaching of history.

The traditional history educational methods mainly consists of and are focused on memory, reading, repetition and writing skills, however this paper aims to give an overview of research regarding “Game-based learning”, it’s uses in education of history, and if it can be used as a way to complement the traditional education and give history teachers the tools to make their teaching more diverse. Useful materials were found in the databases: EBSCO, IEEE Xplore och Science Direct. Each of the 3 practical and 3 informational studies has been carefully selected by their subject relevance and the quality of the study’s gathering, use and compilation of data. The results in this overview are both positive and negative. The studies found on the subject show that the students not only learn historical facts when using game-based learning but also become very engaged in the lesson and achieve a deeper historical perspective where they can understand the historical events in the historical context and relate to people of that point in time. However, the drawbacks are that some students have been reported to have missed some facts altogether, and that would have been avoided in traditional education (Erhel & Jamet, 2013). Another drawback that has been noted is that Game Based learning is incredibly time consuming and if it is not used correctly it risks creating a dilemma for the history teacher where the teacher has to choose Game-based learning or traditional education of history (Watson & Mong & Harris, 2010). But if it is used correctly, studies have also shown that they can be combined (Erhel & Jamet, 2013; Kuran & Tozoglu & Tavernari, 2018).