The purpose of this study is to examine the historical consciousness and the use of history among pupils in 6th grade, in Swedish elementary school. To do this, the aim is to answer the following questions: Which types of history use are to be found among 6th graders, and how are these expressed? What historical consciousness/historical thinking do 6th graders display, and how is this expressed? What interest do 6th graders have in history? The method used in this study is a survey, which has been answered anonymously by 60 pupils in four different classes, from four different elementary schools, and in four different Swedish suburbs. The final analysis is based on theories on historical thinking/historical consciousness, uses of history, and history cultures, described by important historians, such as Rüsen, Ammert, and Karlsson. The study has led to the conclusion that, although a large majority of the pupils say that they are interested in history and think it is relevant, very few of them can mention uses of history outside the school context. The answers do not reveal a notably developed historical consciousness, even though there are signs expressing historical consciousness to a limited extent. One of the main characteristics of historical consciousness among the pupils is their use of concepts for historical change, such as development and consequence.

The aim of this study is to compare the subject syllabuses for history education in uppersecondary school of Finland, Norway and Sweden. Three syllabuses from Norway, two from Finland and one from Sweden for courses that are compulsory for higher education preparatory programmes in the three countries have been analysed and compared. Qualitative content analysis has been used to find similarities and differences for what the countries find important with and in the history subject. A deductive analysis has been used for the part of the syllabus where the aim and the goals are written. An inductive analysis has been used for the part of the course content. By using a deductive content analysis with a coding scheme based on common historical didactic terms, the result of this study shows that every country finds that historical consciousness, narration, historical empathy, historical method and the uses of history are important parts of the history subject and education. However, the countries differ when it comes to if they see these parts as the aim or as a goal with the subject or the education. The inductive content analysis shows that all countries find sources and work with sources, uses of history, time periods, global historical events and processes and development of state and societies as important parts of the education. A difference between the countries is that Finland and Norway have more specific national history content in the syllabuses than Sweden has. Therewith does this result show that both Norway and Sweden find it important to problematize the time periods and to have different historical questions, aspects and explanations in the content of history education.

The aim of this essay is to analyse the progression between textbooks written for lower secondary school and upper secondary school that help students to evolve their history consciousness. The study examined how two textbooks each from three different history courses presented the Industrial Revolution and if there is a progression in content between the textbooks. To examine this, texts, study questions and illustrations were examined with a comparative analysis. The results showed that progression occurs between textbooks written for lower secondary school and upper secondary school. This is foremost seen quantitatively, in an increasing amount of facts. However, this increase is not great and can mainly be seen as an increase of facts in combination of the portraiture of new perspectives e.g. the industrialisations impact on society and democracy.

Abstract Title: History teaching and intercultural competence This study takes as its starting point the relationship between the multicultural and globalised society and history as a school subject, and explores it theoretically as well as empirically.  Intercultural historical competence, which is the main theoretical and analytical concept of the study, is developed from theories of narrative competence and theories of intercultural competence, and is positioned in the intersection between the two. Narrative competence describes historical consciousness as being characterised by three distinct sub-competencies, the competence of experience, the competence of interpretation and the competence of orientation. Historical learning is seen as the qualification of these competencies to be able to tell meaningful stories about our lives.  The empirical case study explores how intercultural historical competence as a learning objective is interpreted and enacted in one history classroom. The enacted object of learning is regarded as a co-construction between the teacher, the pupils and historical narratives. This study explores how experiences and interpretations of the past are made and used in the work in the classroom. The question of what constitutes each narrative sub-competence is addressed and discussed in three empirical chapters respectively. The source material mainly consists of observations from a sequel of 25 history lessons in an upper secondary school The empirical results show how different dimensions of each sub-competence contribute to what is possible to learn in relation to intercultural historical competence. One important dimension of the competence of experience is the employment of strategies of pluralism, deconstruction and counter-narratives to open up closed narratives. The competence of interpretation is strengthened by the use of second-order concepts as tools to qualify historical thinking. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how it is possible to practise the competence of orientation by giving pupils the opportunity to use historical narratives and historical tools to make sense of the present and to think about the future. One additional conclusion is that the planning process, when the learning objective is interpreted and framed into lessons and exercises, is decisive for what is possible for pupils to learn. Finally, it is stated that history as a school subject has the capacity to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that are relevant in a multicultural and globalised society. Key words: history teaching, historical learning, history education, intercultural competence, intercultural education, historical consciousness, upper secondary school, class room study, object of learning, learning objective, historical narrative.

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.