This research focuses on how help materials impact on high school students history learning. The concentration lies in putting the students at the center of the research and highlighting their attitude to the method. The essay tries to report statistics and facts about the students' attitude to the learning method. The essay must seek answers to what specific abilities are developed within the didactic area of history and how cause-effect is reasoned. The essay is a preliminary investigation for possibly a more advanced investigation in the future. The sources were provided by student and teacher responses to an aided test. The essay seeks answers to the following questions in order to achieve the purpose of the research: How do aids in examinations affect students' learning? How do students relate to the specific learning method? How do the teacher relate to the specific learning method? Which perspectives on history appear in the student answers?      The survey was carried out in a vocational high school located in a medium sized city in Sweden. 12 students participated in the survey. In the essay, an inventory design study with structured interviews is applied. Structured interviews are often used as a research strategy in both qualitative and quantitative methods.      The results show that the students have a positive attitude towards the learning method and that the method has a positive effect on their subject knowledge within the subject of history. The study as a whole needs to be seen as an initial preliminary investigation into how the method of using aids in examinations affects the students' historical subject progression in history.

Abstract/Summary The study of history has always been a part of educational programmes throughout time. And the reasons behind it have also been shifting according to the needs of the society in a specific time and place. But the legitimacy of the history subject has always been in its said ability to help us understand the present through the past. Today the emergence of a globalized and multicultural society is changing both our way of life as well as our view on the world, and with it the skills and tools we need to make sense of it. And with it the reasons behind and the learning goals of history as an educational subject is shifting. International organizations have implemented guidelines and directives to its members regarding how educational goals can be used to adapt to this ongoing change. Research regarding curriculum policymaking has shown that the Swedish curriculum is influenced by the international guidelines, but the didactic specialists, Kenneth Nordgren and Maria Johansson, has found a lack of guidance for teachers to enact these general goals on a more practical day-to-day basis. This has led them formulate a concept especially designed for history education, intercultural historical learning. This essay’s aim is to find the conditions to apply the concept of intercultural historical learning through the history subject in the compulsory and upper secondary school in Sweden. By taking its departure in curriculum theory and using intercultural historical learning as an analytical framework, a hermeneutical text analysis is made on the Swedish history curriculum with its supporting documents as well as on the national tests of the subject. The results indicate that there are conditions that both encourages and discourages the implementation of intercultural historical learning in history education. The curriculum’s emphasis on the usage of historic source material and use of history examples are a major contributor to the applicably of the concept. In contrast the historical narrative created by the curriculum prevents a diversity of historical experiences and voices to be present in the teaching practice. Instead a Eurocentric and political historic narrative is dominant. However, further research is required to see what other factors than those this essay examine affect the implementation of intercultural historical learning in the Swedish history classroom. This essay’s main contribution is to serve as a starting point for such research.

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.