This study aims to investigate and discuss the role of the German anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl within different uses of history in various contexts. Particularly, it intends to investigate how the memory of Sophie Scholl has been brought forward and relayed in different types of sources in the contexts of three different so-called cultures of historical use. The three different cultures: education culture, popular culture and memory culture, have been determined based on research by Klas-Göran Karlsson on the separation and categorisation of the intents and needs behind the usage of historical figures and events.The research questions that have been posed and used as guides for the writing of this study are the following: How has Sophie Scholl been portrayed by the creators in the study's sources, and how can the intention behind the usage be interpreted? And, what tendencies, similarities, and differences can be discerned between the three different historical cultures' portrayal of the image of Sophie Scholl? The artefacts used for the study range from biographies and films to statues as well as a social media account. The study found that, among other things, the using of Sophie Scholl’s memory fills the need for remembering the good within an era of German history often viewed as very dark. Furthermore, the memory of Scholl has been used, to a substantial extent, in order to preserve and highlight an example of an individual of extraordinary courage. Finally, the study also found that although similar characteristics are used and presented, there is also a clear difference in the intentions of the usage of Scholl’s memory as well as the effect said usage gives. / Denna studie syftar till att undersöka och diskutera den tyska antinazistiska aktivisten Sophie Scholls roll inom olika användningar av historia i olika sammanhang. Närmare bestämt avser den att undersöka hur minnet av Sophie Scholl har lyfts fram och brukats i olika typer av källor inom tre olika så kallade historiekulturer. De tre olika kulturerna: utbildningskultur, populärkultur och minneskultur, har bestämts baserat på forskning av Klas-Göran Karlsson om kategoriseringen av avsikter och behoven bakom brukandetav historiska figurer och händelser. Studiens tre frågeställningar, utifrån vilka arbetet har förts, är följande: Hur har Sophie Scholl framställts av framställarna i studens källor, och hur kan intentionen bakom brukandet tolkas? Och, vilka tendenser, likheter och olikheter kan urskiljas mellan de tre olika historiekulturernas framställning av bilden av Sophie Scholl? Artefakterna som användes för studien sträcker sig från biografier och filmer till statyer samt ett instagramkonto. Studien kom, bland annat, fram till att användningen av Sophie Scholls minne uppfyller behovet av att minnas det goda inom en era av tysk historia som ofta ses som mycket mörk. Vidare har minnet av Scholl i stor utsträckning använts för att bevara och lyfta fram ett exempel på en individ med extraordinärt mod. Slutligen fann studien också att även om liknande egenskaper används och presenteras, finns det också en viss skillnad i avsikterna bakom brukandet av Scholls minne samt effekten av framställandet.

This essay is written as a master’s thesis for history education and pedagogy at the University of Dalarna. The aim of the essay is to explore how students’ storytelling about the Holocaust is influenced by the visit at the ”Mahnmal”(~’place to remind and admonish’) of Sachsenhausen. To answer this question, four students in their final year of upper secondary school in Sweden have been interviewed before and after a school trip to the former concentration camp. The smaller stories and story-segments which emerged during interviews were summarized as larger stories and mainly analyzed with the help of four questions, stemming from Arthur W. Frank’s socio-narratology. It is difficult to draw general conclusions, due to the individual nature of storytelling. There are, however, some general trends to be found in the adoption of certain descriptions, a closer relationship between storytellers and their historically informed stories, as well as a change in role-taking affiliated with visits at Holocaust Memorial sites.

This compilation thesis contains an introductory chapter and four original articles. The studies comprising this thesis all concern aspects of how historical culture is constituted in historical media and history teachers’ narratives and teaching. It is argued that the teaching of history is a complex matter due to an internal tension resulting from the fact that history is both a product and a process at the same time. While historical facts, and knowledge thereof, are an important aspect of history, history is also a product of careful interpretation and reconstruction. This study analyses and discusses how history is constituted in history textbooks and popular history magazines, i.e. two common historical media, and in teachers’ narratives and teaching of history. The study finds that the historical media studied generally tend to present history as void of perspective, interpretation and representation, suggesting this to be the culturally warranted form of historical exposition. Moreover, the teachers studied also tend to approach history as if it were not contingent on interpretation and reconstruction. These results indicate that the history disseminated in historical media and history classrooms presents history in a factual way and disregards the procedural aspects of history. Applying the history didactical concepts of historical consciousness, historical culture and uses of history, this thesis argues that an essential aspect of historical understanding is an appreciation of the contextual contingency that characterises history. All history is conceived within a particular context that is pertinent to why and how a certain version of history is constructed. Furthermore, all history is also received within a particular context by people with particular preconceptions of history that are contextually contingent, in the sense that they are situated in a certain historical culture. Readers of historical media are members of societies and are thus affected by how history is perceived and discussed in these contexts. This thesis argues that an awareness of these aspects of history is an important factor for furthering a complex understanding of history that encompasses the tension highlighted above.

<p>This essay is called <em>What kind of history? and </em>is about how history teachers think when they chose what to teach about and why. In the curriculum there are no guidelines about what substance you have to teach about. This gives the schools and teachers a big freedom. At the same time there is a kind of informal canon which says that it is the European perspective that is the important one. By doing interviews with ten history teachers in two upper secondary schools I try to see what they teach about and why. One of the schools has a global profile and by making a comparative study of the two schools I can see what is different and what is the same in the two schools. Other scientists have studied this subject about Eurocentric history education but not by asking the teachers themselves. There are several studies about the history textbooks and all of them conclude that the text books have a Eurocentric perspective and that is a problem. There are also studies about the curriculum and other steering documents and that concludes that it says in the documents that the education have to have a intercultural perspective, but at the same time de document talks about a western cultural heritage that we have to protect and nurture. I use the theories that Ross Dunn and Kenneth Nordgren presents about teaching a more including and global history.</p><p>My conclusions are that the history education can look very different in Swedish schools today. At the same time the history textbooks guides the teachers a lot about what material to use in the history lessons, so if you want to do something else you have to get other teaching materials than the traditional textbooks, as they do in the school whit the global profile.</p>

This essay is called What kind of history? and is about how history teachers think when they chose what to teach about and why. In the curriculum there are no guidelines about what substance you have to teach about. This gives the schools and teachers a big freedom. At the same time there is a kind of informal canon which says that it is the European perspective that is the important one. By doing interviews with ten history teachers in two upper secondary schools I try to see what they teach about and why. One of the schools has a global profile and by making a comparative study of the two schools I can see what is different and what is the same in the two schools. Other scientists have studied this subject about Eurocentric history education but not by asking the teachers themselves. There are several studies about the history textbooks and all of them conclude that the text books have a Eurocentric perspective and that is a problem. There are also studies about the curriculum and other steering documents and that concludes that it says in the documents that the education have to have a intercultural perspective, but at the same time de document talks about a western cultural heritage that we have to protect and nurture. I use the theories that Ross Dunn and Kenneth Nordgren presents about teaching a more including and global history. My conclusions are that the history education can look very different in Swedish schools today. At the same time the history textbooks guides the teachers a lot about what material to use in the history lessons, so if you want to do something else you have to get other teaching materials than the traditional textbooks, as they do in the school whit the global profile.

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The present study analyzes attitudes made manifest when media technology is used in teaching at Swedish upper secondary schools. It examines discourses related to the subject of history by comparing contemporary circumstances with those of the mid-1980s, making research in both educational history and history education indispensible to its execution. The study considers the impact of technology on human interaction as an essentially social construction. Furthermore, it addresses questions about the role media technology plays in current discourses, about the actors that are manifested in these discourses and about their didactic implications. Since the investigation focuses on discourse, it is an interpretive work. Analytical tools have been borrowed from the field of discourse theory to facilitate a broad understanding of discourse and communication. The analysis is conducted in order to reconstruct chains of analogy and nodal points of communication in media technology and teaching, with specific attention paid to matters related to the subject of history. Secondary school policy documents, curricula relevant to each period, teacher´s periodicals and interviews with history teachers are combined to reconstruct discourses on technology in education. Interviews were conducted with six history teachers, three of whom taught in the 1980s, while the remainder began teaching in the past fifteen years. The periodicals studied are Lärarnas tiding and Skolvärlden, including every issue published in the years 1983, 1985, 1987, 2008, 2010 and 2012. Four discourses on media technology in education have been reconstructed from this material. Two of the discourses are relevant to the mid-eighties, and have been called the discourse on the school of the future and the discourse on film, junk culture and education, respectively. The discourses reconstructed from the years around 2010 are named the discourse on the contemporary school and the discourse on good teaching. These discourses generally nurture an optimistic belief in what media technology can mean to school and teaching. The reasons for using technology in the classroom are based on notions of what is required from society or what is relevant to the students. The roles of media technology in education are affected by several groups of actors, including government officials, marketers, school leadership and teachers. The process was however never significantly affected by formal policy. One aspect central to a positive view of media technology in education was that it would improve the quality of teaching, especially in the case of history, characterized by storytelling and lecturing. Certain didactic considerations became visible in the study of these discourses, which risked being shallow and trend sensitive, insofar as it might be difficult for teachers to find suitable forums for peer-to-peer subject specific reflections on media technology.

Syftet med den här intervjustudien är att belysa hur sju kvinnliga gymnasieelever med en utomeuropeisk bakgrund upplever och förhåller sig till den eurocentriska och manliga kanon inom historieundervisningen. Metoden som har använts är semistrukturerade djupintervjuer med en teoretisk utgångspunkt i grundad teori samt existentiell hermeneutik. Det som har framkommit av elevernas utsagor har sedan problematiserats utifrån Edward Saids teorier presenterade i Orientalism samt Simone de Beauvoirs teorier i Det andra könet. Samtliga intervjupersoner är kritiska till den eurocentriska och manliga kanon i historieundervisningen. Det finns dock en distinkt skillnad mellan hur eleverna resonerar kring dessa två företeelser där den manliga kanon betydligt enklare legitimeras och på så sätt blir immun mot kritik. Eleverna upplever generellt att de inte kan identifiera sig med sin historieundervisning. De tillskriver sina egna identifikationer som kvinnor och som utomeuropéer, och/eller som personer med insikt i en annan kultur, viss betydelse för hur de resonerar kring frågor som rör kanon i undervisningen.

The aim of this study has been to investigate future history teachers’ perspectives of the development of the subject of history, in conjunction with the democratic mission of the curriculum. Based on critically constructivist theories, the history subject is reproducing oppressive structures, especially related to gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, which is not in line with the democratic mission, teachers are obliged to comply with. History didactic research also shows that the subject of history tends to be characterized by eurocentrism, ethnocentrism and a perspective based on male domination which problematizes an inclusive, democratic education.

Controversial issues are inevitable in today’s history classrooms and, therefore, history teachers must be able to handle them. Thus, this paper aims to provide knowledge about controversial issues in history teaching. To do this, a systematic review is used to answer which issues history teachers and pupils perceive as controversial, why controversial issues should be taught, which history teachers avoid or teach controversial issues, and how history teachers can go about teaching them. Firstly, the results show that immigration and history teachers and pupils’ backgrounds can make issues controversial. Secondly, the findings highlight that controversial issues should be taught since they can develop democratic values among pupils and foster critical thinking. Thirdly, history teachers teach controversial issues if they are supported, want their pupils to criticize the nation’s past, and value the benefits of such teaching. Contrary, history teachers avoid controversial issues if they aren’t supported, worry that controversial issues can threaten the national image, fear strong reactions from their pupils, and when they doubt their ability to deal with multiple perspectives. Lastly, the results demonstrate that when teaching controversial issues, history teachers should use their own and their pupils’ experiences, allow pupils to express their emotions, and thoroughly explain the connection between past and present. The findings are discussed in relation to theories of use of history, collective memory, teacher agency and, finally, the Swedish national curriculum.