Sweden is a country which has a diverse and multicultural population, stemming from a high immigration to the country. This diverse population is reflected in the student bodies of classrooms around the country and provide an arena for different cultures to interact. Classes are usually grounded in textbooks and therefore it becomes vital to use inclusive textbooks that further intercultural understanding. This study aims to study social science textbooks from 1960-2011 and study how they define Swedishness and handle different cultures. It also aims to answer how the books relate to their respective curricula with a focus on intercultural learning. The study is based on discourse analysis and analyses the textbooks with relation to intercultural learning, Said’s theory of orientalism and Fanon’s theory of otherness. The books chosen for the study are a grade 7-8 book from 1967, the rest are high school books from 1967, 2004 and 2011. They were chosen due to being used during different curricula and therefore give a historic perspective on social science textbooks contents. The study found that the two older books defined Swedishness in a very static way based on skin color, language, etc, whilst the two newer books had a more fluid definition of Swedishness and how it is ever changing depending on the Swedish population. The two older books only had a small portion dedicated to dealing with international problems and other cultures and gave a shallower description lacking larger context compared to the newer ones. This was further reflected in their respective curricula with the newer having a larger focus on creating understanding between groups.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-42472 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Åkesson, Pontus, Mukka Nordlund, Alexander |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Malmö högskola, Institutionen för samhälle, kultur och identitet (SKI), Malmö universitet, Malmö högskola, Institutionen för samhälle, kultur och identitet (SKI) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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