This thesis focuses on four different aspects of history teachers’ comprehensiveunderstanding of the school subject history. More specifically, the aim is tostudy the comprehension of the subject as perceived by individual historyteachers. Special emphasis is placed on identifying the concepts of the field ofhistory that are central to the teachers’ understanding of the school subject history.The first aspect studied is the teachers’ biographical changes. In a life historyperspective it seems as if the teachers’ subject conception changes from anunproblematic and tentative approach to a more complex and confident understandingof the subject. The second aspect treated is the rationale behind theirgrasp of the purpose and content of the subject. Three major positions areidentified, namely educational (bildung) orientation, critical orientation, andidentity orientation.The third aspect studied is the teachers’ interpretation of a curriculumnew to them. The teachers placed the curriculum in the field of tension betweenan education policy position, emphasizing more precise knowledge, onthe one hand, and a history science position, emphasizing concepts of historicalconsciousness. The fourth aspect studied is five different conceptual tools displayedin the teachers’ remarks on having completed the teaching of a newcourse. These are termed ‘history as narrative’, ‘history as time-space’, ‘historyas explanation’, ‘history as perspective taking’, and ‘history as skills’At the general level the study shows not only that subject conception is ofimportance to the teachers’ understanding of their obligation as teachers of historybut also how it is formed and constantly transformed by many differentfactors. In this process it is clear that the concepts used by the teachers, althoughvariously defined, can be seen as specific to the school subject historyand essential to the construction of history as a school subject. / Vad är syftet med skolämnet historia och vad ska det innehålla? Det här är en doktorsavhandling där fokus sätts på lärares förståelse av skolämnet historia. Mer precist avgränsas syftet till att undersöka ämnesförståelsen hos nu verksamma historielärare. Särskild vikt läggs vid att identifiera centrala begrepp i lärarnas ämnesförståelse. Undersökningen bygger både på enkäter och intervjuer och tar sin utgångspunkt i fyra olika aspekter av historielärarnas ämnesförståelse som redovisas i separata studier. Den första aspekten är ämnesbiografisk och tar fasta på de faktorer lärarna menar har påverkat utvecklingen av deras ämnesförståelse. Den andra aspekten har sitt fokus på lärarnas förståelse av historieämnets övergripande syfte och innehåll. Den tredje aspekten handlar om hur lärarna tolkar inriktningen och innehållet i den nya ämnesplan som infördes i gymnasieskolan 2011. Den avslutande aspekten fokuserar på de ämnesredskap som blir synliga i de utsagor lärarna gör om innehållet i gymnasieskolans kurs Historia 1b.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:du-15470 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Berg, Mikael |
| Publisher | Högskolan Dalarna, Historia, Karlstad universitet, Karlstad |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Karlstad University Studies, 1403-8099 ; 2014:6 |
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