This work is a postcolonial study of educational books for the subject of history for upper secondary school. The purpose is to analyze to which extent the educational books fulfill the demands from the Swedish school curriculum to offer education which supports multiculturalism and international views. The work thereby studies in which way non-European countries are depicted in the educational books, to ascertain whether the books are eurocentric or not. To do so, postcolonial theory has been used to function as a means of analyzing the texts. The method used is text analysis to be able to ascertain attitudes or stances that the authors show with which words they choose to describe non-European countries and cultures. The findings show that both books are eurocentric in the way they portray non-Europeans, however to different extents. Alla tiders historia problematize their use of perspective less than Epos. Alla tiders historia makes use of many choices of language which strongly suggests that pupils reading it might get a view on history that strongly favors European exceptionalism, that is, the view that Europe was exceptional and therefore able to dominate other countries. This view does not allow for a deeper understanding of the multifaceted mechanisms which made possible European conquest. Instead this view allows for a simplistic reduction of history, which does not encourage students critical thinking of why the world is at it is today, and which processes shaped the world. This goes against what the curriculum states should be one of the aims of the subject of history, and the aim for the whole school, which is that students should be prepared to function in and be able to navigate a multicultural society. Lastly, an alternative route is proposed, grounded in Alan Singers proposition for a Global History with a social studies approach.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-97035 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Smakolli, Mergim |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper (KV) |
| 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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