The world's literature in a multicultural school

All students in Sweden should through education be taught to respect and understandthe different cultures that exist in today’s multicultural society. To fully understand thisdiversity, students must be given the chance to somehow see the perspectives andunderstand the lives of different people. One way to start achieving this understandingis through the study of literature in the subject Swedish. The aim of this essay is toinvestigate the representation of a multicultural society in high school literaryeducation. This is done through a survey which has been answered by 28 high schoolteachers. The results show that a majority of the teachers include literature from Asia,Africa and South America in their teaching. Through their teaching they wish tobroaden the perspectives of the students and increase their understanding of amulticultural world. Some of the teachers do not include this kind of literature thoughbecause of reasons like lack of time and knowledge