Historieundervisningens påverkan på elevers identitetsskapande - Lärarens betydelse i elevernas identitetsutveckling

Abstract Title: The affect of History teachings in students identity development – The teachers importance in students identity development The history of Swedish historical education has gone from wanting to create a good Swedish citizen to creating good critical-thinking member of a democratic nation. The laws and regulations concerning high school- level history in Sweden has changed tremendously over the years. Since 2011 the schools focuses on teaching students how to understand, interpret and critique history. This is vital in order to understand the community today and to see its future potential. The documents from the Swedish government put alot of emphasis of an intercultural perspective since Sweden has become a meltingpot of cultures. This has not only changed the regulations of the expectations of Swedish pupils but has changed the way history is taught. One of the main goals is to build and evolve the historial awareness in the students which according to a report from 2003 also affects the students sense of identity. Identity as a concept can seem vague since it can mean many things to different people. The way identity is created and reinforced works differently for different people. This essay will show how identity as a concept is being used and worked with worldwide. The results show that no matter how identity is being used, it is vital for students to understand themselves and their identity in order to place themselves in history. The results also show how historical awareness and identity are strongly linked to one another. In this essay I will use the definition of identity with literature concering its meaning. However it is with outmost importance to point out that the identity-concept is highly complex and an extremely broad concept. When analyzing reports, articles and literature it is clear that history plays a vital part in the development of identity in students. This combinded with a definition of identity as well as researching government regulations in Sweden the results are ever more convincing. The research compilated in this essay show that students benefit from a greater sense of identity when their history education is done well. The results also show how more perspectives in their education include more students and therefore enhance their historical awareness and awareness of themselves Contributing factors according to the various sources show how teachers carry resposibility for their students identity development and also how teachers affect the teaching. The essay bring up various situations in classrooms worldwide that either show the importance of identity development or how it is being used. Many of the sitations handle students that differ from the society they live in to give more validity to the results