The colonial heritage of Swedish music textbooks : “we” and “them” in music textbooks for Swedish grade school.

This literature analysis aims to explore the colonial heritage of textbooks meant for teaching music in Swedish grade schools. The books analysed were released between 1969 and 2018 and range from pure songbooks, pure textbooks to teacher guides. With the tools from critical discourse analyses combined with the postcolonial theory this study explores how the textbooks group and portray individuals with a special focus on the supposed reader as opposed to “the others”. The results show that “we” in the Swedish music textbook is a western white person who has prior knowledge of western religious and cultural expressions. This study also shows that pictures and text combined attribute negative traits to the “other” individuals portrayed. Western music theory is often portrayed as general and serve to define the “we” group with its necessary prior knowledge. This study also shows that texts that are neutral or positive in tone still use language that place individuals in the “we” and “them” groups