Africa’s or Europe’s history? : A qualitative study of Swedish teaching material analysis of the Swedish view on the figuration of Africa’s history during the period 1960–2016

Sweden has gone from being a homogenous country to becoming a multicultural country during these past sixty years. Due to this reason history teaching and its’ teaching materials have been forced to adapt to the situation, however, some might have failed with doing so. The essay has its’ focus on the figuration and inclusion of African history in Swedish teaching material used in history classes during the period 1960 to 2016. Aside from this, the essay also handles the presentation and description of African history alone in textbooks. The aim of the essay thus becomes to examine whether teaching material used in history classes in upper secondary schools have changed due to the transformation Sweden has undergone by becoming a multicultural society. Postcolonial and orientalism criticism have been applied. Theoretical terms, such as eurocentrism and othering, have been used in order to analyze how the authors have described Africa and its’ history in teaching materials and how individuals in the African history appear in the textbooks. The results have shown that eurocentrism and othering appear throughout the textbooks, however, these seem to emerge in distinctive ways and are beginning to dissolve further into our period