Historiebruk i historieläromedel, före och efter 2011

Textbooks have long constituted, and still constitute, a commonly used type of teaching material for history teaching in Swedish schools. Since the Swedish school reform of 2011, the curriculum for the history subject has undergone a substantial transformation. Part of this curricular transformation was the inclusion of content, goals and criteria connected to how individuals and groups use, and have used, history for different purposes, in Swedish called historiebruk, which freely translates to the usage of history. This study set out to investigate if, and how, textbooks underwent adaptations between editions published before and after the school reform, in order to include content relevant for this new addition to the history subject in its new curriculum. These additions were also analysed concerning how they portrayed use of history in comparison with contemporary research and the curriculum for the history subject. Three textbook brands were studied, and included editions published both before and after 2011, as a point of reference for the adaptations made between editions. The results imply that the adaptation to include content relevant to usage of history has so far been limited. Furthermore, results suggest that the manner of which textbooks portray use of history is often critical in nature, and that they regularly do this with negative undercurrents. Additionally, results showed that the examples of history usage are limited to a European context, and are mainly existential and ideological in nature