Vikings, merchants or robbers?

The meaning with this essay is to study and analyze the figuration of vikings in Swedish educational books during a period between 1969-2010, together with how the Swedish government's curriculums during the same time period have shaped the content of the educational books regarding the content of vikings. In order to be able to answer these questions a set criterion was formed before the writing started on the essay to form a foundation for the conclusions that were later formulated in the essay. In the essay it emerged that the earliest curriculum had a big focus on teaching the students national history whilst the two later curriculums had a bigger focus on a broader teaching on European history and other nationality groups and their views and a smaller focus on only national history. The results showed that although the curriculums in the Swedish school had changed, the educational books view on vikings remains similar with small changes present throughout the texts. Most notably the change in perspective from only a national view to several perspectives from both the vikings point of view but also the view from ethnic groups around Europe