Cultural Meetings in Swedish High School History Books : -A Schoolbook Study

The purpose of this study is to examin the depiction of culturalmeetings in history books in relatioon to the schoolguidelines, and how and why the description may have changed over time. To achieve this, a qualitative method was used to analyze the content of cultural meetings in Swedish schoolbooks after the World War II. The material used in the study was taken from eight editions of Alla tiders historia published between 1985-2011. The material was then put together and analyzed from the theoretical perspectives, which try to explain the factors that influenced the depiction of the texts. The results of this study shows, that over time, the school guidelines have incresed their focus on human value and the need for students to interact with people from other cultures. The depictions in the history books lives upp to the demands of the school guidelines, but this study shows that the main influence of the content of the book is the social context. When the first school guideline where constructed, economy was a major focal point, and by that time immigration was thought to be economacally benefical to Sweden, which i depicted in the books. Under the second school guiedlines the does not change much, but the immigation is wiewed as more problematic. At the time, the Swedish society was suffering from an economic crisis and the problems that badly preformed integration were starting to show. However, after some changes in society including a political effort was made to make the contry multicultural, the depiction in the history books change, and words like multicultural start making an appearance. When they change the school guiedlines again, the authors have gained a new awareness of what influences the content and the deoictions of immigrants are more neutral. The cahnge in writing can also be seen as authors try to follo the new guidelines with focus on cultural meetings