Local history projects in education : An analysis of upper secondary school teachers' uses of history and high school students' historical consciousness at three Swedish upper secondary schools.

The purpose of this study is to examine if, how and why history teachers work with local history projects in education. The results will be analyzed based on a theory of the uses of history. I also investigate, through group interwiews with students, if and how students’ historical consciousness may develop through teaching about local history. The result is a variation map of teachers’ different uses of history and how students historical consciousness can manifest itself. The results of the study shows that all the teachers interviewed uses local history projects in education. The local historical projects vary to some degree among the teachers, some tasks are more peculiar than others, some projects are similar. There is also a variation in the extent of local historic project. Some teachers have not worked with local history in several years, while other teachers works consistent with local history projects. It can also be stated that all teachers uses an existential use of history. Most teachers also use a scientific use of history, which is particularly evident in the construction of the tasks. With regard to students' development of a historical consciousness in relation to local history education, the study shows that a local historical education develops the historical consciousness of the interwiewed students’. The students achieve at least three of Jensen's five aspects of the concept of historical consciousness