How are women portrayed in text in history textbooks for upper secondary school?

The portrayal of women in history textbooks is a problem area that will always have a major impact on girls and their identity. The purpose of this study is to find out how women are portrayed in history textbooks for upper secondary school. The history textbooks that we have chosen to analyze are books that were published at various times during the 2000s. All relevant books for this study have been included in Swedish history education. The theoretical starting point of the study is gender theory, which is also the basis för the analytical tool used in the analysis of history teaching materials. The method used is a content analysis which made it possible to delve deeper into how women are portrayed in history textbooks. The result that we have come to is that the representation of women is based on appearance, sexuality and reflection of the men that are written about. When it is written about women, it is often written as additional history instead of being a given part of regular text. The idea of the study was not to include men in the analysis, that is, not to use men as a yardstick for what is normal. This is something that we realize is difficult to avoid. The results that emerged from the analysis reflects the patriarchal society that has dominated historically. In the last section, we discuss how this had an impact on the portrayal of women in history teaching materials. The results show that the use of history is strongly linked to the historiography that characterize the representation of women.