Kender du kvaliteten af dine læremidler, og hvilke former for viden de kan give? Der findes et væld af undervisningsmaterialer at vælge imellem samt ofte utilstrækkelige boganmeldelser i forhold til elevøvelser og opgaver, som ellers kan være centrale. Læs her om at kvalificere dit materialevalg ved at identificere og analysere forskellige typer af viden, som findes i opgaver og øvelser i historiebøgerne.

At a first glance at curricula, syllabi and textbooks, history teaching and its content in schools appear to be fairly unchanged over a long period of time. Selected subject matter, concentrated on political and social processes, war, peace, progress, and the objective to clarify changes, is in many respects the same. There are however aspects of history’s presentation that are seldom described or analyzed. One such aspect is how the relationship between the past and the student is approached. Connections between the past and the student in present time have the potential to make sense and meaning, and likely increase understanding of the past and of the student and society as interwoven in time.

The study is based on a comparison between Swedish history textbooks and curricula during the period 1905 to 2005. Textbook characteristics sometimes do not have their counterpart in the curricula and syllabi. The consistencies and discrepancies that exist during the different time periods provide nuances for the picture of how curricula and syllabi intentions were realized and expressed

In the last two decades, ethical values in the form of reconciling with the past and recognizing victimized groups in history, have become more common themes in history books and in history teaching, like a ‘moral turn’ in the writing of history. History didactics research points out that values issues and moral questions clarify issues and contexts, stimulating thinking over time and activating people’s historical consciousness. Previous research, however, often only states that there is a relationship. In this article, I describe and analyze on empirical grounds, first how values are approached, and have been approached, in Swedish history textbooks, and how history and values relate to each other. Thereafter, I describe how 15-year-old students in Sweden express the relationship between values and history. Central to the analysis is how the historical context can clarify values and at the same time, how values can function as an interface creating meaning and bringing together knowledge between the past, the present and the future.

The concept of “democracy” is highly emphasized in society as wellas in Swedish school curricula. This article analyses the “supply-side” of education – the textbooks. What various conceptions ofdemocracy do lower secondary pupils meet in history textbooksand how is democracy presented in these books? Have there beenany changes in how the concept of democracy has been introducedbetween the 1960’s and the 2000’s? The first purpose of this articleis to analyse the concept of democracy in lower secondary historytextbooks and confront these representations and interpretationswith political and philosophical theories about democracy. Sec-ondly, I intend to find out whether the textbooks describe andexplain democracy in a historical context that can be useful forlearning and understanding. A contested concept like democracymay also open a way for pupils to understand the historical proc-ess and stimulate their history consciousness.

Elever möter historia i en rad olika sammanhang; i media, i spel, i reklam, i filmer och i historiska faktaprogram på TV för att nämna några. Elevernas uppfattningar och kunskaper har därför sannolikt formats redan innan de möter skolans undervisning och därefter formas de som en parallell process. I skolans historieundervisning spelar läromedlen fortfarande en viktig roll. De används i olika utsträckning och på olika sätt, men de finns ändå där som en konstant. En intressant spänning kan därför uppstå mellan elevernas förkunskaper, deras förväntningar och den bild av det förflutna de möter i skolan. I denna presentation tar jag det inom historiedidaktiken tidigare svagt beforskade begreppet förväntning eller förväntan som utgångspunkt. Jag studerar vilka förväntningar eleverna har på, och vad de menar är viktigt och vad de vill lära sig om, en historisk epok som de ännu inte har studerat i skolan – kalla kriget. Elevernas förväntningar jämförs med läromedlens urval och beskrivning av epoken. Studien bygger på gruppintervjuer med svenska elever i årskurs 8 och en analys av historieläroböcker för årskurs 9. Resultaten diskuteras i ljuset av syften och innehållsbeskrivningen i den kursplan i historia som infördes i Sverige från 2011.

What do you know when you know something about history? What is important to know and how do you learn? Adolescents encounter history everywhere: at school, in the family, in media and society. But how do adolescents perceive history and in what ways do aspects of meaning and ethical values affect the encounters with history? This study discusses how Swedish adolescents and teachers encounter, communicate and define knowledge about history, analysing the process from curricula and history textbooks to the world of the pupils.

To travel in time can be described as an encounter between now and then. The time traveller experiences a constructed past interpreted in present time. At the same time the time traveller could use the past as a mirror to learn something about herself. These multidimensional relations between the past and the present could be perceived and interpreted in a variety of ways. In this presentation I will discuss a typology to chategorize and analyze time travellers’ perceptions of the past.

Ämnesspråk och historiska begrepp betonas i både historiedidaktisk forskning och i styrdokument/läroplaner för historieämnet i flera länder. Frågorna om eleverna kan använda begreppen, hur de använder dem och om de förstår begreppen behöver svar. Artikeln handlar om dessa frågor och de illustreras av autentiska elevsvar. Avslutningsvis diskuteras tankar om hur lärare och elever kan utveckla förmågan att använda historiska begrepp.

The concept of historical consciousness has been the epicentre of history didactics in continental and northern Europe since the 1980s. However the concept is contested and, by some, regarded as vague or meta-physical. A main objection has been that it is not obvious how a historical consciousness can be definitively identified, analysed or categorized.

In this paper historical consciousness is the theoretical frame when we present a matrix for analysing students’ expressions of temporal orientation by studying their reasoning on inter-relations between intrepretations of the past, understandings of the present and perspectives on a possible future. The matrix has been constructed by inter-linking two prominent theoretical models to analyse forms of historical consciousness, including Rüsen’s types of narratives and Chinnery’s strands of historical consciousness.

Through the matrix, we analyse a selection of Finnish and Swedish lower secondary school students’ answers to a questionnaire about historical and moral reflections after reading an excerpt from Christopher Browning’s book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (orig. 1992). The students have answered and discussed open-ended questions regarding if and how the narrative in the excerpt has a relevant message for themselves and for people today and also if a similar situation could appear in Europe today or in the future. The matrix provides tools for categorizing the students’ answers. The theoretical basis of the matrix and preliminary results are discussed in the paper.

Teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides is emphasized in Swedish History teaching. In Sweden there is a public authority commisioned to work with issues related to tolerance, democracy and human rights. It is this context and under these conditions, that Swedish History teachers select a variety of topics for their students to learn, as part of the History curriculum. In addition to the Holocaust, they teach about crimes against humanity committed under communist regimes, the genocide of Tutsies in Rwanda, and mass murder and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. Teachers use a multiplicity of uses of history and teaching methods. They conduct a scientific use of history when focusing on the historical contexts and explaining the background, motives and consequences of genocide. Teachers also stress the students’ personal reflections and standpoints in a moral use of history. The teaching aims at developing understanding and empathy among students.

Students find ethical and moral issues central and interesting when they interpret history. History can offer explanations and references to moral values that are still valid - or not valid - in our time. At the same time moral values provide conceivable contexts that connect students to the past. Views on interrelations between the past and the present seem to interact with the students' moral foundations, questions, interpretations, understanding or repudiation. On a societal level similar phenomena can be identified when groups of people turn to history either to handle challenges or to apologize or heal wrongs from the past. Furthermore National curricula prescribe ethical dimensions in school education, not least for the subject of history.

In this pilot study swedish 9th grade students discuss a text from Christopher Brownings' book Ordinary Men. The students' answers are analysed in a theroetical model including different aspects of historical consciousness and different apsects of moral reasoning. The aim is to study if there are patterns of interrelations and, if so, how these patterns are manifested.

Students find ethical and moral issues central and interesting when they interpret history. History can offer explanations and references to moral values that are still valid – or not valid – in our time. At the same time moral values provide conceivable contexts that connect students to the past. Views on interrelations between the past and the present seem to interact with the students’ moral foundations, questions, interpretations, understanding or repudiation. On a societal level similar phenomena can be identified when groups of people turn to history, either to handle challenges or to apologize or heal wrongs of the past. Furthermore the National Curricula prescribe ethical dimensions in school education, not least for the subject of history.

In this pilot study Swedish 9th grade students discuss a text from Christopher Brownings’ book Ordinary Men. The students’ answers are analysed in a theoretical model including different types of historical consciousness and different aspects of moral reasoning. The aim is to study if there are patterns of interrelations and, if so, how these patterns are manifested.

In recent decades, the importance of language in various subjects has gained more attention in research, however mainly in linguistic research. When it comes to studying the language as a tool for learning and communicating history, the research field is still fairly unexplored.

For history as a scientific discipline and for history as an educational subject, the language is central in several aspects, as an object and as a tool. The language is what you actually study in the form of source material and the tools you use to decode, interpret and describe.

The subject-specific language consists largely of concepts for the specific methodological aspects, concepts of specific epochs and different theoretical concepts for interpretation and analysis. In addition, there are a number of terms that are typical for the historical time you study. In order to analyze and understand the historical context, you must also master these time-related concepts.

In this article I investigate how a group of 9-grade pupils use subject-specific language in the form of the subject- specific concepts of change and continuity when describing historical development in the national test in history.

The study shows that the pupils use the concepts, but with different functions. The concepts structure to a certain extent the student's answers, but they rarely have an explanatory or contextualizing function. Some pupils present their answers to show that they use the prescribed concepts. They do not use the concept in order to describe or explain the historical context.

Since the early 1990s, the concept of historical consciousness has been central to didactic research in Sweden. It has mostly been used as a theoretical framework on a macro-level or as an attempt to identify students' historical consciousness. This article applies the theoretical concept of historical consciousness to tangible source material: history textbooks from the twentieth century. It focuses on whether Swedish history textbooks for lower secondary school have articulated contexts that may be conducive to developing historical consciousness. The article employs a number of theoretical concepts—narratives, multichronology, identity, and values—in order to analyze perspectives that can be utilized to trigger historical consciousness.