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Education Inquiry
Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2011, pp.37–60
EDU.
INQ.
UNESCO and Council of Europe
Guidelines, and History Education in
Sweden, c. 1960-2002 1
Thomas Nygren*
Abstract
In this study, international recommendations for history education issued by UNESCO and the
Council of Europe are compared with the construing of history in national guidelines, teachers’
perceptions and the results of students’ work in history in Sweden. The study shows how history
education from the 1960s onwards could be critical and oriented towards minorities in a global
world, clearly in line with the recommendations of UNESCO. International understanding, unity
in diversity and safeguarding the local heritage in many ways became part of students’ historical
consciousness.
Keywords: history teaching, international guidelines, teachers, students, historical consciousness
Introduction
After the Second World War, history teaching was considered both a contributing
factor to the war and part of a future solution. In order to build a better world, with
greater understanding between and among nations, UNESCO and the Council of
Europe launched reform programmes directed at the teaching of history. UNESCO’s
and the Council of Europe’s recommendations, which were initially primarily concerned
with counteracting nationalism and militarism, developed in due course
into encompassing more and more areas in which history teaching was thought to
contribute to influencing students’ views of the world and thereby to shape a better
future (Low-Beer, 1997; Pingel, 1999; Lindmark, 2008).
The present study aimed to investigate how the subject of history was formulated
internationally from the 1960s until 2002, and to compare the international intentions
with how the subject was formulated and understood in national guidelines and
by teachers and students in Sweden.
Inspired by previous research and theories, I have called the international level of
curricula “ideological curricula”, the national level “formal curricula”, the teachers
level “perceived curricula” and the student level “experiential curricula” (Goodlad,
1979). I examined each level chronologically and in relation to each other on the ba-
*Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University, Sweden.
E-mail: thomas@nygren.nu
©Author. ISSN 2000-4508, pp.37–60
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