Download issue - Umeå universitet

UNESCO and Council of Europe Guidelines, and History Education in Sweden, c. 1960-2002
introduced in which “Sweden’s era of Great Power became the era of soldier-widows”,
as he put it. A “multi-perspective” teaching strategy where different points of view
and interpretations of history were central, e.g. focused on gender, cultural and social
perspectives along with source criticism and the history of mentalities (Nygren, 2009).
In the debates about teaching, a local historical perspective was considered to
provide a solid personal anchorage in the world and a good point of departure for
humanistic approaches to engagement in the world at large (AFHL, 1970). A rise of
interest in local history from the 1960s was described as a consequence of the “Dig
Where You Stand” movement 7 and of fewer restrictions in the syllabus (HLFÅ, 1982-
83). Yet UNESCO was not referred to, nor were the recommendations of the Council
of Europe.
One of the interviewed teachers, Bengt, related how every year in his teaching he
had taken his students on a local history walk in order to make history “alive” and
to give the students a feeling for their cultural heritage and to make their immediate
historical surroundings palpable to them. He emphasised local history and narratives
of national and world historical developments – a teaching strategy I have called “narrative
history” (Nygren, 2009). On closer scrutiny, it appeared that Bengt supervised
a large number of individual projects in local history, but he also supervised manifold
essays with both global and regional orientations. His students wrote about kings
and power politics, and also about minority groups and popular culture. Students
of teachers oriented towards social science and multiple perspectives show a similar
wealth and variety of subjects – but fewer concerning local history.
The Experiential Curricula
There has been a clear shift in subject choices for students’ individual projects since
1950, when 34% concerned Swedish history, 27% European history, and 14% world
history (see Figure 1). By 1969 interest in Swedish history had dropped to 14%, work
dealing with European history had increased to 31%, while project subjects relating
to world history had risen dramatically – to 32%. This indicates that in an ever more
globalised world, students’ and teachers’ interest in and knowledge of non-European
history made history teaching increasingly internationally-oriented.
45