The subject of this examination paper is the study of the teaching of history in today’s
society that is characterized by multiculturalism and diversity. It starts with an interest in
understanding how multiculturalism and diversity are treated in the secondary schools in
Sweden. The study begun as an inductive work and has been achieved via analysis of
teaching contents, perspectives and working methods. The data for this study was
obtained through semi-structured interviews and a survey. The main method used for
analysis is the inductive qualitative method Grounded Theory (GT). The qualitative
method, Critical discourse analysis, (CDA) has also been used to analyze the political
aspects of history curriculum.
In order to understand the role of the teaching of history in our society - the different
levels of historical consciousness, the acquisition of skills and abilities, the perspective
in history’s teaching as well as the perception or influence of multiculturalism and
diversity - this study has taken into consideration the participation of different people
with different education levels. An interesting phenomenon has been noticed during the
course of this study: a special relationship to diversity and multiculturalism found in
young students enrolled in a high school program that combine courses of history with
other courses related to history. I define this phenomenon as awareness of diversity and
multiculturalism. The used survey confirms the occurrence of this phenomenon. The
result indicates that the young individuals who have followed a certain combination of
subjects, have positive attitudes toward diversity and multiculturalism, equivalent to
teachers with master and PhD’s degree who have the mission to teach democracy as
their profession. Finally, the study focused on analyzing how contents and didactics
strategies in history-teaching can influence the development of consciousness about
diversity and multiculturalism.
This study has a political and a didactical dimension, the discussion of both those
dimensions is done by using Gert Biesta’s concepts qualification, socialization,
subjectification, and James A. Banks’s five-dimensional typology about multicultural
education.
2019. , p. 110
Democracy, multicultural education, critical multiculturalism, multicultural awareness, history-teaching, didactics, integration, history consciousness, education policies