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.