Historically, right-wing nationalistic and anti-democratic movements have gained relatively little support in the Nordic region. Instead, a consensus-oriented “democratic nationalism” was nurtured by almost all social and political forces in the 1930: s (Kayser Nielsen, 2009). During postwar period this development was for long supplemented with internationalism, as seen in a strong support of the UN- system. The political concord was also strengthened by the emergence of a broad welfare system. After the end of cold war an increasing globalising process – including many immigrants – gave place for an idea of a multicultural, universalist society (Hylland Eriksen, 2014). Despite this very broadly sketched picture, there was a slow but distinct rise of neo-nationalistic political parties from the 1960: s and onwards. In the first two decades of the 21st century these parties eventually broke the cordon sanitaire and got real political influence (Bergmann, 2020). All this has an increasing impact on schools in the Nordic countries where the curricula still contain several goals that mirrors the long history of democratic nationalism, internationalism and universalism. That is specifically the case for the syllabuses in social studies and history. This development is likely to be an arena for political struggle in the years to come. It also includes challenges from students with right-wing, racist attitudes that teachers in an everyday setting must handle in their classrooms (Mattson et al, 2024). In my part of the symposium, I will discuss this problem with some examples from previous research (Olofsson, 2024). I will also briefly present NDFN (Nasjonalisme, Demokrati og Fellesskap i Norden [Nationalism, Democracy and Coherence in Nordic region]). This is a newly started subject didactic research network that aims to address these questions in comparative studies of teacher education, official documents, teaching materials and public debates in (hopefully) all Nordic countries.

References: Bergmann, E. (2020). Neo-Nationalism: The rise of nativist populism. Springer International Publishing. Eriksen, T.H. (2014). Globalization: the key concepts. (Second edition). New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Kayser Nielsen, N. (2009). Bonde, stat og hjem: nordisk demokrati og nationalisme - fra pietismen til 2. verdenskrig. [Peasant, state and home: Nordic democracy and nationalism - from Pietism to World War II] Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag. Mattsson, C., Andreasson, J. & Johansson, T. (2024). En resa till hjärtlandet: landsbygd, vardagsrasism och skolans demokratiska uppdrag. [A journey to the heartland: rural areas, everyday racism and the democratic mission of schools] Göteborg: Makadam. Olofsson, H. (2024). Nationalism som ”dålig klang” eller ”att gilla sitt land”? Om ett politiskt laddat grundbegrepp i högstadiets historieundervisning. [Nationalism as ‘a bad sounding’ or ‘liking your country’? On a politically charged basic concept in secondary school history teaching] In Kvande, L. & Olofsson, H. (eds.) Begreper om og i samfunnet: Teori, empiri og analyse av begrepsforståelse og - læring i samfunnsfag. [Concepts about and in society: Theory, empiricism and analysis of conceptual understanding and learning in social studies] Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. https://www.universitetsforlaget.no/begreper-om-og-i- samfunnet

Grunnlaget for denne boken er en erkjennelse av at alle begreper om og i samfunnet gir rom for tolkning. Begreper er mangetydige, og meningsinnholdet i ett og samme begrep er avhengig av hvilke kontekster det brukes i, både i tid (fortid og samtid) og rom (ulike nasjonale, sosiale og politiske sammenhenger).

Antologien belyser tre overordnede spørsmål for fagfeltet:

• kjennetegn ved samfunnsfaglige begreper
• begrepsforståelse og samfunnsfaglig dannelse
• samfunnsfaglige begreper i tids- og romkontekster

Boken tar nye perspektiv på et tidligere mindre utforsket område i samfunnsfagdidaktikken, med utgangspunkt i historie og samfunnskunnskap, og gjør en form for grenseoppgang mellom hvilke tilnærminger disse to fagene har til begrepsanalyse fra hvert sitt utgangspunkt.

Antologiens forfattere er samfunnsfagdidaktikere fra både historie og samfunnsvitenskap i de tre skandinaviske landene. Metodologien i kapitlene er basert på læreplan- og lærebokanalyse, intervju med lærere og klasseromsobservasjon. Til sammen gir de et bredt bilde av begrepsanalysens betydning, eller mulige betydning, i samfunnsfag-lig opplæring.

Boken henvender seg til lærerstudenter, lærerutdannere og forskere i samfunnsfagdidaktikk, men er også relevant for praktiserende sam-funnsfaglærere.

På Kungsholmen i Stockholm finns ett antal minnesmärken över stadens fattiga, koncentrerat till det relativt nybyggda bostadsområdet S:t Erik, i folkmun kallat Grubbensområdet. På samma plats fanns mellan 1860 och 1922 en av Stockholms två stora arbets- och försörjningsanstalter, avsedda för personer som av olikaskäl inte klarade sitt eget uppehälle i den snabbt växande staden. I dag kan bostadsområdets minnesmärken beskrivas som exempel på hanterande av ett ”mörkt”, ”omtvistat”eller ”komplext” kulturarv.

Vår presentation handlar om ett planerat bokprojekt där vi – med ett lån från Foucault – prövar att undersöka Grubbens som en fattigdomsavvikelsens heterotopi. En initial fråga är varför bostadsområdet S:t Erik fick dessa minnesmärken på 1990-talet: förflyttas fattigdomen genom monument och minnestavlor till ett avgränsat och förflutet tid-rum?

Genom att studera denna fråga i ett genealogiskt tidsperspektiv - där vi utgår från nuet och söker oss bakåt – hoppas vi kunna sprida ljus över synen på fattigdom i ett lite längre urban- och socialhistoriskt sammanhang. Frågan innefattar också vilket utrymme resurssvaga människor har i dagens och morgondagens städer.

Baksidestext

Vilka möjligheter och utmaningar finns när det gäller användning av källor i historieundervisning? I den här antologin diskuterar författarna olika aspekter av denna fråga både i relation till en samtida historievetenskaplig praktik och till de nya förutsättningar som digitaliserade arkiv och medier kan innebära. Men flera av kapitlen utgår också från konkreta undervisningserfarenheter och boken vill på så sätt även sprida inspirerande ideer om källanvändning i klassrummet.

Antologins texter är i första hand tänkta att bidra till vidare reflektion om källor i skolans historieundervisning, men ger även läsaren kunskap om hur källbegreppet kan förstås och tillämpas på olika sätt i andra sammanhang, exempelvis inom historielärarutbildning och i mötet mellan arkiv, museer och skolor.

Det här kapitlet undersöker hur begreppet nationalism användes under historielektionerna i en svensk högstadieklass. Undersökningen visar hur begreppet laddades med politiska betydelser av både elever och lärare. I analyserna framträder ett ”spontant begreppsnät” som verktyg för elevernas begreppsförståelse. Ett annat resultat är att såväl den samtida som historiska kontexten är viktig när ett grundbegrepp som nationalism hanteras i historieundervisningen.

This chapter examines how nationalism – as a theoretical concept – was used in the teaching of history in a Swedish lower secondary school class. The study shows how the concept was loaded with political meanings by both students and teacher. The analyses reveal a ’spontaneous conceptual network’ as a tool for students’ conceptual understanding. Another result is the importance of both contemporary and historical context when history teaching deals with basic concepts such as nationalism.

Since the years around 2010, a large part of the world has experienced – what nationalism scholars have described as – a fourth wave of neo-nationalism/nativism. Visible examples are the repeated successes of “xenophobic" or "immigration-critical" populist movements, or the result of the Brexit referendum (Bergmann, 2020). Not only has this trend given political parties with such agenda considerable influence in Europe, but also pathed the way for a nationalistic turn in many of the world’s great power (Norris & Inglehart, 2019).

My presentation is based on results from a close reading comparative study of some upper secondary textbooks in history and civics, published in recent years in Nordic Countries. The overarching question is how the last decades neo-nationalism is reflected in the texts. The theoretical and methodological approach is influenced by conceptual historian Reinhardt Koselleck – who perceived nationalism as a "basic concept" that could be understood with “concept-net” analysis (Koselleck, 2018; see also Berenskoetter, 2017).

The study aims to answer some partly interrelated questions: Is neonationalism/nativism at all described, an if so, does it appear as a controversial or an unproblematic issue in the texts? How is nationalism in earlier historical periods described? Are these descriptions connected with neonationalism, and if so, how?

The results tie in with the theme of the conference as they concern the impact of history and civic education to the students' ongoing “bildung”-processes in a globalizing world. I argue that neonationalism in this respect, and in line with Wolfgang Klafki´s theory, must be seen as an epoch-typical problem of our time (cf. Sjöström & Tyson, 2022, p. 217).

Comparisons between the teaching materials from the Nordic countries can also conceivably shed light on national historical-cultural dividing lines, which teachers and subject matter didactic researchers in the respective countries may have to deal with as a prerequisite for classroom activities.

Keywords: History and civic textbooks, Upper-secondary schools, Nationalism in a globalizing world

References

Berenskoetter, F. (2017). Approaches to Concept Analysis. Millennium, 45(2), 151–173. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829816651

Bergmann, E. (2020). Neo-Nationalism: The rise of nativist populism. Springer International Publishing.

Koselleck, R. (2018). Sediments of time: on possible histories. Stanford University Press.

Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism. Cambridge University Press.

Sjöström, J., & Tyson, R. (2022). Didaktik för lärande och bildning. Liber.

Teaching practices in transition: Swedish primary teachers as agents of change in reading education in the 1940s.

This article deals with primary teachers’ views on reading and literature teaching, as reflected in an archive consisting of more than 600 accounts of teaching experiences collected in 1946. By a close reading of a directed selection of 52 of these accounts – of which 14 are detailly presented – we can draw three conclusions: 1) We argue that many of the teachers regarded mother tongue as something more than just a “skill subject”; 2) The mate-rial indicates that mother tongue teaching was undergoing changes in a “progressive” direction at a time that previous research has regarded as a decline period for such ideas; 3) The analysis shows that the teachers both identified structural obstacles relating to these changes and used the obstacles as a point of departure for change. Altogether a complex picture emerges that can be highlighted as an example of teachers’ agency with relevance also to the current debate on reading and literature teaching in a democratic society.