Kina eller Indien : En studie om eurocentrism och utomeuropeiskt material och innehåll i svensk historieundervisning

Sammanfattning: This joint study has researched the use of non-European history in a Swedish textbook for the High School course History 1a1 as well as internet based material regarding the same issue. The aim of this study was to clarify the use of non-European history in regards to the Eurocentric theory. As for the textbook analysis the purpose was to research what non-European history was mentioned in the material with regards to geographical location and the events that were mentioned, as well as to study how much non-European history was included in the material compared to European or Western history. The study of internet based material aimed to show what kind of teaching material could be found on internet based databases by and for teachers. The study aimed to show how well the material handled non-European history, as well as to what degree the material used European perspectives when dealing with non-European events and geographical areas. In our thesis we have created our own definition of the theory regarding eurocentrism. The method used was a combination of a quantitative and a qualitative discourse analysis of the texts. Our results showed that the textbook was overwhelmingly Eurocentric, not only giving vastly more focus to the European parts of world history, but also using European perspectives and ideals to describe non-European events and areas. The internet based material, on the other hand, proved more diverse and less biased, but also more difficult to find and less plentiful. Our conclusion, then, is that teachers have to choose between the risk of letting their students develop a severely limited and heavily Eurocentric view of the world, and the additional workload required to find and organize non-textbook material to broaden their students horizons. We hope our study will contribute to the discussion of the place of Eurocentrism in today’s global and multicultural society.