Postkolonialistisk bildanalys av Hem- och konsumentkunskapsböcker

Sammanfattning: The Swedish education system reflects the multicultural society in Sweden, therefore there is a need of school textbooks that pupils can identify themselves with to create meaning and value in their learning. According to the Swedish Education Administrations (Skolverkets) report (2006) and Selander (2003, s. 198) the school textbooks are the main source of education in class. There has been an implicit message in the older textbooks that is associated with the belief that non-Europeans are "seen" as victims, and that Europeans are privileged with a "good life". Many school texbooks has been analyzed from different points of perspectives, however, analysis from a postcolonial perspective on home economics books has practically been nonexistent. Analysis in this study are focused on how non-western people are been portrayed in six different textbooks in the subject to conclude if the colonial discourse is still maintained and reproduced in the school. To answer the question of formulation an image analysis is made of the six, previiously mentioned, textbooks. The result shows that since 1976 school textbooks are consistently reproducing the same image of non-Europeans as victims and underdeveloped- the way of portraying them as said has merely shifted from images of starved children to helpless victims of environmental disasters and occidental abundance but are held equally responsible for their underdevelopment, in anticipation of occidental aid.