Lärares tankar om förändring och kontinuitet i historieundervisningen

Sammanfattning: This study aims to investigate how history teachers talk about the historical thinking concepts change and continuity. In this study, four teachers from three different secondary schools in Sweden were interviewed. The theoretical perspectives are Seixas and Morton’s guidelines for teaching change and continuity, and these have been used as a tool to categorize and analyze the teachers’ responses and reflections. From this, five categories or topics that the teachers’ discussions covered were formulated. The most common method that the teachers talked about was to use a timeline or some other form of chronological illustration to provide a solid foundation for the students. The teachers could then use this to consolidate higher levels of understanding of the concepts. The chronological understanding enabled the teachers to address the process of change in terms of variation in paces, patterns and turning points, which the teachers emphasized had a relation to where we look and who it affects. Concerning the discussion of how teachers instruct students about historical progress and decline, it became clear that this is strongly related to language comprehension. It was also evident that students view history as a constant process of improvement. When it comes to historical periodization, all teachers agreed that critical reflection on why and on what premises these divisions has been made is important to consider. However, this was primarily applied to the concept of change, and continuity was most commonly referred to when the historical content was discussed in relation to the history of attitudes or mentalities. The teachers explained different didactical methods while discussing these topics, and they also used different ways to exemplify these with historical content and metaphors. What also became clear was the relationship between the teachers’ educational background and their variation of teaching.