Das Bild von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz in schwedischen Lehrbüchern für das Fach Deutsch am Gymnasium, Stufe 4

Sammanfattning: This paper presents an analysis on three German books that are written for stage 4 German learners at the Swedish high school. The analysis was made to find out how often Germany, Switzerland and Austria were presented in the books, as well as to find out with which Themes in the books they are associated with. The following Questions are in focus of this paper: -        What themes are being used to represent Germany, Switzerland, and Austria? -        What are the main themes in the schoolbooks? -        How do the Countries stand against one another?   The results show that the focus is mainly on Germany. The German history between 1945-1990 and German literature is frequently used when depicting Germany in schoolbooks for German class, stage 4, at the Swedish high school. Switzerland is presented through its four official languages German, French, Italian, and Romansh as well as goods such as clocks, chocolate, and cheese. Meanwhile is Austria mostly represented by famous people like Elfriede Jelinek or Lise Meitner. Lastly a comparation of the analyzed schoolbooks is presented. Some themes are recurring in all three books. At the same time, the books are differently structured and used different themes that were more or less relevant.   Key words Text analysis, German schoolbooks, representation of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, High School, Sweden