Perspektiv på Kalmarunionen : En jämförande analys av svenska och danska läroböcker

Sammanfattning: This study has examined how Swedish and Danish textbooks for upper secondary school has portrayed the historical Kalmar Union from the 1880s until modern day. This has been done partly through a hermeunetic text analysis and partly through a quantitative method that examined how many pages covered the Kalmar Union i each textbook. The analysis covered books from the 1880s, 1930s and modern textbooks, after which the results of an earlier study that covered the 1960s to the early 2000s was applied in order to get an overview of the full time period.  The results of the quantitative analysis showed that book from both countries write less and less about the union. Additionally, the Danish textbooks from the earlier decades drew more attention to the union compared to the Swedish books from the same time. Regarding the comparative text analysis, the results showed that the textbooks has become less and less biased over time. A nationalistic tendency that highlights the greatness of the own country can be seen clearer in the oldest texbooks but can still to some extent be seen even in today´s textbooks. This tendency is most visible when the creation of the union is described as the Danish textbooks tend to highlight the Danish queen´s personal qualities while the Swedish textbooks tend to highlight the collective benefits a union brought to all of Scandinavia. In doing so the Swedish textbooks portray it as a mutual decision while the Danish explanation portray it as a result of Danish superiority.