It is for the most part uncontroversial to invoke the opinion that the main task of education is to develop knowledge. But the question that has become more relevant in today’s multicultural societies is: what according to high school pupils is regarded as relevant historical knowledge, as well as how the youngsters that are brought up in “multicultural” Sweden perceive the content of history books as well as the method of teaching. The paper is based on the interviews with around 20 high school pupils. The main focus of my paper is to present young pupils’ views on textbooks/history-education, the subject’s assumed Euro-centricity, and finally general lack of perspectives (e.g. gender, class, and ethnicity) in history-education at the high school level. By pointing out at the lack of pluralistic perspective as well as “linear”, ethnocentric, and male orientated interpretation of the past I will try to show that the authors of the textbooks and history teachers are imposing symbolic violence on some groups and individuals within the classroom environment. According to the preliminary results one can talk about the existence of a historical canon that is highly connected to a narrow definition of history. Thereby the focal point of this presentation is to show what and whom is included and therefore even excluded from the historical metanarrative.

För ungefär hundra år sedan fanns en livlig diskussion kring samma rättigheter till utbildning för alla. Kraven ökade på en gemensam bottenskola. En sådan skulle göra det möjligt att nå samhällets topp oavsett social bakgrund. Utbildningsmeriter skulle väga högre än att komma från "rätt" landsända. Men hade verkligen alla kapacitet att tillgodogöra sig undervisningen? Och kunde man låta unga välja livsväg på egen hand? Artikelns centrala frågor är hundra år gamla, och trots det oerhört aktuella.

Frågor som är mycket relevanta i dagens så kallade multikulturella Sverige och som jag avser beröra i denna text är: Vad enligt gymnasieungdomar anses vara relevant kunskap och hur gymnasieungdomar uppfattar historieämnets innehåll och undervisningsstrategier? Därför vill jag i det följande granska delar av gymnasieungdomars reception av historieämnet och detta med hjälp av etnicitetsperspektiven. Följaktligen är artikelns syfte att med hjälp av intervjuer med nitton gymnasieungdomar få en uppfattning om dessa ungdomars föreställningar gällande historieämnets relevans och innehåll. De intervjuades tankar har därtill relaterats till innehållet i två mycket använda historieböcker för gymnasiet, Alla tiders historia A och Perspektiv på historien A. Genom att närma mig ungdomarnas reflektioner kan jag skildra unga människors funderingar kring historieämnets utvecklingsmöjligheter och tolkning i det som i många skolpolitiska sammanhang kallas det multikulturella samhället. Ett sådant perspektiv är betydelsefullt för förståelsen av vilket syfte och värde historieämnet har för de intervjuade eleverna. På så sätt kan vi kanske få en uppfattning om vilken väg ämnet har tagit, håller på att ta och enligt informanterna skulle kunna ta i deras klassmiljöer.

Postmodernismen har pekats ut som den farliga ”andra” från höger och vänster, av feminister liksom anti-feminister. Därför är det provocerande att i feministiskt syfte applicera postmodernistiska grepp och insikter på modern klassteori. Genom att resonera med Marx och Weber, samt äldre och nutida feministiska klasskritiker söker Ulrika Holgersson försoningen mellan feminism och klass bortom den moderna berättelsen.

Artikeln debatterar framställningen av kvinnliga och manliga historiska aktörer i historiska draman i jämförelse med monumenttraditionen

Throughout the 1940’s the Swedish government conducted a series of studies (published as a part of what is known as The Swedish Government Official Reports) concerning the “partially ablebodied” and their access to vocational training and vocational therapy. During this period, Sweden experienced an economic boom which created a lack of labour force. At the same time the Swedish welfare state was being built. The official reports can be seen as a way for the government to explore the possibility of including the partially ablebodied in the labour force. This can be understood as a part of specific demands and rights that were connected to citizenship at this time. This paper investigates discourses regarding the body, using both official reports and life narratives from persons who had polio during the first half of the twentieth century in Sweden. Because of the very different nature of the two materials – one stemming from experiences and one expressing a more strategic and official view – a wide range of possibilities for analyses is opened up. In this paper I focus on how, in these discourses, a body with impairments is constructed as being (partially) able to perform something defined as “labour”. My hypothesis is that the governmental studies constantly express an insecurity regarding what kind of duties a partially ablebodied person should be expected to perform. This created a complex power relation between the state and the partially ablebodied, which also can be detected in the life narratives.

The aim of my paper is to present some examples from my research about how class was constructed linguistically in Svensk Damtidning (Swedish Woman’s Magazine) at the beginning of the 20th century, to display the discourses that governed people’s notions of themselves and others, and the violent disagreements over different representations. By way of conclusion I argue that is fruitful to abandon the great narrative of the working class's rise and probable fall, not only because 'the working class' never existed other than as a figure of speech – although one that certainly governed people’s self-image and thus found material expression in the real world – but also because this figure of speech was far from alone in its own presumed heyday. Thus, with a greater knowledge of the genealogy of the term 'class', in its broadest historical sense class is still relevant: as a designation with origin far back in the 18th century.

I will in this paper try to examine how teenagers interpret the content of history education and teaching strategies. Consequently the aim of this paper is to give the reader an overview of how nineteen high-school students as well as three authors of the textbooks for high schools perceive history as a school subject. The results of the interviews with authors and pupils were compared and contrasted to the content of the textbooks as well as the content of the national curriculum. The interviews with the pupils were made between 2004 and 2006 in Swedish city of Malmö, where over 40 present of children between the ages six and fifteen have a foreign background.

Theoretical and methodological framework: In my paper I will take of in a theoretical framework related to a German historian Reinhart Kosellecks Begriffsgechichte as an empirical study over the struggle to give meaning to important concepts in our thinking. I will also make some sort of methodological take of in this paper in a model from a Danish historian, Bernard Eric Jensen. In this model he discuss the fields were we meet, and the fields were we produce history. In the centre of the model he has put the concept – historical consciousness e. g. how we connect the present with the past and the future. My sources: My research is based on 34 textbooks in History for compulsory school in Sweden published between 1940 and 1996, and similar 40 textbooks published in United States of America between the years of 1887 and 1995. The question: I will focus on two national traumas on the labor market; The bomb on Haymarket Square in 1886, Chicago, USA and the deadly shouting by a military troop on a peaceful demonstration in Ådalen, Sweden in 1931. However, the two events rapidly became important concepts; Haymarket is close related to the international May Day tradition and Ådalen in Sweden as a turning point and a start for the Swedish welfare state – at least in the retrospective perspective of the history writing of today. Howe has the two narratives been retold in the textbooks in history for compulsory school? Is it the same narrative or does it changes over time? Howe does the textbooks reflect conflicts and different values of its present time in the society? What meaning do the two events play in different narratives - in Sweden and the United States? A short example: Textbooks in the US - a battlefield American Historians have used textbooks as sources to interpret changing discuses within the American society in a very interesting way. As Joseph Moreau rites: ”Examining textbooks through the lens of the”nation” is an effective way to unmask these conflicts.” Both Joseph Moreau and Jonathan, Zimmerman has pointed out periods of transitions in American textbooks in the 1890-, 1920-, 1930-, 1960- and 1980. I will just give two short examples; one from a textbook used from the very turn of the last century to the mid 1920th, and one from a textbook printed in 1938, just before Word War two. It’s quite easy to follow the footsteps of Moreau and Zimmerman and relate their studies to my study about Haymarket and labor movement. Those textbooks which was published just before or after the bomb at Haymarket 1886 was coloured by the sympathy and the concern many middleclass and intellectuals felt over the extreme poverty in many cities, and the conflicts at the labor market in the US. History of the United States printed in 1888 is one example: “Throughout the land mechanics and laborers of all classes had formed Union-organizations for controlling hours of labor and daily pay, and for taking care of stick or unfortunate members.” Some years later it’s a quite another narrative told by D. H. Montgomery. ”In Chicago forty thousand men left their employments…Processions of strikers, ten thousand strong, , marched through the streets, - in some cases, with all the precision of movement of a body of highly drilled troops…- an Englishman – urged the most violent measures. [At Haymarket] …some one threw a dynamite bomb at the police…then drew revolvers, and fired on the police….The ringleaders of the mob were arrested, and brought to trial. All but one were of foreign birth. They belonged to a small but dangerous class calling themselves Anarchists. The object of the Anarchist is to overthrow all forms of government, either by peaceable means, or…by murder, and the destruction of property.” It’s a narrative built up on a framework of dangerous alien anarchists threatening the society and the private property with bombs. The recently arrived immigrants have not yet learned American traditions and costumes. It’s retold also in First World War anti-labor discourse: “The most violent outbreak of this kind occurred in Chicago, where 40.000 men suddenly stopped at work. A band of violent anarchists ...The leaders in the terrible assault were caught and four of them were hanged after a faire trail in court. Since then anarchists have been severely dealt with in this country.” If we go ahead; my second example is from a textbook published in the end of the New Deal area and it is obvious that the labor movement at that time had became an integrated part of the textbooks, witch reflects the changing values within the American society. The textbook tells us by the headline of the chapter: ”Samuel Gompers, The Greatest American Labor Leader.” Gompers has got a chapter of his own – his life story and fortunes is also an allegorical narrative about the history of the American society. Gompers was born in a poor but harmonic working class family in England and came to New York as young immigrant with his family at the age at 14, and he became at cigar maker. From his very first day at work he became a member of the Cigar Makers Union and he stared to study what he could do to give the workers a better life. That is why he founded the American Federation of Labor and he became its president for 37 years. When the workers of US unionized the living conditions became better and life healthier, the working day was shortened and the salaries raised and it became possible for a common worker to give the children a good education and a god home. ”Mr. Gompers was happy to see the condition of the working people so much improved, but he was never satisfied. He kept on working…[and]…did a great deal to help make the working people of the United States happier and more comfortable than the workers in any other country.” The narrative over Gompers is also a narrative over the American dream, by hard labor it is possible also for the poorest immigrant to succeed, and how America today is more wealthy than any other country on earth. In this narrative there is no place for those Marxian circles were Gompers participated or the work for pardon the Haymarket martyrs. Even the parents of the children are included in the “we –are all-in-the-same-boat” – narrative: ”// 3. Find out how many of the fathers of the pupils in your class belong to labor unions or employ men who belong to unions. List the names of these unions to see whether or not there are many different unions represented. //” In the Cold War textbooks ”American” is defined by the capitalist system and Haymarket has its place as an frightening concept of radicals.

Name: Roger Johansson, PhD, senior lecturer, Department: History Department/Teacher Education, Institution Malmö University, Sweden Phone: +46 (0)40 665 80 84, cell-phone +46 (0)709 655 380 E-mail: roger.johansson@lut.mah.se Title of paper: The History of May Day and the struggle for the History – Narratives of the May Day in the United States This paper will discuss the May Day in the US. There is also a close relation between the International May Day and the Haymarket tradition. An American historian, William Adelman, wrote about the Haymarket events in 1886 in Chicago: “The Haymarket bomb, the May Day march for the eight hour day, the trial, and execution started a chain of events that have influenced every corner of the globe.” And it would not be possible to understand the heavy symbolism of the Haymarket, without understanding how close related the events were – and still are – to the eight-hour-working-day, free speech, and most of all, the international May Day. Carl Smith, another American historian, wrote about the meaning of the bomb: ”…the profoundest questions of all: under what conditions should human beings live and labor with one another? Four different monuments were erected to memorize the events at the Haymarket Square. Still, two of the monuments were placed at the Haymarket Square – but not at the same time. It is not surprisingly that the battle over the memory of the trauma also resulted in a violent battle over the space at the square in effort to erect a monument; The police monument from 1889 and The site of the Haymarket tragedy from 2004. As a member of the committee in 2004 the President of the Police Union in Chicago stated that the Haymarket monument also included the police as a labor force – today the Chicago police is unionized and a part of the labor movement in Chicago. And even more important, from the perspective of the international working class day, is the fact that when The site of the Haymarket tragedy was erected in 2004 it also became the starting point for the return of May Day in Chicago. And with the erection of the new monument over the Anarchists in 2004, the past and the present of the May Day tradition, meets at the Haymarket Square. Maybe this is how we should read the history over the two monuments. Monuments are not only shaping memories, or preserves the memory, the monument is talking to us and makes us understand our own contemporary world and in a deeper meaning they make us look into the future. In this sense a monument is truly interactive. The two monuments are standing as common testimonies of the May day of the 1886s in Chicago and everyone who meets The police monument or The site of the Haymarket tragedy are forced to meet the narratives they bring to us. As an American historian wrote, “…the passion” of the debate “…reveals how important the establishing of imaginative control over the city was….”, and you could add - still is. Ever since the Haymarket events, and even more, since the birth of the international working class May Day in 1890, there has been a struggle over the May Day and the meaning of the concept as an international working class day for class manifestations. In this sense the May Day reflects the conflicts inside the American society. On the other hand it gives us through its slogans, artefacts and the manifestations of the day, a representation of how the American working class movement understood the day and how this has changed over time. Both the attempts to criminalising the May Day by criminalising its artefacts by the Red Flag Law or by renaming the day to Child Health Day or working class celebration the day or not, or how Haymarket has been memorised, it all reflects changing values in the public debate and the imagines of the May Day inside the US working class and labor movement.

This book grew from the development of research links between Bill Lancaster in Britain and Peter Billing and Mikael Stigendal in Sweden over a decade ago. Their mutual discussions about the possibility of comparing Malmö and Newcastle resulted in a doctoral studentship sponsored by the University of Northumbria, which was completed in 2000. I thank all three for their advice and guidance since I commenced research in 1997. Particular thanks are extended to Bill Lancaster for his lively enthusiasm and firm belief in the benefits of comparative history. As an exercise in international comparative history, this work has involved many people in both cities. In Malmö I would like in particular to thank the staff of Malmö Stads Arkiv and Arbetarekommunens Arkiv and the City Library and University of Lund Library. Their counterparts at the Tyne and Wear Archive Service, Research Section of the City Council in Newcastle and the Trade Union Studies and Information Unit in Gateshead were equally helpful and supportive. In Newcastle particular thanks are extended to the Newcastle City Library Local Studies Section staff for their invaluable knowledge of, and enduring enthusiasm for, the history of Newcastle upon Tyne. I thank Swedish scholars and colleagues, in particular Peter Aronsson and Katarina Friberg of the University of Växjö, especially Katarina for reading and commenting on many of the chapters, as well as Lars Berggren, Fredrik Björk and Mats Greiff of the Universities of Lund and Malmö. In Britain I benefited from comments and insights from David Byrne, Don MacRraild, Patrick Salmon, Keith Shaw and John Tomaney, in addition to participants and convenors of the research seminars at the School of Humanities at the University of Northumbria. I would also like to thank all my former students of the University of Northumbria. Thanks are also extended to the late Pat Mather of Northumbria University’s Additionally, I would like to thank members of my family in Sweden for their hospitality and support during my research visits to Malmö and my family in Britain for their support and patience and for reading several draft chapters.Slide Library.

I boken beskrivs och analyseras bakgrunden till och händelseförloppet i Koreakriget 1950–53. Två övergripande problemområden står i centrum för diskussionen: den nordkoreanska interventionen i juni 1950 och den senare kinesiska interventionen på nordkoreanernas sida. Orsakerna till de båda interventionerna, samt åtgärderna som vidtogs för att hantera dem, diskuteras utförligt. Boken är främst avsedd för lärare och studenter inom humaniora och samhällsvetenskap, men givande för alla som vill få tillgång till en mer fördjupad diskussion av Koreakriget än den som ges i olika handböcker.

A vehicle in the army, or a friend in the family

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain the changes in the gender balance of jockeyship in Swedish horse racing in the period 1890-2000. The change in gender coding, and its causes, are both complex. Two distinctive periods of change are argued to have been crucial, the 1940s and 1970s. In the first period women were given permission to ride in amateur races; in the second period they were allowed to become professionals. It is suggested here that the changes in the gender balance are explained by male support, the intersection of gender and social class and gender coding.

Recension av: Joan Wallach Scott, Parité! : sexual equality and the crisis of French universalism, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2005, ISBN 0-226-74108-7

"Kapitalen.com" is an alternate analysis of the impact of globalization on Scandinavian societies, and a deconstruction of the so-called post-industrial society. Lean Production has replaced Fordism as the dominant production form, but the assembly lines run faster and more efficiently than ever. My postscript deals with the triumph of (neo)liberalism in Denmark, and how an attack on reason resulted in a showdown with social engineering and the traditional welfare state.