Manligt och kvinnligt i skolämnet historia

Vad har det för konsekvenser för elevernas historiekultur?

Abstract

Based on interviews with students in grade five, this article describes pupils' historical culture. The text has two angles, first addressed are the pupils perception of male and female aspects of the past. It showed that the pupils mainly see male actors and male activities as real history. The second approach is differences between boys’ and girls’ attitudes to history as a school subject and to history as phenomena as well as students historical culture. The study showed that girls have a greater interest than the boys for history, both as a school subject and for taking part of history in their leisure time. The article shows that pupils' historical culture seems to be focused on what they describe as the great events of the past. The boys show none interest in other parts of the past, while girls also show interest in the everyday history. Girls claim that they need to read history to get good grades while both boys and girls want to read history to become knowledgeable and participate in society. The article ends with a discussion of the relevance of these aspects for history as a school subject and its teaching.