Historieundervisning och interkulturell kompetens
History teaching and intercultural competence

AbstractTitle: History teaching and intercultural competenceThis study takes as its starting point the relationship between the multicultural and globalised society and history as a school subject, and explores it theoretically as well as empirically. Intercultural historical competence, which is the main theoretical and analytical concept of the study, is developed from theories of narrative competence and theories of intercultural competence, and is positioned in the intersection between the two. Narrative competence describes historical consciousness as being characterised by three distinct sub-competencies, the competence of experience, the competence of interpretation and the competence of orientation. Historical learning is seen as the qualification of these competencies to be able to tell meaningful stories about our lives. The empirical case study explores how intercultural historical competence as a learning objective is interpreted and enacted in one history classroom. The enacted object of learning is regarded as a co-construction between the teacher, the pupils and historical narratives. This study explores how experiences and interpretations of the past are made and used in the work in the classroom. The question of what constitutes each narrative sub-competence is addressed and discussed in three empirical chapters respectively. The source material mainly consists of observations from a sequel of 25 history lessons in an upper secondary schoolThe empirical results show how different dimensions of each sub-competence contribute to what is possible to learn in relation to intercultural historical competence. One important dimension of the competence of experience is the employment of strategies of pluralism, deconstruction and counter-narratives to open up closed narratives. The competence of interpretation is strengthened by the use of second-order concepts as tools to qualify historical thinking. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how it is possible to practise the competence of orientation by giving pupils the opportunity to use historical narratives and historical tools to make sense of the present and to think about the future. One additional conclusion is that the planning process, when the learning objective is interpreted and framed into lessons and exercises, is decisive for what is possible for pupils to learn. Finally, it is stated that history as a school subject has the capacity to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that are relevant in a multicultural and globalised society.Key words: history teaching, historical learning, history education, intercultural competence, intercultural education, historical consciousness, upper secondary school, class room study, object of learning, learning objective, historical narrative.