International Reformation of Swedish History Education 1927–1961: The Complexity of Implementing International Understanding

This study shows how the international efforts for reforming history teaching, by the League of Nations, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe, were both neglected and implemented before and after World War II. International interest in the promotion of international understanding and discouragement of nationalism was interpreted and influenced by teachers’ and students’ views of history. International understanding and non-European history—but not intercultural history—became a dominant theme in the Swedish curriculum in a complex top-down and bottom-up process.