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This thesis sets out to address the question: How is Swedish history put forward as expected identification in history textbooks for the years of compulsory schooling and how did this change during the period 1870-2000? This question is legitimate since the writing of history is a form of meaning-creation that is built through the merging of different components (place, time, actors, objectives, etc.) into a coherent narrative. The writing of history is therefore a form of power.

The study include a quantitative total enquiry into all published history textbooks in Sweden between 1870-2000 aimed at compulsory schooling, as well as läroverk and gymnasium. In aim to map out and analyse the framing patterns displayed by the genre in order to answer questions about its characteristics and find out which have been the dominant history textbooks. These have formed basis for the qualitative investigation.  

The genre has its own clear inherent components such as images which are used over a very long time and found in book after book and publisher after publisher. The genre of history textbooks has an independence in relation to current research in academia and equally The only time there is a fundamental change is after the 1950s and then the whole school system had been recast, but after a while the greater part of the elements under study returned. The results of the thesis point to the consumer side as being what largely upholds the tradition of the genre.

A clear change is the significantly increased female representation during the 1990s. When the female representation is portrayed, it is more connected to traditional female values such as family than ever before. I argue that this is a consequence of the gender system’s logic of separation. When there is more space given to female representation, it becomes increasingly important to mark the boundaries between the female and the male.