After the new curricula came into force two years ago, the theme of national minorities was removed from the subject of history. Now the theme is mainly in the subject of social studies.
Åsa Fahlén is chairman of Sweden’s Teachers. According to her, there may be a need for continuing education among upper secondary social studies teachers because one is not necessarily a teacher of both history and social studies.
– It is difficult to teach something that you have never read, that has not been part of what you have trained for. And ideally it should be connected to a college or university.
At middle school, teachers are qualified in both social studies and history.
Several hours for social studies
According to the Swedish National Agency for Education, lack of time was one of the reasons why national minorities were removed from history lessons. The curriculum in history was simply too packed, which meant that many teachers de-prioritized the theme of national minorities. According to Åsa Fahlén, the situation is a little better in social studies after removing the student’s choice school subject and increasing the number of teaching hours in social studies.
The topic was discussed in Sunday’s episode of 15 minutes from Uutiset.