The purpose of this paper is to investigate historical consciousness through how pupils perceive history as a school subject. Jörn Rüsen´s three dimensions, the political, the cognitive and the aesthetic, of history culture has been applied in order to highlight pupils communicated historical consciousness. Historical consciousness can be regarded as the impact our interpretations of our past has on our understanding of the present and expectations of the future. Characteristic of historical consciousness is historical time and story. Historical time is subjective and builds on experiences and expectations in which all time dimensions operates in a contemporary era, and the story is a linguistic form of historical consciousness where we communicate experiences of the past, the present and expectations for the future. Pupils in grade 2 and 3 have been interviewed to clarify their perception and interpretation of history.

The three dimensions of historical culture show that it is a politically contradictory story that takes precedence over the history of teaching. The results of the analysis show that the pupils historical consciousness is limited to the past and the present, while the future has not been explicitly addressed in the teaching. At the same time, the dimensions of historical culture have highlighted that the pupils themselves have the capacity to activate and develop their historical consciousness. Aided by imagination and the creation of stories the pupils allow themselves to approach the future through their own experiences and interpretations of the past. This sets a framework for expectations and dreams of the future. The same framework enables the pupils to approach the past by entering imaginative worlds interpreted as a resemblance of life in the historical past.