My goal with this thesis was to investigate how educational material in the subjects of history, geography and social studies relate to the fact that Sweden has a history marked by prejudice and racism.I have chosen to focus on four areas in the Swedish history that I think deserves some special attention, these four areas have been: the Swedish slave trade on the island of Saint Barthelemy in the eighteenth century, Swedish eugenics and oppression of the Sami people, forced sterilization services during the twentieth century and Sweden's aid and concessions to Nazi Germany during World War II. With these areas in focus I’ve studied three textbooks in the courses Geography A, Civics A and History A to se how they deal with prejudice and racism in the Swedish history.

The result I have come to is that none of the books addresses all four of the areas I’ve focused on. Even if the books are taken as a whole the image that they convey is not adequate. In the event that the four areas that I’ve focused on been mentioned the information have been scant and rarely, if ever, has Sweden been paired with phenomenons like racism, slavery, colonialism, eugenics, forced sterilization, etc. All these concepts (apart from racism) are treated in comparison to other countries and in some cases, even moral advice, or condemnations occurred in connection therewith. Racism as a phenomenon is not discussed in any of the books, creating a further gap in the history these books create. The consequence of this would be that the teaching teachers need to compensate for the shortcomings of these books to meet the guidelines and objectives governing documents set up. If such compensatory education does not take place there is a risk that the areas I have chosen to focus on will fall into oblivion and the lessons we can learn from history could be lost.