Japansk historia fram till år 1905 i svenska historie-läroböcker

The essays aim is to see if eurocentrism is visible in history textbooks used in Sweden, the focus is the representation of Japanese history up until 1905. The goal is also to present what aspects of Japanese history are allocated during different periods. The following questions were formulated with regard to the aim: • How much space is given to Japanese history up to the year 1905 in the textbooks? • Which themes of Japanese history up to the year 1905 can be found in the textbooks? • Which similarities and differences to how Japanese history up to 1905 exists in the textbooks? The material that was analyzed in this study consists of nine printed history textbooks published between the years 1964-2021. The method used to obtain the results in the essay was quantitative content analysis. To answer the research questions, the essay followed a coding scheme. For analyzing the material, predominantly descriptive coding was used, as the focus was to analyze explicit content. The aim was to establish categories that would reflect the essence of the essay's purpose and research questions. Afterwards, relationships between different types of data studied were to be established. Examples of different data include Japanese history addressing various periods, while examples of similar data include themes following similar events and chronology. The results show that the four oldest textbooks devoted the most space to Japanese history until 1905, at an average of two and a half page per textbook. Interest and media attention can influence the visibility of Japan. When the three oldest books were published, there was increased attention on Japan. People were inspired by its modernity, social and economic successes, and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics brought significant recognition to the country. The results also reveal that what is similar in these textbooks is the persistence of Eurocentrism. However, one clear distinction is that in the four newest textbooks published, Japanese history is only included when it involves a Western country whereas the four oldest textbooks give an earlier account of Japanese history and culture. A second difference among the textbooks is that in the oldest textbook printed in 1964, the authors used a more offensive tone compared to the terminology used today.