Exploring Textbooks and Cultural Change in Nordic Education 1536-2020

Listen to the podcast with Editors Merethe Roos and Henrik Edgren

This volume addresses a gap in previous research and explores Nordic textbooks chronologically and empirically from the Protestant Reformation to our present time. The chapters are written by scholars from universities in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, countries that distinguish themselves with a rich tradition of textbook research. The authors represent different academic traditions and use a wide range of scholarly methods and perspectives. The overall objective is to highlight how textbooks reflect national cultural politics and legislation. The various chapters cast light on how textbooks are integrated in national politics and demonstrate how they have contributed to nation-building and to strengthening the nations’ core values and other major political projects.

Contributors are: Karl Christian Alvestad, Norunn Askeland, Kjell Lars Berge, Peter Bernhardsson, Kerstin Bornholdt, Mads B. Claudi, Henrik Edgren, Morten Fink-Jensen, Stig Toke Gissel, Thomas Illum Hansen, Pirjo Hiidenmaa, Marthe Hommerstad, Axel Hörstedt, Kari-Anne J rgensen-Vitters , Tujia Laine, Esbjörn Larsson, Ragnhild Elisabeth Lund, Christina Matthiesen, Eva Maager , Tuva Skjelbred Nodeland, Kari H. Nordberg, Merethe Roos, Henriette Hogga Siljan, Johan Laurits T nnesson and Janne Varjo.

Merethe Roos, Ph.D. (2010), University of South-Eastern Norway, is Professor of History at that university. She has published monographs, anthologies and a number of articles on 18th and 19th century, including Enlightened Preaching. Balthasar Münter’s authorship 1772-1793 (Brill, 2013).
Kjell Lars Berge, Dr.Art. (1995), University of Oslo, is Professor of Textual Studies at the Department of Linguistic and Scandinavian Studies. He has published monographs, and many articles in fields as text linguistics, literacy and writing research, rhetoric, and text historical studies.
Henrik Edgren, Ph.D. (2005), Uppsala University, is Associate Professor in the History education at the Department of Education. Edgren’s main research area is patriotism and nationalism in 19th century Nordic textbooks.
Pirjo Hiidenmaa, Ph.D. (1959), University of Helsinki, is Professor of Non-Fiction Literature. She has published articles and books on Finnish language, especially text and discourse analysis and literacy education.
Christina Matthiesen, Ph.D. (2013), University of Copenhagen, is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric. She has published work on education and rhetoric in Scandinavia and internationally, and contributed to journals such as Advances in the History of Rhetoric.