Stille aber ist Mangelware Deutschland und die Deutschen in schwedischen Schulbüchern für das Fach Deutsch 1970–1995

Foreign language textbooks and workbooks contribute to how a country and its people are perceived. Whether consciously or not, every such text provides us with information about the culture of the target language. >From the 1970s onward, the analysis of how Germany and Germans are depicted in language textbooks has been a research area of interest to the GFL (German as a Foreign Language) community. In this connection, what are the characteristics of the GFL books employed in the Swedish school system? To answer this question, the present work has, to agreater extent than hitherto, considered questions of the prevailing mentality and social conditions in the source country. The cultural pattems, values and norms of Swedish society are unmistakably present in the views of Germany and Germans held by the authors of these study kits. Furthermore, the choice of time frame encompasses a generation of books whose perspective deliberately contrasts the cultures in question, and indeed actively encourages pupils to compare Swedish and German society.