Abstract

By interviewing 15 teachers with experience of teaching history in multi-ethnic classrooms and utilising the concept of “objectivistic” and “critical” epistemic expressions, Lundberg explores teachers’ perceptions of a multi-ethnic context’s meaning for their history teaching. A close analysis of four upper-secondary teachers shows relatively clear epistemic expressions in their description of their context-bound teaching. The analytical framework regards the teachers’ expressions about the relationship between the past and the history of the past. Lundberg argues that despite teachers’ expressed similarities in teaching intentions regardless of epistemic position, these similarities should not be overstated since various teaching intentions, such as developed tolerance and analytical skills, are filtered through differing epistemic lenses. One conclusion is that the process of “epistemic filtering” causes conceptually similar teaching intentions—by some teachers underlined as of particular importance in a multi-ethnic context—to hold differing meanings with differing functional potentials.