The role of the colonial past and post-colonial present is central to the history education in Finnish secondary and higher education. However, the current situation is problematic due to the colonial and post-colonial being presented as part of general history, with which Finland seems to share only few points of contact. This results in an exclusive presentation of the past – with speakers of Finnish and Swedish sharing a so-called common history and those, who do not. The backgrounds of students are multicultural already, but this is not yet reflected in the Finnish historical narrative. This report was produced by the colonialism workgroup of Historians without Boarders in Finland. Information concerning the teaching of history at Finnish history departments was gathered for this report. The survey was conducted during spring 2018, and the goal was to determine how questions of colonialism are taught in the history departments of Finnish universities.
Read the report in English.
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