Svenskarna om Sverige och svenskheten

In English In the last years there has been an increasing interest among scholars in what is typically Swedish and what is characteristic for a Swede. A typical question would be: what constitutes a Swede? There are various reasons for this growing interest. One of them is the increasing, permanent and progressively more marked appearance of immigrants in Sweden.
In this text I will discuss the concepts ethnicity and nationalism and try to find out how to ”measure Swedishness”. I also look at what have been considered Swedish historically and how others have studied what is typically Swedish.
The research is based on two studies, one from 1995 and one from 1998. Both studies are surveys distributed to a large number of people chosen by random. Language, nature and traditions are important aspects for constituting the Swedish character. Common origin and religion are not. There is a strong cohesion among Swedes and a low degree of acceptance for people of foreign origin. The Swede prefers to live in Sweden and is quite proud of being Swedish.