UPPSALA UNIVERSITET : Forskningsgruppen för utbildnings- och kultursociologi : utbildningens sociala och ekonomiska historia
Uppsala universitet
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Social and Economic History of Education

Projects

Projects that the members of the working group are or have been involved in.

Ongoing projects, Finished projects, Planned projects

Ongoing PhD-projects

From Private Tutors to Public Teachers: Modern Language Teaching in the 19th Century
Peter Bernhardsson

Private schools at mills and iron works, 1800-1930
Madeleine Michaëlsson

Gender and class in Swedish student-magazines, 1870-1930
Sara Backman Prytz

From parish schools to central schools, 1920-80
Magnus Svensson

 

Ongoing projects

The economics of education: The financing of the Swedish elementary school, 1842–1936

 During the hundred years that followed the Elementary school act of 1842, the Swedish elementary school system went through an unparalleled development. The number of students doubled from 270 000 in the year 1850 to 605 000 in the year 1950. At the same time the number of teachers rose from 3 500 to 27 500. As a result the costs of the elementary school increased dramatically. Between 1874 and 1942 the expenditures increased from 14 to 268 millions of Swedish kronor, counted in the money value of 1942.

This project deals with the economics of this remarkable development. How was the funding system of these schools designed, in order to cope with expenses that rose nineteen times? How was funds created and distributed in order to finance the increase of the number of teachers? What consequences did such a funding system have for the instruction of the elementary schools? Anglo-Saxon research has shown that the answers to these questions are far from simple. Financing a school system involves balancing demands for higher quality of education with ambitions to keep check of already high costs. It is also a question of choosing between different forms of grants and objects (teacher salaries, school books, schoolhouses etc.). How such decisions were made are the central questions of this project.

Collaborators: Johannes Westberg (director), Esbjörn Larsson, Madeleine Michaelsson, Magnus Svensson, Germund Larsson
Department of Education & Department of History, Uppsala University
Funding body: Swedish Research Council, Handelsbanken research council
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Between discipline and self-improvement: Differences in the implementation of Monitorial Education for different social classes in Sweden, approx. 1820-1870

A system of different schools for different social classes was established in Sweden during the 19th century. In this study the pedagogical implications of this development is analysed regarding the use of monitorial education. In this type of education more experienced students were used as help teachers and the teaching methods were often characterized by drill-like instructions. Monitorial education has often been described as a tool to discipline and control the working classes. A closer look at the situation in Sweden shows however that monitorial education was used also in more prestigious schools with students from higher social classes. In these schools monitorial education was characterized by self-activity and individualization.

In this study I will compare the monitorial education in schools for children from lower social classes (for example Växelundervisningssällskapets normalskola) to schools for children from higher social classes, such as grammar schools (for example Nya elementarskolan and Hillska skolan i Barnängen). The study of the educational practices at these schools will also be complemented by a study of the public debate. In a wider perspective the purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of social class in educational practices. I also hope that my study will increase the knowledge of the encounter between pedagogical ideas and various social environments in a more general manner.

Collaborators: Esbjörn Larsson
Department of Education, Uppsala University
Funding body: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond


Foreign Policy and internationalization of Swedish higher education. The Swedish Institute and the academic exchange 1945-2010

The Swedish Institute (SI) was founded in 1945 with the aim to inform about Sweden and to raise sympathies for the country abroad. SI is a typical example for an institution for a cultural diplomacy institution. One central task of the institute are scholarships for foreign students and researchers for visits to Swedish universities. SI is an institution where foreign and educational policy meet and has played an important role for the academic internationalization from 1945 until today.

This project deals with the SI-scholarhips and the foreigners receiving them and wants to analyze the relationship between cultural diplomacy and the internationalization of Swedish higher education. Starting point is the Swedish interests founding SI focussing the political and economical tasks assigned to it and wether these changed with changing Swedish foreign policy. A quantitative statistical analysis of the incoming foreigners will trace wether changing foreign political and economical interests can be seen in the recievers of scholarships. Important factors are of course country of origin or working field and if this has changed over time. This analysis also gives a picture of the internationalization of the Swedish universities. The project ties together foreign policy and the educational sector, two areas normally not related to another. It will show how foreign policy affects international academic mobility and the Swedish university landscape from an historical perspective.

Collaborators: Andreas Åkerlund
Funding body: Swedish Research Council


The Emergence of the Democrat: Popular education and the Process of Democratic Subjection in Sweden 1830-1940

The purpose of this project is to analyse and explain the emergence, production and reproduction of liberal democratic subjects, by studying one of the most important institutions of the process in Sweden: popular education. Analysing the making of democratic subjects as a political project will problematise the established paradigm that the democratisation processes in the West were natural, successive and uncontested. Our way of approaching democracy is inspired by newer research, which originates from Foucauldian and Gramscian approaches.  

We investigate this process in a longer historical perspective, 1830–1940. The main research questions are the following: In what ways did the popular education nurture a democratic mind, and on the other hand, what were the limits of this project - what habits and thoughts were branded non-democratic? Who was not considered a democrat, or not trusted to be part of the group of democratic citizens?

Collaborators: Samuel Edquist (director), Anne Berg
Department of Education, Uppsala University
Funding Body: Swedish Research Council


The financing of Swedish popular education, 1872–1991: economic governance,standards and practices between the public and voluntary sectors

Swedish popular education has often been characterized as an independent, “free and voluntary" sphere. Even so, it has throughout most of its history been largely dependent on financial resources from the public sphere: the state, the county councils and the municipalities. There has been a lively discussion about the paradoxical relationships between adult education and the state; freedom on the one side, dependency on the other. Still, few studies have analyzed the purely financial side of this problem.   This project analyses the financial contributions from the state (and to some extent the local governments) to non-public adult education – folk high schools, public lectures and study circles from the mid 19th century to our own time. What were the rules and conditions for public funding? How large were the actual contributions, and how did they change over time? What impact did they have? How should the funding system be considered in a broader perspective, e.g. in relation to other areas of public expenditure (education and/or culture)?

Collaborators: Samuel Edquist (director), Anne Berg
Department of Education, Uppsala University
Funding Body: Handelsbanken research council


The development of School mathematics and reforms of the Swedish school system in the 20th century: A comparative and historical study of changes of contents, methods and institutional conditions

The project aims to examine how Swedish school mathematics change in primary school (Year 4-9) during the period 1910-2010 and to identify mechanisms that have influenced the choice of content and methods.  

The main question concerns how general school reforms and other attempts to reform school mathematics have impact on educational texts. The focus is on the production of educational texts; both the textual contents and the social conditions for the production of educational texts are studied.  

The main material is policy documents, textbooks, teachers' magazines, books on teaching and exams. The analysis of textual content is based on concepts from curriculum theory: goals, content and method. The project also includes a sociological study of the people who produced the educational texts. The sociological analysis has a prosopographical approach and is based on Bourdieu's theory of field and capital. In order to discern what is typical for changes in Swedish school mathematics, comparisons are made between Sweden and Germany during the period 1910-2010. Material and people from both Sweden and Germany is studied.

Collaborators: Johan Prytz
Department of Education, Uppsala University
Funding Body: Swedish Research Council


Finished projects

Graduate School History of Education (2005-11)

Research in the history of education comprises studies of formation, education, instruction, upbringing and learning. The graduate school has a focus on modern social history of education. It recruits graduate students in history, history of ideas and education (and related subjects). These students are accepted as graduate students at different universities where they typically are employed, where their main supervisor are positioned and where most of their education takes place as well as the examination. The research school initiates and coordinates courses, supervision arrangements, staff and student exchanges and so on, and organizes a network for research in the history of education.  

One aim is to bring historical science expertise into the educational domain. Within for example teacher education institutions many examination papers and PhD dissertations are related to historical matters. The research school will put teacher students and teacher educators whose training in historical research might be meagre in contact with scholars and graduate students from disciplines such as history or the history of ideas. Thus the research school will, directly and indirectly, contribute to more qualified activities at the teacher education institutions.

Inversely, by promoting research, courses collaboration and exchanges within the history of education domain the research school will contribute to the historical sciences. Although many historians pay attention to educational matters, in Sweden today such efforts are dispersed and rarely visible as a domain. Further, an improved understanding of historical factors and historical explanations would be of value to the public debate on education, as well as to teachers, administrators and politicians.
The Graduate School funded four PhD-students and had 26 associated PhD-students.

Collaborators: Donald Broady (director), Esbjörn Larsson (coordinator 2005-08), Johannes Westberg (coordinator 2008-11)
PhD-students: Andreas Åkerlund, Stefan Rimm, Elin Gardeström, Thomas Neidenmark

 More information>>

 


From Upbringing to Education: The Swedish Royal War Academy, 1792 to 1866
(dissertation 2005)

This thesis presents an analysis of cadet training at the Royal War Academy between 1792 and 1866. The purposes of this study are to problematise the Academy's function and to investigate male social reproduction amongst the Swedish upper classes. Two different aspects of social reproduction are studied: the transmission of social position between generations; and the communication of ideals and lifestyle that were linked to the position that was reproduced. The former was studied with the help of Pierre Bourdieu's terminology, while the latter necessitated the use of theoretical perspectives on masculinity.

This thesis demonstrates the changes in the preconditions for male social reproduction, and relates them to the transition from a late feudal to a capitalist society. At the end of the eighteenth century, the usual route to a military career was still through the family's personal contacts in the armed forces. In Bourdieu's terms, this was a very direct means of transferring symbolic capital, and one that also required social capital. With the emergence of the middle class, the Academy's recruitment patterns altered. This process coincided with the emergence of a Swedish education system, and cadet training gradually adapted to fit with other elements in the school system. The ability to transfer symbolic capital directly to the next generation crumbled in the face of a system where education was necessary for the reproduction of a social position.

Unlike the shifting shape of social reproduction, masculine upbringing was central at the Academy throughout the whole period. The cadets entered as boys and left as men. In this process, relationships within the cadet corps were of crucial importance. The new cadets first had to subordinate themselves to their elders, and then in turn subordinate others. It was this social order that ensured the cadets learnt a harsh lesson in leadership

Collaborators: Esbjörn Larsson
Fulltext available >>


A Population into Battle: The Nation Formation process in Sweden during the Age of revolution, 1780-1860 (dissertation 2011)

The aim of this thesis is to problematize the western type of nation formation by characterizing and explaining the Swedish process of national identity construction during the Age of Revolution. Thus, the thesis sets out to investigate the political-hegemonic process of identity formation, redefinition and struggle between different political forces. In practise, the thesis develops a typology over different ideological identity projects according to their object of identity formation and their political content. Instead of classifying the projects into civic or cultural types of nationalisms, the scheme of official and counter-hegemonic ideological projects are used. The thesis also sets out to explain the character of the process studied. This is done by analyzing the socio-political conditions of existence of the different national ideological projects. This includes their relationship to the state, their social milieus and the social composition of the agents of nationalization.

The thesis shows that the Swedish process can be characterized as a constant battle over the population: a battle over the national self-understanding amongst different layers of the population.  The explanation of this character has to do with two existing conditions. Firstly, the existence of a state that supported some identity projects and prohibited others. The state produced a sphere of contest by, partially, allowing the establishment of a sphere of political communication. It also acted as an authority by facilitating the different agents with the political language of nationalism as the main arena of social struggle. The other important condition was the increasing economic modernization, which caused both social mobilization and differentiation – the pre-conditions for intra-class conflicts and inter-class conflicts.

In the end this thesis argues, in contrast to the modernist theories in the field, which has underpinned the importance of social communication and state- or bourgeois-led cultural integration, that Sweden, as one of the so-called old continuous nations, was not a top-down project during this particular era. It was a project created from the top as well as from below – inside as well as outside the objects of national politics. It is this simultaneousness that is the main feature of identity formation. And, its explanation lies in the emerging liberal class society as a difference- and community-machine. Consequently, the thesis problematizes the common picture of how and why people became nationals in the western states during the great transformation

Collaborators: Anne Berg
Abstract available>>


Speaking of Geometry: a study of geometry textbooks and literature on geometry instruction for elementary and lower secondary levels in Sweden, 1905-1962, with a special focus on professional debates (dissertation 2007)

This dissertation deals with geometry instruction in Sweden in the period 1905-1962. The purpose is to investigate textbooks and other literature used by teachers in elementary schools (ES) and lower secondary schools (LSS) – Folkskolan and Realskolan – connection to geometry instruction. Special attention is given to debates about why a course should be taught and how the content should be communicated.

In the period 1905-1962, the Swedish school system changed greatly. Moreover, in this period mathematics instruction was reformed in several countries and geometry was a major issue; especially, classical geometry based on the axiomatic method. However, we do not really know how mathematics instruction changed in Sweden. Moreover, in the very few works where the history of mathematics instruction in Sweden is mentioned, the time before 1950 is often described in terms of “traditional”, “static” and “isolation”.

In this dissertation, I show that geometry instruction in Sweden did change in the period 1905-1962: geometry instruction in LSS was debated; the axiomatic method and spatial intuition were major issues. Textbooks for LSS not following Euclid were produced also, but the axiomatic method was kept. By 1930, these alternative textbooks were the most popular.

Also the textbooks in ES changed. In the debate about geometry instruction in ES, visualizability was a central concept.

Nonetheless, some features did not change. Throughout the period, the rationale for keeping axiomatic geometry in LSS was to provide training in reasoning. An important aspect of the debate on geometry instruction in LSS is that the axiomatic method was the dominating issue; other issues, e.g. heuristics, were not discussed. I argue that a discussion on heuristics would have been relevant considering the final exams in the LSS; in order to succeed, it was more important to be a skilled problem solver than a master of proof.

Collaborators: Johan Prytz
Fulltext available >>


The Birth of Early Childhood Education: Pedagogical changes in Swedish Early Childhood care and education programs, 1835-1945 (dissertation 2008)

This dissertation contributes to the study of educational change and the conditions thereof. During the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, Swedish early care and education (ECE) programs underwent a comprehensive transformation as formal instruction was supplanted by early childhood education. My analysis of this transformation utilizes a comparatively long time-frame, an organizational historical perspective, and archival material from 44 ECE societies. It focuses on three types of ECE programs: infant schools, day nurseries, and kindergartens. Since philanthropic societies organized such programs, this study’s results are also of interest to the history of philanthropy.

Early childhood education was established through a selection and adaptation process in which existing ECE programs were closed or changed as new ones were established. My investigation demonstrates that this occurred on the basis of the conditions in which individual ECE programs operated. Factors that stand out in this regard are the debate concerning infant schools, the funding of ECE programs, and the expansion of the mandatory elementary education system, together with changes in the dissemination of ideas about education and the establishment of municipal regulations. How these conditions contributed to educational change constitutes the substance of the dissertation.

The results of this dissertation deepen our knowledge of the finances of ECE programs, their organizational niche, and their relations with municipal authorities. This study questions the significance for educational change within these programs that has been attributed to the growth of a romantic conception of childhood. It provides a new picture of the role of the kindergarten movement in this regard and ascribes to day nurseries a previously unobserved role in educational change. This dissertation thereby contributes to a revision of recurrent assumptions concerning educational change and of the connection between such change and general societal or ideological structures

Collaborators: Johannes Westberg
Fulltext available >>


Virtuous Eloquence: Rhetoric Education in Swedish Schools and Gymnasiums 1724–1807
(dissertation 2011)

The overall aim of this dissertation is to explore the connections between rhetoric and civic and moral education. In the Latin schools (trivial schools, cathedral schools, and gymnasiums) in eighteenth-century Sweden, rhetoric still had a prominent position. In examining school rhetoric under the Swedish School Act of 1724, the study takes on rhetoric education in the broad sense, asking questions about teaching design and content, and about which texts were read and written. In addition to this, the dissertation discusses the moral content of the education as well as the function of the texts and exercises of rhetoric education in character and identity formation. The study also demonstrates the practices of rhetoric in schools and gymnasiums. Everyday classroom activities as well as ceremonies and festivities are treated as arenas for the display of erudition, asking questions about eloquence as a possible catalyst for the raising of schoolboys into men and citizens.

Drawing from curriculum history, the investigation focuses on the content of the education. The analytical framework regards educational content as multilayered, ranging from conceptual content to content related to school subjects, syllabi and educational programmes, and further to socialisation content. Therefore a number of theoretical and methodological perspectives have to be employed in order to analyse a multitude of sources: from textbooks and records from schools to written curricula.

The curriculum history foundation is therefore supplemented by theoretical inspiration from among other things the sociology of education and the sociology of literature, from the history of rhetoric and from gender history. The concept of virtue is given a special role in the construction of civic ideals and masculinities, two important aspects of an erudite identity cultivated in the early modern Latin schools.

The dissertation shows that during the long period of time that the Swedish School Act of 1724 was effective – a total of 83 years, until 1807 – school rhetoric changed very little, and the changes that took place did so only slowly. A number of factors explain this rigidity. The same textbook, Elementa rhetorica by Gerardus Johannis Vossius, was used used in Swedish schools throughout the entire period studied. A shortage of textbooks led to older copies being used, and to a manual reproduction of textbooks and educational content. A canon or publica materies of classical, especially Latin, texts connected the branches of the trivium. It also worked as a common resource, read throughout the school: from fables and the short texts of compendia used in the first forms of the trivial schools to the philosophical and literary works used in the gymnasiums. The proximity between school rhetoric and the exemplary classical texts offers a further explanatory factor for the slow changes of 18th century rhetoric education.

The rhetoric education in schools and gymnasiums appears as one of the most distinct illustrations of the early modern Swedish school's twofold objective to transmit knowledge and instill virtue. The rhetorical pedagogical programme was not just about the arts and crafts of linguistic ornaments. School rhetoric had an even larger aim, combining knowledge and virtue into the training of an orator. Through the reading of the exemplary texts and the moral lessons taught by them, and through pupils' own co-creation and rhetorical (re)production, a classical, medieval, Renaissance and Reformation legacy was passed on. In this legacy, the aim was virtuous eloquence.

The learned world in and around schools and gymnasiums can be considered a premodern or early modern public sphere, filled with rhetorical ceremonials as a display of erudition and scholarly status. At the school level rhetoric was a representative resource that could justify the position of the scholarly community and the clergy, demonstrate the standing of the school and the church site in the city, and distinguish the learned from members of other social groups.

Collaborators: Stefan Rimm
Fulltext available>>



Zwischen Akademie und Kulturpolitik: Lektorate der schwedischen Sprache an deutschen Universitäten 1906-1945 (dissertation 2011)

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the establishment and development of lectureships in the Swedish language in German universities during the first half of the 20th century. Building on earlier research about the role of language teaching abroad for public diplomacy, the study sees the lecturer as a part of both the the academic and political fields in Germany and Sweden. The establishment of and changes in the system of lectureships in Swedish 1906–1945 are explained through an analysis of the actors involved and of the assets allowing the actors to control both the establishment of lectureships and the appointment of lecturers in Germany.

During the Weimar Republic a number of actors were involved in the establishment of the lectureships. They included academics with a scholarly interest in Scandinavian languages and old Norse,, the German state, which worked to promote the study of foreign countries and interna­tional academic mobility as a way of breaking German isolation after World War I, and the Swedish organization for the preservation of Swedishness abroad for which the teaching of Swed­ish abroad was a way of increasing the academic status of the language. After the National Social­ist takeover in 1933 the NSDAP and the Swedish foreign ministry also took an interest in the Swedish lectureships in Germany for propaganda purposes.

The dissertation shows how a system for the appointment of Swedish lecturers to Germany was established through interaction between the actors. Central in this process were the control over economic assets, a social network which made recommendations of lecturers possible, and the control over communication between both the lecturers and universites and between the German and Swedish states. The study also shows that the uneven distribution of assets between German and Swedish actors resulted in an inferior position for the German state and organizations in relationship to their Swedish counterparts

Collaborators: Andreas Åkerlund
Fulltext available>>


Planned projects