To Örebro University

The infant school was a nineteenth-century innovation with British roots that quickly achieved an international reputation. This article contributes to the study of the transnational dissemination of the infant schools by examining the case of Swedish infant schools. Using theoretical concepts from the transnational history of education, this article focuses on how the model of infant schools was transferred to Sweden, and how this model was translated and transformed in this process and by local Swedish contexts. Combining printed handbooks and unprinted archival materials from infant school societies, this article emphasises the role of travels, handbooks, and the infant school society of Stockholm in this transfer process, and its inherent contradictions. This study indicates the vital role that religion played in transforming the content of the teaching taught at infant schools, and the impact of primary schools on the educational practices. As elsewhere, Swedish infant schools were sometimes transformed into a kind of preparatory primary school.

The nation-state remains fundamental to our understanding of nineteenth-century schooling, which is commonly referred to in terms of national school systems or national education systems. While nineteenth-century school systems were often national in scope and promoted with the purpose of creating nationally minded citizens, this article examines whether such systems were national in the sense of being designed to impose national uniformity and standardisation on schools, teachers and pupils. Based on an investigation of public regulations of primary schooling in Sweden 1842-1920, this article shows that the Swedish school system promoted regional variation by officially sanctioning a wide range of school types, including ambulatory schools, junior schools and minor primary schools. As a result, this case study encourages considered use of the term primary schooling and raises questions as to whether nineteenth-century school systems are, in this respect, more aptly described as regionalised rather than national.

The physical environment in early years education and care is crucial. This paper examines the Swedish government’s vision of preschool design in the welfare state of the 1970s and the conceptions of children and society upon which it was based. Presenting an investigation of reports, booklets, and study materials published by various branches of the central government, this paper analyses an ambitious preschool design intended to provide children with a diverse and stimulating environment that supported their independence and freedom of choice. Unlike similar designs in postwar Europe, this preschool design was not formulated in response to the experiences of the world wars. Inspired by the theories of Piaget and Erikson and based on the rationality of the Swedish welfare state, this preschool design was instead intended to remedy the shortcomings of a perceived anonymous, sterile and barren modern society. In relation to existing research, this paper contributes to the study of the so-called nursery heritage by examining how it was formulated in the setting of the Swedish welfare state. In so doing, the paper also provides ample ground for a continued critical discussion on contemporary strands of neoliberal preschool design.

By examining the state school inspector reports of 1861-1863, which provide rich insights into the local conditions of schooling in Sweden, this article sheds further light on the wide range of factors that weakened school enrolment and attendance in nineteenth-century Sweden. In terms of parental demand, these included child labour on farms, at manors, and in industries; the transformation of the servant system among rural households; and religious practices, such as the confirmation and the beliefs of Protestant sectarian groups. On the supply side, factors that school inspectors reported included the inability of Swedish teacher seminars to examine enough teachers and the problematic behaviour of local school boards. As a result, this article provides additional input into the debate in educational history regarding the role of the state, religion, rural elites, and parents in the rise of mass schooling, while simultaneously providing further qualitative evidence to a quantitatively oriented research field in economic history on the determinants of schooling.

En considérant avec attention les rapports des inspecteurs des écoles publiques de 1861 à 1863, lesquels fournissent un riche aperçu sur les conditions locales d’enseignement en Suède, cet article met en lumière le vaste éventail de facteurs qui ont affecté l’inscription et la fréquentation scolaires dans ce payx au dix-neuvième siècle. En ce qui avait trait à la demande parentale étaient compris le travail des enfants dans les fermes, dans les manoirs et dans les industries; la transformation du système domestique au sein des ménages ruraux et les pratiques religieuses telles que la confirmation et les croyances des groupes de confession protestante. Sur le plan de l’offre, les inspecteurs scolaires ont rapporté l’incapacité des séminaires de la formation enseignante de Suède à analyser suffisamment d’enseignantes et d’enseignants ainsi que l’attitude problématique des conseils scolaires locaux. Alors qu’il apporte son lot d’informations supplémentaires, cet article alimente le débat en histoire de l’éducation portant sur les rôles de l’État, de la religion, des élites rurales et des parents à l’aube de la scolarisation de masse. Simultanément, il fournit un certain nombre de données qualitatives à des recherches généralement quantitatives dans le domaine de l’histoire économique portant sur les déterminants de la scolarisation.

This article discusses how an increased interest in the global, the international and the cross-national may be informed by the recently renewed focus upon the social and economic history of education. The history of school buildings in a comparative framework offered here illustrates how such approaches also have important contributions to make to the study of international and cross-national phenomena. This article therefore makes a case for a social history turn in this field.

This article explores the main features of the provision, organization and funding of nineteenth century European school acts. It indicates that these school acts promoted schooling that was basic, rather than compulsory, and provided a framework for schools funded by a diversity of revenues, and three types of local organization either based on the church, municipalities or several organizations. As a result, this article complements the analysis of determinants of rise of mass schooling, and the debate on decentralization, with an overview of European school acts and a theoretical challenge to further address the varying institutional framework of nineteenth-century schooling.

The School Act of 1842, revised in 1882 and 1897, organized a decentralized national school system in Sweden, based on about 2,300 parishes. The role of this school act in the rise of schooling in Sweden is fundamental to the Swedish historiography of schooling. This paper examines the precondition, contents and consequences of the school act in order to examine whether it actually was a revolutionary event or merely a confirmation of already pending processes. This paper will thus be able to show how the school act was the result of a lengthy political debate, spanning decades, on popular education and whether it should the provide the population with an minimum of knowledge or form the basis of the knowledge necessary for Swedish citizenship. This tension was also apparent in the formulation of the school act which included formulations on a minimum of instruction. While the education promoted by the school act thus certainly was limited, and did not form a clear break from the previously dominating home instruction, the school act had major consequences in organizational terms, contributing to establishment of schools in the many regions of Sweden where schools previously had been uncommon.

In this article, we present a comparative analysis of regional differences in Italy and Sweden in the late 19^th century. Using both quantitative and qualitative evidence, our comparison indicates how the character of these regional inequalities differed, despite the decentralized nature of schooling in both of these countries. As a result, this article raises important questions regarding whether these differences may be explained by the demand for schooling, the supply of schooling, or institutional arrangements, including the use of ambulatory schools and so-called junior schools.