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Narrative constructions of social class: Social orders and positions in student essays from the Swedish Grammar School during the first three decades of the twentieth century. The article studies class formation in Swedish Grammar School, and how the parallel school system contributed to the forming of social classes. The source material consists of student essays dealing with industrialism, the rise of the working class, the labour movement, and the future lives of students from their own perspective. The research questions focus on the how the social structures were described in these essays and in what way various discourses from school textbooks influenced the student essays. The study is based on Althusser’s concept “interpellation”, which is a point of departure in our understanding of the essays as an act in which students negotiate narratives of the textbooks and position themselves within the society. In this discursive act, the working class was constructed as the Other, mainly carrying pejorative characteristics. Furthermore, the student essays paint a picture of the educated upper class, i.e. the social group of students, having the task of morally educating the lower classes. Thus, the student essays bear witness to how young men of the privileged class, positioned themselves in the social topography of their time.

In the early 20th century, the Swedish school system was still strictly segmented, with working class children attending primary schools and middle- and upper-class children attending grammar schools or girls’ schools. However, societal changes such as industrialization, urbanization and democratization brought about changes in the school system (Englund 1986). One such change was the introduction of a compulsory continuation school in 1918. These schools, introduced in imitation of English and German school forms (see e.g. Kett 2017), were intended for teenagers who had attended primary school and was entering the work force.

This paper explores how the continuation school was introduced and operated in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century focusing on how the purpose of the school form was formulated and how the teaching was designed and conducted. The research is based on analyzes of government investigations and parliamentary debates as well as local curricula and textbooks.

The research shows that the continuation school was mainly introduced as an answer to what was seen as problems that arose as a result of changes in the organization of work. Industrialization had led to that the patriarchal ties between workers and employers had weakened, which was considered to hinder young people from acquiring professional skill and threatened their moral development.

To remedy these problems the continuation school was introduced as a two-year part time school form that would help the children that left primary school at 12 years of age to transfer into adulthood. The main school subjects were basic vocational education or natural science and crafts, citizen education and mother tongue.

Analyses of local curricula and textbooks show that the continuation school did not just prepare working-class teenagers for adult life by introducing them to working-class vocations. The teaching also conveyed a view of society that was characterized by the idea that as a worker you should feel job satisfaction and be satisfied with your place in the world. The subject of civic education also bore the idea that the family formed the foundation of society and much of the teaching was centered around the duties of a citizen. Christianity also formed an integrated part of the teaching with the aim of contributing to moral education, even though it did not constitute a separate school subject.

The conclusions that can be drawn from the research on which this paper is based is that the continuation school should not be considered as a school form that was introduced as part of reforming the school system in a more democratic direction. Instead, the continuation school contributed to maintaining a segmented school system by offering working-class youth a form of schooling that led to working-class vocations and aimed to form working class identities.

Literature

Englund, T. (1986). Curriculum as a political problem: changing educational conceptions, with special reference to citizenship education. Uppsala Univ: Lund.

Kett, J. F. (2017). “Theory Run Mad”: John Dewey and “Real” Vocational Education. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 16(4), 500–514.