Between democratic ideals and local conditions: elementary school teachers’ narratives of progressive teaching in Sweden in the 1940s
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[1] Karlstad University
Karlstad University
Suecia
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- Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 60, Nº. 3, 2024 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Researching Narratives in History of Education), págs. 389-413
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Teachers’ implementation of and attitudes to school reforms andoverriding pedagogical ideals have long been a topic of debate andresearch. In this article, we centre on teachers’ descriptions of howprogressive teaching was conducted as well as on the teachers’reasons for implementing such teaching in the 1940s. This study isbased on written material consisting of 360 elementary schoolteachers’ accounts of their teaching collected in 1946. The materialwas collected by a government investigation of how progressiveteaching was conducted in Sweden. The accounts offer detaileddescriptions of how pupils were activated and how elementaryteachers at the time could use the community as a teachingresource. The article is inspired by a prosopography approach, inwhich the basic assumption is that it is possible to extend knowledgeof social processes and societal development by studying the groupprofile of members of various institutions such as political or profes-sional organisations. The analysis is based on John Dewey’s and LarryCuban’s perspectives on progressivism. We found that, according toteaching the theme of pupils participation was frequently reported in59% of the accounts, while student interaction (35%) and extendedclassroom (16%) were less reported. The teachers motivated theirteaching on the basis of general ideals, as democracy. Also importantwere practical circumstances such as available teaching resources aswell as physiological aspects as student’s interest and development.
