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Wed 12 April
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    14.00 - 16.00
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Thu 13 April
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Fri 14 April
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Sat 15 April
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Friday 14 April 2023 08.30 - 10.30
N-9 EDU10 Schooling and the Making of Social Class
C33 (Z)
Network: Education and Childhood Chair: Esbjörn Larsson
Organizer: Johannes Westberg Discussant: Anne Berg
Catriona Delaney : The Changing Goals of Convent Education: from the Salon to the Socially Disadvantaged
Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ) in France in 1800 to provide an advanced education to Catholic girls from wealthy families. Their association with the salons and French society, has been explored by scholars including Rebecca Rogers, Sarah Curtis, and Phil Kilroy. ... (Show more)
Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ) in France in 1800 to provide an advanced education to Catholic girls from wealthy families. Their association with the salons and French society, has been explored by scholars including Rebecca Rogers, Sarah Curtis, and Phil Kilroy. When the RSCJ arrived in Ireland in 1842, they moved quickly to establish fee-charging schools in Roscrea (1842), Armagh (1851), and Dublin (1865). Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they continued to provide superior education to Irish girls. However, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which coincided with major reform in the Irish educational landscape, they reconsidered their role in education in Ireland.
Based on archival research and oral histories, this paper will explore how the RSCJs s starting to work with Irish Travellers. The paper will argue that, at a time when the State chose to neglect the Travelling community, and society dismissed Travellers as troublesome ‘gypsies’, the RSCJs diversified their mission to respond in a practical way to the needs of a socially disadvantaged, ethnic minority in Ireland, which had traditionally been denied a formal education. (Show less)

Fabio Pruneri : The Conquest of the Alphabet in Southern Italy from 1861 to 1914 First Results of a Quantitative Survey
The conquest of the alphabet constituted a real struggle for the young Italian state born as a nation in 1861. Historiography in the past has so closely based the foundation of the homeland on the birth of compulsory schooling that it has forgotten at least two other aspects: the process ... (Show more)
The conquest of the alphabet constituted a real struggle for the young Italian state born as a nation in 1861. Historiography in the past has so closely based the foundation of the homeland on the birth of compulsory schooling that it has forgotten at least two other aspects: the process of schooling was already taking place before the political unification of the many different regions of Italy and that primary schooling was almost entirely entrusted to the municipalities, which implemented compulsory education at very different ways.
In this paper we intend to propose the first results of a research carried out on more than 2,000 municipalities in Southern Italy concerning the presence of schools from 1861 to 1914. The research adopts a quantitative and innovative method because it is based on local archival sources instead of centrally elaborated statistics.
We will highlight the critical aspects of the school system, paying particular attention to the role played by teachers and the effects of their poor teaching skills and cultural formation. The presentation will also be an opportunity to discuss the method of data collection and the construction of a database that can offer the scientific community further paths of research. (Show less)

Deirdre Raftery : Class Structures in 19th Century Boarding Schools: Élites, ‘Externes’ and the Experience of Education
This paper examines the ways in which social class divisions were replicated in the structure of boarding schooling, in the nineteenth century. Specifically, it scrutinises the practices in a sample of boarding schools run for the élite, in which there was both boarding and day-school provision. The practice of ... (Show more)
This paper examines the ways in which social class divisions were replicated in the structure of boarding schooling, in the nineteenth century. Specifically, it scrutinises the practices in a sample of boarding schools run for the élite, in which there was both boarding and day-school provision. The practice of welcoming ‘externes’, or day boarders, was common in élite schools, but was not without problems. Wealthy parents sometimes objected to the mixing of social classes, especially if they had paid substantial fees in order to send their children to élite boarding schools.
The layered nature of some schools meant that there were ‘1st Boarders’, ‘2nd Boarders’, and ‘Externes’ (Day Boarders), all being educated on one school campus. The 1st Boarders and 2nd Boarders had different dormitories and different qualities of bedding and accommodation, and they usually sat at separate tables for meals. They rarely mixed with the ‘externes’ or day boarders, at all. How did this work, for teachers and pupils? How did the pupils view each other? Were they very conscious of social divisions and social class, and did their awareness of social class impact on their studies and their experience of schooling?
This paper attempts to answer some of these questions, by drawing on archival sources from a range of nineteenth-century élite schools in Ireland, England and France. It will be seen that the practice of separating pupils, depending on their social class and the fees that they paid, was replicated in élite Anglophone boarding schools in the colonies. (Show less)

Lina Spjut : Changes in Teaching Content and Structure in Schools Run by Ironworks after State Regulations in Sweden´s First Elementary School Act from 1842
Several of Sweden's ironworks ran private schools for their workers' children even before the 1842 first elementary school act. Teaching content in schools run by ironworks included both basic knowledge as reading as well as Latin teaching and more advanced knowledge. The research project examines how some of these schools ... (Show more)
Several of Sweden's ironworks ran private schools for their workers' children even before the 1842 first elementary school act. Teaching content in schools run by ironworks included both basic knowledge as reading as well as Latin teaching and more advanced knowledge. The research project examines how some of these schools were affected by the first elementary school act stating that all municipalities should offer elementary schools to the municipality's children. The aim of the study is to understand what happened with the educational content, the school structure and the relations between the Ironwork and their municipality, when these private schools gradually transitioned to public elementary schools after 1842. The period studied is 1820–1940 and initially the focus is on the northern part of Sweden. Research questions are: i) How was the teaching structured in the Ironwork schools (access to school buildings, teacher recruitment, school hours, schedule etc.) and what was the teaching content (school subjects, pedagogy etc.) before the first elementary school act 1842, and ii) what happens in the transition to public elementary school regarding structure and content, after 1842? (Show less)

Johannes Westberg : How did Schooling Content Vary across Swedish Regions? History, Geography, Physical Education and Natural Science in Swedish Primary Schools in the Mid-nineteenth Century
During the nineteenth century, a segmented school system was established in Sweden. As in other European countries, it was marked by a stark division in terms of social class. It was a segmentation that Antoine Prost described in a classic formulation as a distinction between “l’école du peuple” – literally ... (Show more)
During the nineteenth century, a segmented school system was established in Sweden. As in other European countries, it was marked by a stark division in terms of social class. It was a segmentation that Antoine Prost described in a classic formulation as a distinction between “l’école du peuple” – literally a school for the broad population – and elite schools: “l’école des notables” (Prost, 1968).
The schooling provided in the schools for the broad layers of society was, as research has shown, circumscribed. The days per school year and the number of school years where limited (Ljungberg & Nilsson, 2009), and the teaching was consequently often restricted to reading, writing, arithmetic and Christian knowledge (Westberg, Boser et al., 2019). This also suited the function of these schools. They were not intended to prepare for further education, but would provide children with basic knowledge for a working life that began when they left school. It has consequently been described as a school intended to discipline a growing underclasses, to foster a subservient population, and to raise useful citizens (e.g., Petterson, 1992; Sandin, 2020; Tröhler, Popkewitz et al., 2011).
In this paper, I will contribute to this line of research by exploring the local and regional variations of this popular education. What were children actually taught in school, and how did this vary across national territories? Utilizing reports from Sweden’s about 2,300 school districts in 1868, this paper provides further insights in these matter. As evident from this data, the children of the laboring classes where not taught the same content, and were not provided with the same amount of teaching. While merely 10 percent of the enrolled school children in Uppsala county attended school less than 30 days per year, an entire 42 percent of the children in Halland county had such a limited school attendance. As this paper shows, the content of schooling, including the teaching of history, geography and national sciences, also varied. As a result, this paper raises further questions regarding how primary schooling served to foster a subservient disciplined population and national citizens, and why it varied across Sweden’s counties. (Show less)

Johan Wickström, Linn Areskoug : Narrative Constructions of the Working Class: from Textbook Representations to Student Essays in Secondary School during 1900 to 1930 in Sweden
The ninteenth century educational system in Sweden was socially segmented. Children of the working class was educated in primary schools (folkskolor) and children from the middle and upper classes of society was sent to grammar and secondary schools (läroverk) or girls’ schools (flickskolor). Thus, the social stratification of society was ... (Show more)
The ninteenth century educational system in Sweden was socially segmented. Children of the working class was educated in primary schools (folkskolor) and children from the middle and upper classes of society was sent to grammar and secondary schools (läroverk) or girls’ schools (flickskolor). Thus, the social stratification of society was organizationally reproduced by the school system (Petterson 1992; Florin & Johansson 1993; Larsson 2014; Sandin 2020). While e.g. research on England has shown that the social class hierarchy was continuously constructed by narratives in school textbooks (Heathorn 2000) the question remains unexplored in the case of Sweden.
In this paper we focus on the narrative construction of the working class, but not only in the meaning of how textbooks narrate about work and workers. Our aim is to explore the relation between textbook narratives about workers and the students internalisation and reproduction of these narratives. Our empirical examples are collected from the grammar and secondary schools and include both textbooks and student essays.
First, we study how certain textbooks used in these schools depict workers and their organisations. Secondly, we analyse how the students narrates about these themes in their student essays (exams). By this approach we will be able to detect what the students actually could read about the workers. We will also see what the students internalised as “knowledge” about workers and what values they expressed in retelling a story about them.
Student essays are a unique source material to contemporary views on society. The essay topics were set nationally and centrally. During some semesters the students were able to write about “employers and employees” and “the rise of the labor movement”, for example (Landquist 1951). The students were supposed to show their internalised knowledge in their exams, but also to make some kind of personal reflections in relation to the knowledge they had gained through reading school textbooks.
A minor pilot study we have conducted indicates that middle class and upperclass students are not homogeneous in their views of workers and the working class. Some insert very pejorative judgments about workers' morals and lives and condemn the labor movement in various ways. Others are more cautiously positive about the labor movement's ability to improve workers' conditions and contain less negative opinions. These are preliminary results. By studying all the relevant essays from the Uppsala area, we will be able to give a more exhaustive and complex picture, and it still remains to study what kind of textbooks the students read as a part of their syllabus.
By studying how students from the middle and upper classes narrates about a significant other – the worker – in their essays, we would be able to construct new knowledge about how the formation of social classes were percieved in middle and upper stratas af society. This is new approach in textbook studies. Previous research have mainly studied the construction of social class in textbooks, but in our study the relation between the textbook narratives and how students retell these narratives will contribute to more detailed and complex knowledge about how ideas about social class hierarchy was constructed in the educational system. (Show less)



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