In 1942, at the high point of Nazi power over Europe, the puppet National Socialist Government of Norway established by law a new “Norwegian Union of Teachers”, in which membership was compulsory for all Norwegian teachers. The purpose of this was to ensure ideological training of both teachers and pupils, as well as stricter control of the educational practice (Skodvin, 1991). The decree was met with widespread refusal to join, and 11 000 letters of protest. To curb the resistance, the NS government arrested 1100 teachers, who either were put in prison or forced labor camps. In their place, Nazi teachers entered some of the classrooms (Hodne, 2010, 248). The resistance movement distributed a parole among the resisting teachers, ending thus: “The calling of the teacher is […] not only to give them knowledge […but] also teach them to believe and strive for what’s true and right. Therefore they cannot, without failing their calling, teach what contradicts their conscience” (Nøkleby, 1990, 90, our translation). Living under harsh physical duress and threats even on their lives, most of the arrested teachers still refused to join the union, until the NS government recinded and declared the Union a non-political organization. In the end, between 10 and 12% of the teachers joined the Union (Nøkleby, 1990, 121). This is most often narrated as a story of all but universal resistance (e.g. Nøkleby, 1990). However, 1200 did join, and compared to the total of Norwegian members of the NS party, the 4% teachers who became party members is actually a rather large group (Kvam, 2013, 285). The story of the teachers’ revolt tend to be more nuanced in specialized accounts of pedagogical history. These tend to stress the multidirectional pressure on the teachers, and the variety of strategies adapted to accommodate (e.g. Hagemann, 1992, 202). For the most part, however, all seem to lack real interest in the choices, values or motifs of the teachers who joined the NS Union, and the teachers who stepped into the classroom in place of the arrested ones are generally dismissed as anomalies.

In the post-war era, the teacher’s revolt has commonly been regarded as one of the major resistance victories during the occupation of Norway, and it is a staple motif in narratives of the occupation. Often the conflict and the outcome are seen as results of a discrepancy between the German Reichkommissar Josef Terboven’s ideal of the teacher as the State’s representative in the class-room, and the Norwegian conception of the teacher as a representative first and foremost of democratic, and more often than not, liberal values (Skodvin, 1991, 198; Kvam, 2013, 284). In more ways than one, then, the teachers have been read as symbols of national values, and in many ways this event also has defined the content of the role of the Norwegian teacher, the character of his pedagogical function, and his societal status. This is expressed explicitly by the current leader of the trade union of teachers in 2017: “What happened in 1942 is the proudest moment in the history of our profession” he claims, and then adds: “What happened shows the importance of the teacher’s ethical reflection, and of standing together“ (Ruud, 2017, our translation).

On this backdrop of historiographical research, we will investigate the legacy of this historical event from a pedagogical point of view: How is this history drawn upon and presented in the internal discourse of the community of teachers? In which contexts are these events mentioned, and by whom are these memories evoked? How are the evocative powers of this imagery mobilized, and to which ends?

This research project is based on a qualitative approach with the aim of developing knowledge about the creation and negotiation of the professional identity of Norwegian teachers. Our analysis is guided by the school of Critical Discourse Analysis, a well-proven method for studying the dynamic and interdependent relationship between subjects, texts and society (Fairclough, 2003). We will proceed our investigation by the following steps: First we will search through the physical and digital archives of Norwegian pedagogical trade union journals and scholarly periodicals such as Norsk Skoleblad [Norwegian School Letters] (1934–2002), Utdanning [Education] (2002–) and Bedre skole [Improved school] (1988–) to chart the references to this “teachers’ revolt” and establish a development on a timeline. Additionally we will search in the digital databases of Norwegian newspapers, as teachers and representatives of the profession might use these channels to reach a wider audience as well as teachers. Our focus in this study, however, is the internal discourse through which a professional identity is constructed. In our search we will use the keywords: «læreraksjon» and “lærerstrid” [our translations: “teachers’ revolt” and “teachers’ struggle”]. We note that not all usages of these terms necessarily refer to the 1942 event, but may be non-related. However, such cases may also be of interest to us, as such usage may indicate a weakened status of the historicity of the terms, or of a lack of historical conscience in the speaker’s mind. In any case, the search terms may serve as a lens to investigate what other areas the teachers and their unions have considered important enough to rally against, either with or without mobilizing the powerful image of the existentially important symbol of “the teachers’ revolt”. Out of this material we will identify and categorize different usages, and analyze the speaking positions, conceptions of self and the ideologies of those who evoke the images of this revolt. Based on the findings, we will discuss what role is ascribed to teachers through the years through references to the events of 1942. By this we hope to highlight trends in the teachers’ own expressed understandings of their mandate and their power to accomplish the task they have been given.

Our preliminary reading of this material suggest that questions of ideology were explicitly discussed in the first decades. This phase stretches from the debate in the late 1940s over the governmental reinstatement of NS collaborators as teachers, to the 1970s debate about the position of Christian values in the curricula. References to the “teachers’ revolt” were frequent especially in the first half of this era. During the 1980s, there seems to be a development in the use of the term. The references were relatively rare, and there were no instances of major collective political action. The few cases in our material suggest that the concept of “teachers’ revolt” in general was being diluted, and the references were rooted in less ideologically founded questions. Debates were related to the working conditions of teachers, such as demands of higher salaries, and restrictions on the organization of time. Considering questions like these, one might hypothesize that references to the existential battle of the war years would be counter-productive, as these issues might be seen as petty and banal in comparison. However, on a deeper level, these questions also are connected to both the quality of the teacher’s work as well as his professional integrity. More recently, the questions of ideological content is back with a vengeance. And, perhaps as a corollary to this, so are references to a “teacher’s revolt”. The new paradigm of governance of the educational system have led teachers to protest against an intensified external control and diminishing of their professional authority to define and develop educational quality. References to the 1942 event have an ironic potential in pointing out that today the Norwegian teacher is indeed understood by some as an executor of state policy, and a servant of other goals than those of the Norwegian tradition (Stray, 2011).

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