Session Information
17 SES 07, Creativity and Democracy
Paper Session
Contribution
The history of education has, to a large extent, been concerned with how adult actors have governed the school. Thus there is a plethora of studies dealing with the role of school teachers, principals, famous philosophers, policy documents and so on. In contrast, the historical research on how pupils have affected their schooling is minimal (Donson 2011; Puaca 2009). This paper is about one of the most important expressions of the attempts to democratize the school - the introduction of the pupil council - and follows its evolution in Sweden during the years 1928-1980. The origins of the pupil council can be traced back to the grammar school charter of 1928, in which corporal punishment was abolished while the need for pupil self-government was stressed. During the first decades the pupil councils often had disciplinary functions and were supposed to maintain discipline among fellow pupils. During the 1950s, they gradually become more in opposition to the school, and criticized the school subject content, rules, instruction methods, teaching materials, etc. Drawing on social movement theory, the paper aims to analyze the historically shifting roles of pupil councils on a national and local level. By exploring which tasks the pupil councils have dealt with in different times, it is possible to examine how loyalty and rebellion has manifested itself in schools.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Donson, Andrew (2011). The Teenagers’ Revolution: Schülerräte in the Democratization and Right-Wing Radicalization of Germany, 1918-1923. Central European History 44, s. 420-446. Puaca, Brian M. (2009). Learning democracy: education reform in West Germany, 1945-1965. New York: Berghahn Books.
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