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In 1906 and 1907, the famous Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) published a two-volume textbook titled The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Beyond the financial rewards, the former teacher saw the book as an opportunity to influence children's values and moral education. And she was successful: it had a profound impact and became central to geography teaching in Swedish primary schools for working-class and rural children in the first half of the twentieth century.

The story follows a peasant boy who is transformed into an elf as punishment for his naughtiness and cruelty to the farm animals. To break the spell, Nils joins a flock of wild geese on a journey across Sweden and attempts to improve his bad behavior. Along the way, he learns about the country's history, people, wildlife, geography, and natural environment.

Although Lagerlöf's book is a classic that has been studied across several disciplines, we identified further aspects to explore. While earlier research emphasized its function as a tool for national education, less attention has been paid to how that educational project related to moral instruction and contemporary notions of gender and class. Our study instead uses an intersectional perspective to analyze how gender and class were mutually constituted within the national moral education presented in the book, relating it to the expansion of mass education at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Our analysis focuses on three of the book's central characters: Akka, the disciplined leader of the wild geese; Åsa, the diligent, polite girl; and Nils, the mischievous but educable boy. In line with earlier studies, we found that Lagerlöf challenged contemporary gender norms in her portrayal of the two heroines – Akka as a wise teacher figure and Åsa as a strong, righteous girl. A key finding is that, although working-class girls and women were offered a new set of ideals in Akka and Åsa, they were still expected to contribute to the greater good of the nation and to adhere to traditional male working-class norms such as discipline, docility, and diligence.

We conclude that national moral education in The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is closely connected to class-, gender-, and age-related norms. Our analysis of this historical textbook ultimately demonstrates how Lagerlöf's work contributed to the construction of Sweden as a 'new' nation at a time when a new class, a new pedagogy, and a new woman were flourishing.

Sweden's first Elementary School Act of 1842 stated that every parish was obliged to organise and fund schools to be offered to all children in the parish. Many parishes were poor and had a difficult time funding schools. In some parishes, local industries, such as ironworks, organised, funded, and managed schools for their workers. Even though state regulations might have striven for more comprehensive schooling, parishes faced different local conditions that could have affected school organisation and results. This study examines four elementary schools in northern Sweden to analyse differences and similarities caused by local conditions and local actors. Two of the schools were ironworks schools and two were parish schools, and they are studied from the 1840s through the 1860s. This case study of the Robertsfors and Gideåbruk ironworks schools and the Bygdeå and Gideå parish schools focuses on the school organisation, school subjects, children's attendance, and reported gained knowledge. The research questions are: how were the four schools organised in their local communities? Which subjects were taught in the schools? How were the children’s reported attendance and gained knowledge? What similarities and differences can be seen among the four local school cases? The results indicate both similarities and differences. One school, Gideåbruk ironworks school, reported higher attendance and higher results, traceable to variations in local actors and local conditions in Gideåbruk. The Gideåbruk ironworks and its role in the community seem to be crucial for the ironworks school organisation.

Artikeln diskuterar hur innehållet i den samiska läroplanen från 2022 (Lsam22) blir problematiskt utifrån den långa historien av svensk statlig styrning av samisk utbildning. Svensk samepolitik de senaste seklen har inverkat på samisk självidentifikation, vilket gör att direktiven och innehållet i dagens läroplan för sameskolan visar på hierarkiska problem rörande samisk tematik och en tvetydig värdegrund i relation till Läroplan för grundskolan, Lgr22. Texten är baserad och vidareutvecklad utifrån en artikel om Lsam11 av Charlotta Svonni och Lina Spjut.

Mass-Schooling and pre-industrialisation in Northern Sweden: Relations between Olofsfors Ironworks and Nordmaling parish in the organization of Elementary schools in the 19th century decentralized school system

Mass-Schooling and pre-industrialisation in Northern Sweden: Relations between Olofsfors Ironworks and Nordmaling parish in the organization of Elementary schools in the 19th century decentralized school system. From the mid-nineteenth century, Sweden went through a transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society which led to new demands on the parishes. With the First Elementary School Act in 1842, Sweden’s school system was formalised. The decentralised system formed by the First Elementary School Act, stated that every parish should establish at least one school in every parish. At this time, half of Sweden’s parishes already had some form of public schools, which were run by parishes, private organisations, donations, or pre-industrial companies, as for example Ironworks. Regardless of who ran the school, the parish was responsible and were the one who would report school results to the bishop’s office, so the relationship between the private actor and the parish was important. In this article we study how the relationship between Olofsfors Ironwork and the local parish, Nordmaling developed during the nineteenth century, and how these turbulent times affected the relationship. This is discussed in relation to earlier research and has been analysed through discourse analysis.

In the book chapter the Swedish school system for the Indigenous Sámi’s from the 1960s to the 2000s is studied. This is done with a special focus on curriculum content of the Sami curriculum from 2011 (Lsam11) in relation to the Swedish primary school curriculum from the same year (Lgr11). The curriculums of 2011 are placed within a historical perspective of Sámi education in Sweden, and the analysis of the curricula and syllabi in history, civics and Sámi language is based on Biesta's educational functions qualification, socialisation and subjectification, as well as imagined communities and self-identification due to Anderson, Hylland Eriksen and Brubaker. The results show that the curriculum content tends to place Swedish identity as superior to the Sámi identity, something that becomes problematic due to the Swedish state's treatment of the Sámi throughout history. For example, all Sami social functions are sorted under cultural socialising expressions, something that diminishes the Sámi identity in relation to the Swedish identity.

This article investigates in what way the Swedish compulsory school curriculum (Lgr11) addresses knowledge regarding Swedish national minorities. The aim is to study alignment within Lgr11 through a case of the theme national minorities. Research questions target alignment within syllabi and alignment between syllabi and the aim and guidelines in the curricula. Theories of alignment and curriculum theory formed the theory and methodology for the analysis, foregrounding similarities and differences in how Swedish national minorities are addressed in Lgr11. Results show numerous inconsistencies. Learning goals in curriculum and syllabus content are, for instance, not aligned, and differences exist within the syllabus between aim (syfte), central content (centralt innehåll) and the lower set measurable demands (kunskapskrav). This is problematic since earlier research demonstrated that measurable demands have out-conquered teaching content. These challenges for teacher’s interpretation of curricula and syllabus can affect the teaching content.

This article explores ways in which textbook content can reflect national identity over time via a case study of Swedish textbooks. To this end, it analyzes and contextualizes descriptions of Finnish labor migrants in Sweden in seventy-four compulsory school textbooks. The Finnish labor group emigrated from Finland to Sweden mainly from the 1950s to the 1980s. Initially, the Swedish authorities saw them as temporary laborers, but as time went by, the authorities had to realize that they had become permanent residents. In 2000, Finns were defined as an official national minority, “Sweden-Finns,” and their status changed. This article examines representations of Finnish labor migrants in Swedish history, geography and social science textbooks published between 1954 and 2016, tracing their journey from temporary laborers to a permanent national minority.