Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/240481 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1338
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden dismantled an education system that was strongly influenced by German, Neo-Humanist pedagogical principles in favor of a progressive, student-centered system. This article suggests this was in large part due to a fatal misinterpretation of the education policy on which Nazism was predicated. Contrary to scholarly and popular belief, Nazi schools were not characterized by discipline and run top-down by teachers. In fact, the Nazis encouraged a nationwide youth rebellion in schools. Many Nazi leaders had themselves experienced the belligerent, child-centered war pedagogy of 1914-1918 rather than a traditional German education. Yet, Swedish school reformers came to regard Neo-Humanism as a fulcrum of the Third Reich. The article suggests this mistake paved the way for a school system that inadvertently came to share certain traits with the true educational credo of Nazism and likely contributed to Sweden's recent educational decline.
Subjects: 
National Socialism
Neo-Humanism
Progressivism
Sweden
War pedagogy
JEL: 
D70
E65
I20
I28
N44
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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