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Beyond the Educational Visions of the State: The Construction of School Buildings in Rural Nineteenth-Century Sweden

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Making Education: Material School Design and Educational Governance

Part of the book series: Educational Governance Research ((EGTU,volume 9))

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Abstract

While the architecture, educational ideas and material culture of nineteenth century school buildings have been properly investigated, we know less about the actual processes involved in designing and building schools. These processes are explored in this chapter, allowing the influence of local decision-makers, school designers, builders and workers on the dynamics between state governance and school design in Sweden, 1840–1900, to be examined. The analysis is based on a case study of 66 school building projects in the Sundsvall region, located in northern Sweden.

In this chapter, I will argue that the local design and building processes fundamentally influenced school design. The school districts’ organisation promoted low-cost alternatives and diversity among school buildings. Builders and architects adapted schools to the local sense of aesthetics, hygiene and appropriate temperature for classrooms, as well as the local needs to accommodate the areas’ school-aged children in the planned classrooms. In addition, the morals, organisational skills and knowledge of builders and building workers resulted in a diverse quality of the school buildings. In comparison with investigations focusing on national building plans, exploration of these local factors reveals a much more complex image of the relationship between state governance and school design, showing, once again, that what you want is not always what you get.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    PM is used as an abbreviation for ‘parish meeting minutes’.

  2. 2.

    CM is used as an abbreviation for ‘church meeting minutes’.

  3. 3.

    SB is used as an abbreviation for ‘school board’.

  4. 4.

    Regarding conflicts in the political culture of Swedish parishes, see also Gustafsson 1989, pp. 87–92.

  5. 5.

    These traditional building types are presented in Ek 1959, pp. 13–25. The concept of building types is discussed by Karlsmo and Löfgren 2016.

  6. 6.

    DKH is used as an abbreviation for ‘The Cathedral Chapter in Härnösand’.

  7. 7.

    For a similar explanation to the impact of national building plans in Sweden, see Kristenson 2005, pp. 67–68.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Johannes Westberg

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  1. Johannes Westberg
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Correspondence to Johannes Westberg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Ian Grosvenor

  2. The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Lisa Rosén Rasmussen

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Westberg, J. (2018). Beyond the Educational Visions of the State: The Construction of School Buildings in Rural Nineteenth-Century Sweden. In: Grosvenor, I., Rosén Rasmussen, L. (eds) Making Education: Material School Design and Educational Governance. Educational Governance Research, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97019-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97019-6_5

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