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Girls’ and boys’ play in the home corner and doll house: Gendered expectations and hierarchies in Swedish preschool in the middle of the 20th century. This article examines children’s play in a gender stereotypical framing: the home corner and dollhouses in mid-1900’s Swedish preschool. Three different types of empirical material were analysed: a preschool teachers’ questionnaire, observation protocols from children’s play with dollhouses and complementary photographs of playing preschool children. By examining these, we have been able to identify the preschool teacher’s gender stereotyped expectations of girls’ and boys’ play and how gender stereotyped expectations of children were maintained. The children especially helped to uphold a dichotomy between girls’ and boys’ play. This dichotomy was confirmed by the fact that girls had a hierarchically superior role in the game when both girls and boys participated. Boys, on the other hand, had more space for action in the gender-stereotypically framed play, as they were not bound by play conventions in the same way as girls. Boys’ attempts at nurturing play with dolls, i.e. more femininely coded play, was disparaged by educators and other children.

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.

The collaboration between Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley would come to define a briefbut significant part of art history, the aesthetic movement. Its adherents subscribed to thetheory of art for art’s sake and believed in beauty over meaning. Art should be a part ofeveryday life and the aesthetic principles were adopted by writers, poets, artists anddesigners. Critics and viewers alike have described the artist’s drawings illustrating Saloméas feminist depictions of the fin de siècle woman; powerful and sexually liberated. Accordingto my argument, this is not the case. By placing the works in a historical context andconsidering factors such as class and gender it will become clear to the reader of this text asto why that is. Beardsley was a member of the artistic upper middle class and was thereforeexcluded from the strict sexual politics of the Victorian era, this is very evident in theillustrations of Salomé. The women in the drawings are not unconventional portrayals of thenew feminist but instead come off as crude caricatures – a way for the artist to shock theprude middle class.

This essay examines the emotional function of friendship between the Swedish Duchess Charlotte (1759-1818) and her lady-in-waiting Sophie. Charlotte was the Swedish monarch’s sister-in-law and is well-known for her political memoirs. Her memoirs are dedicated to Sophie which makes up for this essay's choice of subject. By interpreting the emotional expression's performative emotional experience in Charlotte's memoirs, her and Sophie's bonds of friendship will be clarified. The results of the examination shows Charlotte's and Sophie's bonds of friendship as well as their emotional function.

Kommentarartikel til Torben Spanget Christensen, Samfundsfag i Danmark Mot bakgrund av Torben Spanget Christensens artikel om utvecklingen av skolämnet samfundsfag i Danmark har vi av Nordidacticas redaktion ombetts att skriva några sidor om utvecklingen i Sverige av motsvarande skolämne, samhällskunskap. Vi börjar med en översiktlig genomgång av ämnets utveckling sedan inrättandet. Därefter kommer vi att med hjälp av några illustrerande exempel visa hur läroböcker för samhällsundervisning har förändrats över tid och avsluta med några jämförande reflektioner.

Non peer reviewed

”Hembygdskunskap” [Heimatkunde] 1919–1980: Creation and career from a curriculum history perspective. Between 1919 and 1980 ”hembygdskunskap” [Heimatkunde] was a mandatory school subject in the first three years of schooling in Sweden. The subject was composed to comprise the introductory study of the natural and social environments, but also to train the children’s perceptional and expressional skills. This article follows the career of the subject through the Swedish curriculum history based on curriculum documents and official school investigations. The article shows how the creation of the subject was influenced by international progressive educational ideas about reality based teaching, curriculum concentration and student activity. Over time, the educational implications of the concept ”hembygd” changed. In the beginning of the period, the concept ”hembygd” offered a fruitful way to focus and delimit the primary study of the environments. In the end of the period, however, the concept was abandoned, as it no longer had the capacity of gathering the teaching content. Accordingly, the era of this school subject was over.