Practice before policy? Unpacking the black box of progressive teaching in Swedish secondary schools

The aim of the article is to deepen knowledge progressivism and how it was manifested in practice Swedish secondary schools from a teacher perspective before prescribed policy during reforms 1950s. In current educational debate, blamed by some for being root permissive style education decline that no longer provides any students, regarded others as starting point modern form democratic schooling. question we pursue what way progressive teaching existed policy. We do investigating narratives describing their own practices found historical archive 1946. Hence, rather than looking at level most studies, are unpacking black box teaching. Through thematic analysis, investigate 209 teachers History, Biology Mother tongue. theme student participation very frequently reported 76% accounts, while interaction (33%) extended classroom (37%) were somewhat less reported. our study shows different ways appeared