Schooling and State Formation in Early Modern Sweden by Bengt Sandin

Reviewed by: Schooling and State Formation in Early Modern Sweden by Bengt Sandin Johannes Westberg Sweden. By Sandin. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xxvi + 420 pp. Cloth €99.99, e-book €85.59. Although historian of education Gunnar Richardson just a few years earlier had provocatively asked whether the history been forgotten Sweden, mid-1980s proved to be extremely fertile for field. Inspired wide range scholars applying critical conflict perspectives on [End Page 483] society—including Louis Althusser, Basil Bernstein, Pierre Bourdieu, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis—a new generation Swedish researchers (and future professors) examined its fresh innovative ways. The most influential publications included Tomas Englund's exercise curriculum theory, Curriculum as Political Problem: Changing Educational Conceptions, with Special Reference Citizenship Education (1986), Christina Florin's exploration professionalization feminization among nineteenth-century primary school teachers Kampen om katedern (1987), and, not least, Sandin's dissertation early modern schooling: Hemmet, gatan, fabriken eller skolan [The Home, Street, Factory or School], published 1986. made key contribution first wave so-called education, which questioned previous celebratory accounts progress instead critically relationship between society. In introduction his dissertation, clearly positioned himself introducing American revisionists field, acknowledging Michael Katz, Carl Kaestle, David Tyack, aforementioned Bowles Gintis. introductory chapter also contained healthy dose Michel Foucault's analysis discipline. As result this updated theoretical framework extensive empirical schooling that stemmed from this, remains self-evident reference research well schooling. That landmark now is available wider Englishspeaking audience thus great service edition, has fundamentally revised. While concept discipline central what he terms fundamental transformation governance era, revised places stronger emphasis concepts family, space, childhood. chapters remain, however, largely they were. Chapter 2 presents popular seventeenth century includes an insightful debate at diocesan synod Uppsala. 3 explores case Stockholm during late century, 4 deals urban eighteenth 5 half nineteenth using examples Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö. last chapter—chapter 6—addresses perspective families schools. concluding 7 extended. Here, linked both needs 484] laboring poor government's intentions control moral conditions lower-class families. Since publication 1986, our world have changed drastically. field shown remarkable signs expansion: my dataset dissertations about 290 1990–2019, twentieth Nordic educational network, journal, seven conferences held. one cannot expect address avalanche nationally internationally period—consider, example, classics 1980s such R. A. Houston's Literacy Europe (1988), James van Horn Melton's Absolutism Eighteenth-Century Origins Compulsory Prussia Austria John Boli's New Citizens Society: Institutional Mass (1989), but more recent publications, including Daniel Lindmark's Reading, Writing Schooling: Practices Literacy, 1650–1880 Jeroen Dekker's Ambitions History...