Etisk kristendom som utbildning för demokrati: Svenska folkskollärares pedagogiska anpassning av kristendomsundervisningen, 1920–1940

Abstract

Ethical Christianity as Education for Democracy: Swedish Teachers’ Pedagogical Adaptation of Christian Education, 1920–1940. Based on primary school teachers’ accounts of whether and how they applied progressive methods in Christian education, the aim of this article is to broaden and deepen our understanding of the relationship between Christian education and the secularisation of the Swedish primary school from the 1920s to the 1940s. The overarching question guiding this investigation is: how, and for what purposes, did primary school teachers adapt Christian education to new pedagogical ideals? To analyze teachers’ perspectives on Christian education, I draw on a survey conducted by the 1946 School Inquiry Commission, in which teachers were asked to describe how they had implemented progressive methods in their teaching. Drawing on perspectives from the history of education and church history, I argue that the application of progressive methods was not necessarily a sign of secularisation. Rather, it could serve as a strategy to defend teaching in Christianity within a changing educational landscape.