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Principal C.J.L. Almqvist and the principle of personalityThe Swedish author and visionary Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793–1866) was the principal for twelve years (1829–1841) of the government-initiated pilot school ”Nya Elementarskolan” (New Elementary School) in Stockholm. In this position, he argued that both the school and the state should be built on the same basic idea: the right of individual freedom. This argument is often referred to as ”personlighetsprincipen” (the principle of personality), a concept launched by another prominent figure of the liberal culture of the time, Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847). This article explores how the principle of personality is expressed in the texts of Almqvist and is mainly built upon the concept’s allegorical resources. It examines the thesis that Almqvist’s use of the term is best understood if one distinguishes between the political, pedagogical, and existential dimension of the concept. The article ends with some thoughts about the context of the concept and a discussion on whether Almqvist had a greater interest in personalities than in principles.

Class in the age of the pool of talent: Taxonomic struggles in and through Swedish education research, c. 1945–1960. This article studies conceptualisations of social class in Swedish education research, c. 1945–1960. The article follows knowledge produced about talent and class in state commissions and in the newly expanded social sciences, and how it in turn was interpreted and used in political debates and in the media. I show that the taxonomy of the population in social groups (Socialgrupper) was key for conceptualising notions of talent and framing education policy, beginning with debates around ”the pool of talent” (Begåvningsreserven) in 1948. At the same time as becoming a standard tool for mapping social difference in Sweden, the social group taxonomy was criticised for being unscientific.

In this article the historical background to the reactivation of the concept of Bildung in the Swedish school debate during 1980s is presented. The article argues that the resurrection of this concept is intimately related to the foundation of the discourse of the Knowledge School (Kunskapsskolan), and shows how these two terms were central in school political program developed by the Knowledge Movement (Kunskapsrörelsen) in the early 1980s. The article shows how the concept of Bildung since it was resurrected not only has been highly contested, but that it was actually reactivated within the same movement that helped pave the way for the manifest economic-instrumentalist school discourse that dominates the current curriculum.

Runic inscriptions on Scandinavian Migration Period gold bracteates have long been considered problematic. Although many of them are readable, only a few are interpretable. One of the major questions about bracteate texts is whether they are related to the images depicted on the pieces. During the past quarter century, these inscriptions have been interpreted chiefly on the basis of Karl Hauck’s identification of the major figure depicted on bracteates as Odin. However, there are other interpretations of the pictures that may also assist our understanding of the texts. This paper examines some of these alternative explanations of bracteate imagery, with particular reference to how the objects were used and by whom, the aim being to arrive at a better understanding of the inscriptions.

Med Orson Welles F for Fake undersøger vi, hvordan æstetisk kvalitet vil kunne indløses som kunstnerisk værdi. Hvis spørgsmålet er Elmyr de Hory, er svaret, at det koster intention og identitet. Orson Welles’ last film, F for Fake from 1973, not only doubles several figures from Clifford Irving’s biography of the forger Elmyr de Hory, the character ‘Orson Welles’ doubles the character ‘Elmyr de Hory’ as well in their common denominator as charlatans> Orson as a non-filming movie-maker, Elmyr as a non-artist painter and draughtsman. Whereas this for Orson was an intentional ambition in his film-making, it seems for Elmyr to have been an unintentional involutarism. As most artists, Elmyr strived for recognition of his own works under his own name. The problem was, however, that he did not have any real identity. With regard to quality, Hory could not really see the difference between a Modigliani portrait painted by Modigliani in 1910’s and another Modigliani portrait by Elmyr. This indifference towards the logic of artistic fame, established by different avantgardes, Hory probably had in common with all our lesser known artists, who thought that aesthetical qualities could be exchanged to artistic value. Elmyr’s paradoxical success – starting with Clifford Irving’s biography and Orson Welles’ film – illuminates a strategy for traditional or mediocre artists, to test artistic value, with a type of retrogardian chock-effect: reciprocal plagiarism.

Titele in WoS: The metropolises of the Middle East

General Subjects in Vocational Education and Training in Post-War SwedenThe present article focuses on the role of general subjects in the curriculum for vocational education and training (VET) in Swedish upper secondary schools after the Second World War. It shows that a steady increase in general VET subjects as a result of Social Democratic legislation in 1968 and 1991 was interrupted by a Liberal-Conservative government bill introduced in 2009, which led to a reduction. The rhetoric of these reforms is analyzed with the intent of increasing insight into the perceived educational benefits of general subjects in VET. The study employs the analytical lens of Gert Biesta and his proposed major functions of education: qualification, socialization, and sub-jectification. The results serve to illuminate the present-day educational po-licy debate, showing that the place of general subjects in the curriculum has been motivated by the important role they play in educating youth in demo-cracy, teaching them to function effectively in an increasingly international-ized and multicultural society and economy, for their lifelong learning and for the continued economic growth of the Swedish society. With the enactment of the government bill of 2009, however, the qualifying function of general subjects in VET was devaluated. The new curriculum that followed prioritized strictly vocational skills and the transition of graduates directly into the labour market.