Fabricating and Governing the Swedish School Pupil: The Swedish Post-War School Reform and Changing Discourses of Discipline and Behaviour

Abstract

This article examines the dominant discourses of behaviour and discipline in the debate on schooling and the conduct of school pupils in Swedish professional teacher journals between 1946 and 1962, the formative years of the Swedish comprehensive school. Drawing from the theoretical framework of discourse, governmentality and the fabrication of the subject developed by Michel Foucault, the fabrication and governing of the school pupil is highlighted and analysed. The findings of the study are related to historical research of the period as well as Foucauldian studies where a historical shift of perspectives on discipline and behaviour in the school have been proposed. The result is a detailed analysis of the fabrication and governing of the subject within the dominant discourses of behaviour and discipline during the period, as well as a critical nuancing of the idea of this historical shift.

Keywords

• educational history
• governmentality
• discourse
• subject
• childhood and youth