Auktoritet och ansvar: Lärares fostrans- och omsorgsarbete i ... - DiVA

English summary: Discipline and care
The aim of this study is to investigate ways in which the teaching profession has
changed during the 20 th century regarding two aspects: discipline/moral education
and care. These two aspects are intertwined in many ways but their principal
object differs. Discipline/moral education has the norm-breaking child as its
main problem, whereas care has the suffering child as its main problem.
Taking these two aspects of teachers’ work as a point of departure, several
themes are investigated that in different ways deal with the changing role of
teachers.
The theoretical framework can be described as a mix of the history of mentalities,
theories of modernity and theories of modern institutions. In order to describe
the meanings of work, it is essential to take into consideration how this
work is shaped by, and understood, in terms of ideas, opinions and attitudes.
Focusing on both the present and the past, the aim is to put the present into perspective
by showing the ways in which it differs from the past. In explaining and
describing change a focus is laid on the institutional features of schooling. While
recognizing the relevance of perspectives that emphasize the relationship between
school and society, this study is primarily focused on school as a society in
itself. The empirical material consists of handbooks for teachers, journals and
magazines for teachers, interviews, life histories, commission reports, novels,
school memories etcetera.
The two aspects of teaching analysed in this study, discipline and care, are
treated in two separate parts. Both parts consist of three main chapters where the
main findings are presented, and one concluding chapter.
Chapter 4 [“The struggle against the lie”] is about the lying school child. In
the 19th century and in the first half of the 20 th century lies were often seen as a
great discipline problem. Starting with an exposé on how the lie has been held to
be problematic, the question is raised about why the lie was seen to be such a
severe problem. It is argued that the lie posed a problem for a panoptic discipline
that viewed visibility as being of paramount importance. It is further argued that
the lying school child was also supposed to commit other immoral acts. Since the
lie was seen as a problem, it is of no big surprise that it was subject to various
problem solving strategies. Some thought that the lie should be punished away,
but this idea was criticised on the grounds that the punishment could be counter
productive, i.e. producing lies instead of defeating lies. An alternative to punishment
was to make pupils confess their sins. The thesis of the chapter is that the
lie has lost its relative importance as a central problem in the disciplining of the
young. Three explanations for this change are put forth (1) Behavioural problems
of today tend often to be “open” instead of hidden, making honesty rather than
225