Skolan och samhällsvetenskapen - Framväxt och etablering av en svensk gymnasial samhällsvetarutbildning 1922-1970

Abstract

After the First World War, a reform was initiated in Swedish education and one area of change was the upper secondary programme system, which only offered the increasingly obsolete natural science and latin specialisations. The aim of this article is to describe and analyze, on the basis of government commission reports, curricula and debate articles, the revision of the upper secondary level grammar school programmes and in particular the introduction of a third specialisation option with a social science focus.  The article shows that the introduction of the upper secondary social science specialisation programme in 1955 reflects the emergence of a new field of science, the Social Sciences. Changes in the labor market and the need to centre students' studies on fewer subjects also explain the development. Critics of the change feared that the third programme specialisation would attract untalented and lazy students. The critics further feared that in the long run it would impoverish Sweden as a nation of knowledge, a criticism that was mainly articulated during the interwar period. After the Second World War, when the decision was finally made to introduce the third option with a social science emphasis, this was implemented without any major political debate.