”Yrket var det viktiga”. Några reflexioner kring 30-talets folkskollärarinna.

Abstract

'The profession was most important". Some reflexions on female public school leachers in the 1930s. This article discusses a female professional role in the 1930s, that of the fem ale public school teacher. "Peering through the keyhole" in a limited but historical perspective, this study of the teacher's profession and life reveals a professional woman, who in addition to her teaching, was an active citizen in her society in numerous areas. She successfully combined a profession, family life, and social activities without a negative stamp. Many professional women today wonder how that was possible. The author concentrates primarily on the cultural milieu at the teachers' college located in the city of Kalmar, the Rostad Seminary (Rostadseminariet), where prospective female teachers were trained. Through the reading and analysis of their student government journals spanning more than a quarter of a century and by means of interviews, conversations, and written information from former female teachers, it has been possible approach to the spirit which has characterized the seminary through the years. Lutheran Christian ideology together with an historical nationalism dominated, while at the same time feminine arrangements, mainly parties and celebrations, provided a light and sometimes romantic glow to existence. Critical views from the students and everyday drudgery are conspicuously absent from the written documents, but conversations with the informants and works of fiction revealed the reality within which those attending the seminaries lived and by which they were shaped. The level of education at the seminary was sufficiently broad: knowledge for the people, without furtive glances at higher academic spheres. The future teachers may be said to have comprised a reserve of talent, primarily recruited from the countryside. They had ideological support from home and regarded their profession as the finest thing in their lives. They had the ambition to succeed without placing emphasis on their own personal satisfaction. Talent, female experience, and support from the surrounding society's ideology - especially the contemporary view of child raising and the role of the mother - were the three cornerstones on which the "school mistresses" of the 1930s stood. Their roles as bearers and communicants of culture in addition to their purely pedagogical role make the female teachers interesting objects for study of the cultural forms which education took. Furthermore, the female teacher of this era is an interesting example of the modern professional woman in recent history. Translation: Marie Clark Nelson