Class Formation in Sweden and Britain: Educating Workers

Abstract

The European labor movements developed in different directions during the twentieth century. The class formation literature has tried to explain these differences but left unexplored the internal dynamics of the labor movement and, above all, the differences in ideological schooling. Workers' education constitutes a forum for ideological schooling of members, and these educational settings can be identity constitutive and thus play an important part in the class formation process. In this article I analyze the institutions for workers' education in Sweden and Britain and I suggest that the variation of the design and practices of workers' education had an impact on the movements' developments in terms of identity formation and cohesiveness.