Cultivating Swedishness? Examples of imagined kinship during the first half of the 20th century

Abstract

Different representations of 'Swedishness', as expressions of altered kinds of imagined kinship in the Swedish educational system during the first half of the 20th century, are discussed. It is argued that even though the curriculum changed, from a more religious one focusing on fostering loyalty and moral commitment to 'God, the King and the Motherland', to a scientific one emphasizing the cultivation of critical rational thinking, the framework was (and remains) the nation-state and a belief in the superiority of one's country and an exclusive concern for one's own country.