Shaping the Good Pupil - Socialization, Normalization and Benevolent Governing in Two Swedish Schools

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This is about the socialization of school children and how normality is learned and managed in one preschool class and one fifth grade class in the Swedish compulsory school. The Swedish school is, according to the National Curriculum based on democratic values and respect for the individual. In accordance with these values socialization of the pupil is, as the thesis argues, accomplished through 'benevolent government' by the teachers. Benevolent governing is exercised as the adapting of techniques that is not recognized as a normalizing conduct of conduct, but as an expression of good intention. It is a misrecognized exercise of power, uncomfortable to reveal itself as such. To enable benevolent governing, the pupil needs to learn how to be him or her 'self' according to norms about how the 'self' is to be expressed. The pupil also needs to learn how to balance multiple relations in school and the different aspects that constitutes the social person. Benevolent government is here used as a description of a certain kind of teacher practice, dependent on a certain kind of pupil. The pupil-subject that is constructed is a subordinated, self-inspecting, positive, empathic person who will approve of being governed by the teachers through the governing of themselves. The study is based on anthropological fieldwork during two years in these classes.