TY  - EJOU
AU  - Heller-Sahlgren, H. Gabriel
AU  - Wennström, W. Johan
TI  - The Fatal Conceit: Swedish Education after Nazism
T2  - Journal of Controversial Ideas

PY  - 2022
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
SN  - 2694-5991

AB  - In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden dismantled an education system that was strongly influenced by German, Neo-Humanist pedagogical principles in favor of a progressive, student-centered system. This article suggests this was in large part due to a fatal misinterpretation of the education policy on which Nazism was predicated. Contrary to scholarly and popular belief, Nazi schools were not characterized by discipline and run top-down by teachers. In fact, the Nazis encouraged a nationwide youth rebellion in schools. Many Nazi leaders had themselves experienced the belligerent, child-centered war pedagogy of 1914–1918 rather than a traditional German education. Yet, Swedish school reformers came to regard Neo-Humanism as a fulcrum of the Third Reich. The article suggests this mistake paved the way for a school system that inadvertently came to share certain traits with the true educational credo of Nazism and likely contributed to Sweden’s recent educational decline.
KW  - National Socialism
KW  - Neo-Humanism
KW  - progressivism
KW  - Sweden
KW  - war pedagogy
DO  - 10.35995/jci02010009