The Folk High School: A Contemporary Educational Pathway for Swedish Parliamentarians?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to explore the contemporary role of the folk high school as an educational pathway for Swedish MPs. Statistics from the folk high school register at Statistics Sweden are analysed. In summary, there are still quite a large number of former folk high school participants in the Swedish parliament (27%, 2014). The MPs’ folk high school participation mainly took the form of short courses. Over time, the folk high schools have increasingly come to be used by members of parties on the left of the political spectrum. The folk high schools are commonly used as meeting places during the MPs’ political career, and thus not only as an educational pathway to power, as emphasised in earlier research.

KEYWORDS:

• Folk high schools
• Swedish parliamentarians
• popular education
• organisational capital

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Helldén (1968, pp. 63–43) located 37 former folk high school students (out of 179 MPs in total) in the Danish parliament of 1967 and 26 (out of 150) in the Norwegian parliament the same year. To our knowledge, there are no up-to-date figures on the current situation.

2 Funded by the Swedish Research Council’s Committee for Educational Sciences.

3 When we refer to parliamentarians as part of the political elite, we do so due to their close proximity to (national) political power and policymaking, which is a loose but widespread definition in the literature (ch. Lilleker, 2003). Thus, we do not refer to the narrower definition used, for example, in previous studies of power and democracy in Sweden (Göransson, 2007; Swedish Government Official Reports, 1990).

4 The second-largest city in Sweden.

5 In 2016, the trade unions affiliated with the LO organised 1,467,000 members, while the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) organised 150,000 members (LO, 2016; LRF, 2016).

6 For example, the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) and the Centre Party-related study association Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan (SV).

7 Alma folk high school, Fridhem folk high school, and Sommarbygden folk high school.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet [grant Number 2009-6149 Forskningsbidrag U].