Training cooperative citizens: masculinity and democratic citizenship in the Swedish Boy Scout Movement after 1945

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the reconfiguration of citizenship education in the Swedish Boy Scout movement, one of the country’s largest civil society organizations, after 1945. Citizenship education was a core feature of scouting since its establishment during the first decades of the twentieth century, with patriotism and practical helpfulness as core tenets. Additionally, an emphasis on hiking and camping sought to train Scouts to become self-reliant and self-regulatory members of society. After 1945, several former Scout virtues, such as honour, self-sacrifice and bravery, became increasingly associated with authoritarian values and were thus challenged by democratic, individualist ideals. By the 1950s, differences between Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting became less apparent, and explicitly masculine ideals were rejected by leading figures of the Boy Scout movement. The reconfiguration of citizenship education contributed to gender integration and co-educational reform that reshaped the Scout movement in Sweden during the 1950s and 1960s.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• scouting
• democracy
• youth movements
• Sweden

During the twentieth century, the Scout movement became one of the largest organized youth movements in the world. Since its foundation in Edwardian England, its programme for ‘instruction in good citizenship’ has been successfully implemented in numerous countries, including Sweden. Although originally conceived of as a youth movement exclusively for boys, it would also appeal to girls, who were organized in separate organizations for Girl Scouts or Girl Guides.¹ Scouting displayed a considerable plasticity over time, remaining a popular pastime activity for millions of boys and girls across the world a century later. In fact, one of the reasons for the continued success of scouting was arguably its adaptability to various political and cultural contexts, including democratic and authoritarian regimes.² At the core of scouting was the idea of promoting ‘good citizenship’, or, in the Swedish case: a ‘spirit of citizenship’ (medborgaranda). This overarching ambition, and the use of outdoor life to promote citizenship, has displayed a remarkable continuity over the past century.³ Other desired elements of ‘good’ or virtuous citizenship, as well as some of the methods used to accomplish that objective, have changed over time.

Much has already been written about the specific notions of citizenship that Robert Baden-Powell sought to promote in the first handbook for Boy Scouts, Scouting for Boys (1908), and the nationalist and imperialist currents that permeated early British Boy Scout ideology.⁴ Less attention has been given to the changes of Scout ideology during the latter half of the twentieth century.⁵ This article will address how the Boy Scout movement in Sweden revised its programme for citizenship education after the Second World War, to better align with the emergence of the Swedish welfare state. From 1945 to 1960, the Boy Scout organization, Sveriges Scoutförbund, amended its programme for citizenship training and revised the importance of several core principles, including traditional notions of loyalty and discipline. New virtues such as democracy and co-educational cooperation were instead brought to the foreground to keep scouting up to date with the changing currents of Swedish society. The process culminated in 1960 with the co-educational merger of the two largest Swedish organizations for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.⁶ This merger drew international attention, as Sweden was one of the very first countries to implement co-educational scouting on a nationwide basis. Interestingly, in countries like Britain and the United States, a similar development would only occur several decades later as former Boy Scout organizations opened their membership to include girls.⁷

These changes occurred when Scout organizations in Sweden, during the early post-war era, were confronted with the emergence of a Swedish welfare state ideology, where egalitarianism and strong citizens’ autonomy were regarded as emblematic of a particular Nordic or Swedish model.⁸ The realization of the welfare state in turn coincided with decades of Social Democratic dominance in Swedish politics, as the party remained in government from 1932 to 1976, an unmatched feat in Western democracies of the twentieth century.⁹ The party’s affiliations to trade unions, educational organizations and consumer cooperatives further strengthened its influence on Swedish society.¹⁰ The Scout movement, on the other hand, traced its origins to turn-of-the-century nationalism and conservatism. Nevertheless, it remained influential in providing citizenship education among civil-society organizations in Sweden, and these so-called popular movements have often been hailed as bearers of the ‘national heritage’ of democracy.¹¹

This article will analyse how citizenship education in the Boy Scout movement changed after 1945, a formative period of the Swedish welfare state. It begins by examining the concept of citizenship in the Swedish Boy Scout movement prior to the Second World War, detailing how camping and other outdoor activities became crucial components in a scheme to educate citizens. It then describes how the Second World War affected the movement and its camp practices, followed by a discussion on organizational and ideological dilemmas after 1945. Finally, the article analyses how these changes in the early post-war era paved the way for a new understanding of citizenship that emphasized democracy and co-educational cooperation. The research presented here centres on the Swedish Boy Scout movement as the changes in this organization were most important to overturn the opposition to co-educational scouting, but relevant examples from Girl Scouting will also be mentioned. In terms of material, the article draws from handbooks, Scout magazines and similar sources to analyse changing notions of citizenship in the organization. From a methodological standpoint, I distinguish between material produced for Scouts and Scout leaders, respectively: the former can be understood as the ‘front stage’ of Scout literature, while the latter, which includes unpublished sources such as protocols and internal publications intended for Scout leaders, functioned as a ‘backstage’ and often included critical evaluation and ideological debate.¹² These internal debates, primarily presented in the Boy Scout leaders’ magazine Totem, provide invaluable insights to understand ideological change in the organization.

Training young citizens

Established in Britain during the first decade of the twentieth century, the Boy Scout movement quickly spread to other countries, including Sweden, before the First World War.¹³ The Boy Scout Association of Sweden, Sveriges Scoutförbund, was established in 1912.¹⁴ From the start, scouting developed in staunch opposition to the social and political mobilization of socialism and ‘professional agitators’, as Robert Baden-Powell stated in Scouting for Boys.¹⁵ While Baden-Powell repeatedly stressed the non-political character of the movement, and gradually subdued his pre-1914 anti-socialist rhetoric, the ambitions and philosophy of scouting were tied to efforts to secure the social order by promoting national unity.¹⁶ In Sweden, too, the Boy Scout movement emerged as part of a broader effort to counter the political and social mobilization of working-class children and youth by instead seeking to inculcate them with patriotism and love of nature.¹⁷

Training in citizenship had both temporal and spatial dimensions. As Sian Edwards has noted, youth movements in general sought to promote citizenship in two ways: firstly, in the present, by organizing ‘young citizens’ that could make active contributions to community and country; and, secondly, by fostering future members of society, or ‘citizens in the making’, as T.H. Marshall famously noted.¹⁸ Regarding the political dimension of citizenship in the Scout movement, Sophie Wittemans argues that the Boy Scouts’ instruction in citizenship had two main components: first, practical helpfulness enacted by performing everyday efforts in the local community, known as ‘good turns’; and, second, a sense of duty, patriotism and self-sacrifice that linked a citizen’s loyalty to the state.¹⁹

These basic elements of citizenship training became features of scouting worldwide, but they were not interpreted identically. Therefore, the concept of citizenship in Swedish scouting must be understood in its specific historical context. For example, the dissolution of the Union of Sweden–Norway in 1905 had dealt a final blow to the last remnant of Sweden’s self-image as a European great power. Even more alarming perhaps, a massive wave of migration to North America, mainly to the United States, saw the departure of one million Swedes between 1850 and 1920. Swedish nationalism of this period has therefore been described as ‘Little Swedish’, an ideology based on perceived inferiority rather than superiority, accentuating the tenacity and humility of a poor people that relentlessly cultivated a harsh natural landscape.²⁰ The nationalist currents of the early Swedish Boy Scout movement therefore differed from the more expansive notions of British imperialism that Robert Baden-Powell expressed in Scouting for Boys, although the civic ideals of Swedish scouting had much in common with the British forerunner.²¹ In both countries, rapid urbanization and industrialization had given rise to heightened social tensions and demands for social and political reform.²² As a consequence, the rights and duties of citizenship were pushed to the forefront of the political agenda.²³ Moreover, these social challenges gave rise to a perceived crisis of masculinity. In this regard, Boy Scouting was part of a larger transnational turn-of-the-century movement to rejuvenate nations by attempting to restore manhood through physical prowess and moral character.²⁴ Indeed, appeals to duty and heroic sacrifice were no less apparent in Swedish than in British Boy Scout rhetoric. In the inaugural issue of the magazine Scouten (‘The Scout’) in 1912, for example, the famous Swedish explorer and conservative author Sven Hedin wrote: ‘I would like to raise an army of Scouts and discipline them into real men, who, in the moment of danger, gather in defence of the country.’²⁵ This helps to explain why girls were not welcomed in organizations for (Boy) Scouts, but instead organized in separate associations with different programmes and notions of citizenship.

Regarding the Girl Guides, Kristine Alexander has observed that politics occupied a central but ambiguous place in the movement’s efforts to educate young citizens. On the one hand, the movement sought to promote knowledge of the electoral system, domestic issues and global affairs as important for future citizens, but on the other, the emphasis on obedience and loyalty reflected ‘a desire to maintain a social and political status quo’.²⁶ Citizenship training for Girl Scouts differed in some important respects from the Boy Scout scheme, most notably by highlighting domesticity and home-craft.²⁷ In the original handbook for Girl Guides, How Girls Can Help Build The Empire (1912), Baden-Powell stated that the greatest duty in life for a girl was to ‘bring up good citizens’.²⁸ The primary roles of young women were as future wives and mothers, or through child-rearing. This ideology of ‘Imperial motherhood’ permeated the early Girl Guide movement in Britain, but not all early Girl Guides embraced the ideology of motherhood, and some clearly preferred adventurous activities like those common among Boy Scouts. As Tammy Proctor has argued, girls ‘wanted adventure, not “home training”’.²⁹ Girl Guide leaders in Britain, and Girl Scout leaders in Sweden, were thus faced with the challenge of presenting a programme that at once appealed to the youthful expectations of girls but was also deemed respectable among adults.

After the First World War, new educational opportunities and areas of public life became acceptable for girls, and Guiding put more emphasis on attitudes and skills suitable for professional careers, citizenship and family life.³⁰ In Sweden, more adventurous outdoor exercises, including tent camps, became acceptable for Girl Scouts in the interwar era. By camping and hiking, Girl Scouts could act independently and adopt an active, resourceful relationship with the surrounding world that challenged contemporary notions of femininity, thus widening the possibilities for girls to pursue interests beyond the traditional limits of womanhood.³¹

Citizenship before democracy

Perhaps surprisingly, the Swedish Boy Scout movement’s initial notion of dutiful citizenship was by no means synonymous with democracy. During the first decades of the twentieth century, the concept of democracy was still contested and was therefore often eschewed in the ‘non-political’ vocabulary of the Scout movement. In the aforementioned inaugural issue of Scouten, the renowned novelist Verner von Heidenstam (1916 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature) even warned that democratization could ‘lose its purpose or aim too low, towards underclass culture or even the mob-like’.³² This is in clear contrast to the development of scouting across the Atlantic, where non-sectarian political participation became an important element of civic duty among Boy Scouts.³³ Against the threat of fascism and communism, historian Mischa Honeck has shown how Boy Scouts of America organizers emphasized democracy as ‘the essence of masculine Americanism’.³⁴

Sweden gradually implemented parliamentary democracy over the course of the early twentieth century, extending voting rights to men in 1909 and adopting universal suffrage in 1918–21. However, the adoption of parliamentary democracy and limitation of royal power took place only gradually and without significant changes to the country’s Constitution.³⁵ The reluctance among many Swedish conservatives to adopt a rhetoric of democracy, which persisted well into the inter-war era, was rooted less in a fascination with fascist dictatorship (electoral support for National Socialist parties remained marginal throughout the 1930s) than in support for a monarchy with some degree of ruling power.³⁶

Meanwhile, Swedish Boy Scout leadership debated the political neutrality of the organization in the Scout leaders’ periodical Totem. In a telling discussion, one Scout leader demanded that the organization took a clear stance against political forces ‘in the East’ (i.e. the Soviet Union), as it opposed some of scouting’s core values: Christianity and patriotism.³⁷ This argument, however, was repudiated by several other Scout leaders, who maintained that the organization should remain absolutely neutral in political affairs. One wrote: ‘The Scout movement must maintain its absolute neutrality towards all political directions and parties and trust our country’s accountable men, institutions and authorities to protect and preserve our country free and Swedish!’³⁸ Other Scout leaders agreed: the organization did not have to take a stand against communism, as the primary purpose of the organization was to conduct character training according to the Scout law, thereby strengthening the Christian faith and individualism of its members without combatting a particular set of political ideas.³⁹ This discussion illustrates how Swedish Scout leaders in the interwar era sought to detach citizenship education from the political realm, in part to avoid ideological conflict.

Camping and citizenship education in the interwar era

In the interwar era, the Boy Scout movement in Sweden experienced what has been described as a second breakthrough, during which a surge in interest in camping and outdoor activities paralleled a ‘mainstreaming’ of the Boy Scouts’ nationalist rhetoric.⁴⁰ The organization reinforced its creed of self-proclaimed political neutrality, while retaining its ambitions to bridge the social classes and overcome class tensions.⁴¹ During this period, social tensions in Sweden gradually weakened, as labour disputes became less pronounced and the Social Democratic Party replaced its rhetoric of class struggle with a new vision of an all-encompassing ‘people’s home’.⁴² Simultaneously, the Scout movement sought to expand its membership by appealing more broadly to working-class and middle-class families, which resulted in a softening of the sometimes pompous, militaristic rhetoric from the years before the First World War.⁴³

The citizenly ideal that became dominant in the inter-war era, and would remain important during the early decades of the post-war era, instead stressed self-improvement and self-discipline as key components in the making of active, self-reliant citizens.⁴⁴ The desire to improve productive habits and proper appearance corresponded with well-established ideals of liberal reformists and bourgeois educationalists. What distinguished the Scout method from many similar educational programmes was rather its method and ‘outdoor ethos’,⁴⁵ which sought to establish self-regulatory habits in the ‘natural’ environment of the summer camp.⁴⁶

Camping as a method to promote citizenship was linked to currents in developmental psychology, according to which the Scout gradually adapted to a life in society from his original state in nature. In the publication Scoutrörelsen, vice chairman Elis Andersson described the Boy Scout’s ideal development as a civilizational process through camp life. Resembling the developmental psychology of G. Stanley Hall, he argued that the personal development of each Scout reflected the historical progress of society.⁴⁷ The youngest members, wolf cubs, were expected to live with their flock ‘out in the jungle’ with games and play. Here, nature constituted a carefree, romantic world, inhabited by characters out of Kipling’s novel The Jungle Book. The next stage, that of the Boy Scout, was considered more mature: ‘Now the boy wants to master the environment, build a civilization, organize and shape nature according to his needs.’⁴⁸ At this point, building in nature became a concrete element of citizenship education, as the Scouts were trained to become actively involved in the formation of a community. By participating in the building of the camps, Scouts were ideally made aware of the work needed to establish a community and gained a sense of responsibility for life in society. The construction of the camp, and the sense of responsibility and joy associated with active participation in this process, was expected to make the Scouts become active citizens – without, however, including the political dimension of citizenship. Scouts were not expected to govern the society they created at camp. Instead, camps were erected as non-political communities.

In the final stage, the Rover Scout (Swedish: vandrarscout; after 1954, seniorscout), with the help of nature, became a full member of society:

When he has reached the level of Rover Scout, he becomes a member of society in a completely different way. He is the creative young man, who applies his knowledge in the social circle and seeks to make himself increasingly at home there. The jungle and the forest are still his sources of recreation, and he leads a vigorous wilderness life. But he is a resident of the community, and his organization, the Rover Scout team, is concerned with the construction and development of the community.⁴⁹

The Boy Scout culture of camping that gained prominence during the inter-war era did not simply take place against the backdrop of scenic nature, but also provided an arena in which to train in a set of practices that simulated life outside society. Scouts were expected to learn to thrive in the ‘wilderness’ – not primarily because survival in nature was deemed necessary per se, but because camp life conveyed the embodied activity and self-reliance. In Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell stated: ‘Our effort is not so much to discipline the boys, as to teach them to discipline themselves.’⁵⁰ In practice, this resulted in an educational scheme that emphasized self-regulation of the body and self-improvement through the repetition of tasks in an environment that also included a certain degree of freedom and autonomy.

Established in nature, Scout camps were constructed as sites separate from the organized society from which the Scouts ventured, but the construction process also reproduced the creation of modern, orderly society, contributing to one of the ‘contradictory qualities of the summer camp’, as Sharon Wall has noted.⁵¹ When the camp was over and the temporary camp site dismantled, the Scouts were instructed to restore their natural surroundings to the condition in which they had initially found it. Simultaneously, camp participants were expected to carry with them experiences and skills that were useful to them in their everyday lives and in their future roles as citizens. Whether the purpose was to establish habits or internalize the moral lessons delivered by an evening campfire, the Scouts would, by engaging in outdoor activities, carry something back from nature to everyday life and society, which in turn would be useful to them as citizens.

The Second World War and the challenges to citizenship education

The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 had a significant impact on the Swedish Scout movement. Unlike its neighbouring countries, Sweden was spared the immediate horrors of the war, although the effects of the conflict were felt in terms of rationing, military call-ups and general distress.⁵² Beredskapsanda, a ‘spirit of preparedness’, became a national virtue and was incorporated as a guiding principle into all Boy Scout activities during the war.⁵³ As noted by one Scout leader, an organization with the motto ‘Be Prepared’ was perfectly positioned – ‘like a fish in water’ – for the situation.⁵⁴ Apparently, the demand among young people to engage in acts of civic service and, perhaps as important, to gain recognition for such work, increased during the war. Membership in the Boy Scout Association rose rapidly, from just shy of 18,000 in 1940 to 29,000 by 1945. Judging from these figures, many boys and young men actively sought to become part of a national cause seeking to promote civil defence and preparedness.⁵⁵ As Folke Bernadotte, chairman of the organization, argued, the war provided an opportunity for the organization and its members to prove to the public that the principles of scouting ‘were not merely empty words’.⁵⁶ Moreover, several Scout leaders noted that the movement, and its community service, finally received greater recognition.⁵⁷ The animosity towards scouting among other groups, most notably the labour movement, seemed to diminish, which was not without significance in a country where the Social Democrats were by far the largest political party.⁵⁸

The war also had an immediate effect on the citizenship education of the Boy Scout movement. Instead of arranging leisure-style summer camps, the organization began to focus on small-scale ‘utility camps’ where participants worked part-time in agriculture or forestry to make useful contributions to the economy. This development mirrors the calls for British Scouts and Guides to help the war effort by ‘digging for victory’ and ‘feeding the nation’, which strengthened the link between citizenship and the use of the landscape as an arena for dutiful, citizenly activities.⁵⁹

When the war ended, many Swedes hoped for a return to normalcy, and in the summer of 1946, more than 8000 Boy Scouts gathered at Gränsö near the town of Västervik to participate in the first national Boy Scout camp since 1938, arranged by Sveriges Scoutförbund.⁶⁰ The official camp slogan – ‘The campfires are awaiting’⁶¹ – marked a symbolic fresh start, although the post-war era would also bring unexpected challenges. Initial jubilation in 1945 was followed by an element of uncertainty among the organization’s leadership, as they faced the question of how the organization would carry on the spirit of preparedness in peacetime. Would its principles of duty and self-sacrifice still prove relevant?⁶²

Democratizing Boy Scout citizenship after 1945

In the first two decades following 1945, the organizational structure of the Boy Scout organization Sveriges Scoutförbund underwent major changes, as did its programme for citizenship education. In hindsight, the Gränsö camp did not mark a new beginning as much as the symbolic end of an era. During the 10-year period following the Second World War, membership in the Swedish Boy Scout Association stagnated, marking the end of two decades of steady growth. This gave rise to a prolonged debate about the purpose of the movement and its relevance in modern society. In 1946, Boy Scout leader Frithiof Dahlby self-critically acknowledged that ‘to some extent, we are in a crisis’.⁶³ In the same year, federal instructor Torvald Wermelin argued that, ‘to a worrying degree, we are forced to justify our existence in the present’.⁶⁴

The tenor of the debate was influenced by new currents in Swedish public discourse after the war, wherein romanticism, nationalism and anti-modernism became associated with the brutal experiences of Nazism in Europe.⁶⁵ For example, these tendencies had a lasting impact on Swedish school policy. After 1945, new ideals promoting critical thinking, self-reliance and autonomy as means of combatting the appeal of authoritarianism became more prevalent in Swedish educational policy.⁶⁶ Anti-authoritarianism and democratic ideals had, of course, existed well before the Second World War in other organizations and other parts of society. What was new was a specific narrative, according to which conservative and authoritarian values had enabled the growth of National Socialism in Germany. The success of this narrative in turn weakened conservative resistance to progressivism.⁶⁷ To some extent, this development mirrors, or even anticipates, the ‘democratization’ of educational policy in West Germany during the 1950s.⁶⁸ However, whereas Christian and conservative ideas had a more profound impact on the young Federal Republic, and thus enabled a stronger advocacy of neo-humanism, Swedish intellectual and educational debates were oriented more strongly against idealism, in favour of progressivism.⁶⁹

This marked a clear shift from previous decades. In the final report presented by the 1940 Schools Commission (1940 års skolutredning), published by the Ministry of Education in 1944, the concept of democracy had still been absent. In terms of citizenship, the purpose of schooling was instead discussed in terms of personal character and qualities such as self-discipline, sacrifice, chivalry and loyalty – not at all different from the ideas promoted by the Scout movement. In the report of the 1946 Schools Commission, published in 1948, old civic virtues of obedience, loyalty and patriotism were supplanted by ideals promoting critical thinking and self-reliance as civic virtues in a democratic society. Important to note is that the shift towards democratic education took place as the rhetoric of democracy was in the process of being fully embraced by the Swedish political Right.⁷⁰ After the Second World War, conservatives in Sweden embraced the rhetoric of democracy in full, as liberal democracies like the United States and Britain were seen as the major force opposing socialism internationally. With conservatives, liberals and Social Democrats sharing a general concept of democracy, the term became less politically charged – a prerequisite for its inclusion in Swedish Boy Scout rhetoric.⁷¹

The Swedish Boy Scout Association developed two different strategies to face the progressive currents of the post-war era. The first was an effort to emphasize nature lore and woodcraft romanticism, thereby strengthening the attempt to develop self-reliance and personal character through camping and hiking. The second acknowledged the need to adapt to new social currents and ‘modernize’ citizenship training. Eventually, a reorientation towards democracy and political participation would occur among the Boy Scouts, but not instantaneously.

In 1946, the influential Scout leader Torvald Wermelin rejected ‘equalization democracy’ as an ideal, since the concept presumably denoted a connection to socialism.⁷² His proposed solution to membership stagnation was not to strive towards ‘equalization’, but instead to allude to the aura of wilderness adventure and romantic outdoor life which had been downplayed at the more solemn utility camps that were held during war. In the Swedish Boy Scout movement, the aura of woodcraft romanticism was strongly associated with lore surrounding North American Indians.⁷³ When the Swedish Boy Scouts gathered at Gränsö in 1946, Indian lore was clearly visible in the architecture of the camp. A totem pole, six metres high, was raised in the middle of the council ring (Figure 1), flanked by a large sundial and ‘a huge tam-tam drum’.⁷⁴ Not all Scout leaders appreciated these elements, however. Two leaders wrote to the periodical Totem, asking whether Gränsö was intended to be a ‘Scout camp or Indian camp’?⁷⁵ Another Scout leader objected to the ‘artificial Indian romanticism’ of the camp.⁷⁶

Figure 1. Playing Indian. Native American imagery at the 1946 Gränsö camp.

Indeed, the question of Native American imagery revealed a supposed contradiction, wherein scouting claimed to prepare its members for useful service in modern society, while also promoting wilderness romanticism that according to its critics represented anti-modern ‘escapism’. This critique was voiced by the chairman of rival youth organization Unga Örnar, Sven-Arne Stahre, who accused the Boy Scouts of endorsing an outdated approach to community service and political citizenship.⁷⁷ While the leadership of the Swedish Boy Scouts publicly defended its use of romantic imagery as a method to capture the attention of its young members, the critique was acknowledged internally and fuelled further discussion.⁷⁸

The political dimension of citizenship

In the end, romantic idealism or ‘playing Indian’ did not silence reformers within the Boy Scout Association, who instead wanted to address the perceived crisis by modernizing the programme to better match contemporary notions of citizenship in Sweden. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, external and internal pressure to adopt a more updated approach to democratic citizenship caused a gradual re-orientation that included new elements of citizenship education. In 1949, Deputy Boy Scout Chief Wilhelm Schröder declared that two opposing worldviews defined the era: ‘One is dictatorial, collectivist, biological-pagan and nationalist – the other democratic, individualistic, Christian-humanist and internationalist.’⁷⁹ The Boy Scout movement hereby aligned itself, more clearly than before, with a democratic, anti-nationalist and individualistic tradition. Schröder stated that the Scout movement had always sought to mould ‘independent individuals’ and, somewhat anachronistically, therefore ‘supported a democratic conception of culture’.⁸⁰ Nationalism, a cornerstone of the inter-war Scout movement, now became associated with dictatorship, ‘biologism’ (implicitly: racism) and nihilism.⁸¹

At the Sveriges Scoutförbund’s fortieth anniversary celebration in Stockholm on 17 November 1951, the newly appointed chairman of the organization, Bengt Junker, asked the audience what the Scout movement, founded by a British general more than 40 years earlier, ‘could offer young people of today, [after] the whole worldview that dominated the turn of the century, and the time around it, exploded into atoms’.⁸² The question was not merely rhetorical, and testified to the movement’s search for post-war identity and the reconfiguration of certain key concepts concerning citizenship and society. The year before, Junker had presented his ideas in the Boy Scout leaders’ magazine Totem; his solution to the problem required increased attention to social affairs, including more ‘practical training in democracy’.⁸³ A year later, Junker discussed the moral and social value of scouting in post-war society, highlighting education in democracy as one of the cornerstones. He forcefully argued that Baden-Powell’s programme of citizenship training in fact encapsulated ‘education in practical democracy’. The patrol system, for example, was one method for applying democracy in practice.⁸⁴

The patrol system had always been part and parcel of the Scout method and a feature that distinguished the movement from many other youth organizations. In early writings, however, representatives of the Scout movement did not describe the patrol system as an education in democracy. Baden-Powell, for example, saw it first and foremost as a school of character for the individual, where responsibility and leadership were central to the character of the patrol leader, while the Scouts were to experience team spirit and comradeship.⁸⁵

This change illustrates how, with democracy as a guiding principle, citizenship education among the Swedish Boy Scouts became increasingly involved in the political dimensions of democratic citizenship. Through the performance of good turns, Sveriges Scoutförbund had long expected its members to enact their role as useful members of society, but the organization had been more ambivalent regarding the political dimension of citizenship. To a certain degree, the Swedish Boy Scout movement had always emphasized camping and woodcraft at the expense of theoretical knowledge about social affairs and democratic institutions. For example, by 1946 the Boy Scouts only offered one community-oriented badge, hembygsmärket (roughly: home district badge), where the requirements included knowledge of the natural surroundings of the local district, its most important historical sites and the ‘most important industrial facilities and their main products’.⁸⁶ The requirements for the badge evidently sought to strengthen regional identification, but did not require any knowledge of municipal government or social affairs.

Practical, ‘non-political’ participation in the local community remained at the heart of scouting’s ideals after 1945, but Boy Scout training increasingly incorporated elements that prepared its members for adulthood in terms of work life and democratic political participation. The attitude to Scout leaders involved in party politics also gradually shifted from disinclination to cautious encouragement.⁸⁷ Senior Scouts were further encouraged to discuss and reflect on social problems to be able to make informed decisions as citizens. One example of this change was a ‘Youth Parliament’ for Senior Boy Scouts announced in 1957.⁸⁸ In collaboration with the insurance company Ansvar, older Scouts gathered annually to discuss societal problems, such as alcohol consumption among young people or the morality of youth magazines. While these themes reflected old moral concerns about youth culture (and thus more likely the concerns of the Boy Scout leadership instead of its membership), the ambition to involve youth more actively in these discussions was new.

To a certain extent, self-government was also incorporated into Scout camps. In 1954, for example, an article in Totem encouraged Scout leaders to give Scouts increased responsibilities in the governance of camps. The author suggested that Scouts would be put in charge of their own camp for an entire day, ‘with not a single leader left on the premises’. The responsibility for governing the camp could either be given to patrol leaders or, by appointing a ‘board of boys’, elected by the Scouts.⁸⁹ An important source of inspiration was the Hollywood films Boys Town (1938) and Men of Boys Town (1941), starring Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy, which revolved around a progressive juvenile institution in the United States. The 1952 edition of the Boy Scout handbook Lägerliv (Camp Life) featured an introduction with the title: ‘Camp: A Boy’s Town’.⁹⁰ In various settings, the idea of camp life as a ‘Boy’s Town’ became a source of inspiration. For example, a group of senior Scouts that attended courses at Vårdinge folkhögskola reported in the mid-1950s that one of their courses was transformed into a boy’s town: ‘Upon arrival, we were told that we would live in a boy’s town, inspired by an American film, with a mayor, a government, a court, a police commission, a health commission and a sanitation commission.’⁹¹

Among the Girl Scouts, the attitudes to politics also began to change during these years. The handbook for Senior Girl Scouts (ages 15–18) published in 1951 still presented social commitment primarily in terms of Christian education, international understanding and practical helpfulness in a philanthropic tradition, thereby mirroring a tradition from the interwar era. However, this handbook also introduced the importance of political participation to its readers, denouncing the common opinion that politics was merely a ‘necessary evil’. As citizens, Girl Scouts were encouraged to become knowledgeable in the different political parties and eventually form their own opinions based on party programmes and voting records. To gain a nuanced understanding of politics, Senior Girl Scouts were also encouraged to read newspapers with different political labels.⁹²

Gendering citizenship in the post-war era

The efforts to increase self-government among the Boy Scouts did not always produce desirable results. Reports of abuse at a national Boy Scout camp in 1950 sparked a heated public debate on hazing and bullying in scouting.⁹³ The incident, where a boy was supposedly humiliated in front of his peers, tapped into the debate about how the Swedish Boy Scout movement needed to reform its programme for citizenship, including its ideals of masculinity. This reform of citizenly virtues replaced honour, courage and self-sacrifice with critical awareness and individualism. In the end, it also had implications for the gendering of citizenship in the Boy Scout movement. When promoting democracy as a primary ideal of scouting, Bengt Junker noted that the organization should increasingly aim to foster the boys’ ability to ‘cooperate’ (i.e. socialize) with girls. This, in turn, required empathy. In the rapidly changing climate of the post-war era, the separation of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts was no longer regarded as necessary to mould boys into ‘real men’. Tougher tests of more rugged masculinity, previously labelled ‘hard scouting’, were now frowned upon and Bengt Junker even rejected ‘distinct masculine ideals’ completely, instead advocating for universal human values.⁹⁴ A modern, democratic society needed to rely on the efforts of both men and women, the reformers argued, and thus required boys and girls to learn to cooperate from an early age.⁹⁵

Meanwhile, the Swedish Girl Scout Association, Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, faced challenges of a different sort after 1945. Among the leadership of the Girl Scout Association, a point at issue was the perceived loss of camp culture. In a 1948 issue of the Girl Scout leader magazine SFS Ledarblad, camp secretary Margareta Bjerkö warned of the declining number of small-scale ‘troop camps’. Bjerkö described the situation as a crisis for the ‘camp idea’ itself,⁹⁶ since troop camps (kårläger) were regarded as important platforms for providing citizenship education through woodcraft. Unlike larger jamboree-like gatherings, these smaller camps enabled closer contact with nature and schedules that accentuated training in self-reliance and team spirit.

Bjerkö’s warning tapped into a fundamental critique of indolence and modernity that scouting had sought to address since its foundation, according to which modern life made children and youth too comfortable and content. One solution advanced by SFS was to strengthen the formal requirements for camp experience in the organization. In 1950, SFS introduced a new merit badge for camping, which required knowledge of how to raise a tent, the ideal placement of kitchens and latrines at camp sites, suitable fuels for different kinds of cooking, and so forth.⁹⁷ Changes were also made in the requirements to attain the rank of Third, Second and First Class Scout. Participation in camps of different lengths became mandatory for all ranks, and several skills relating to woodcraft and camp life were added to the requirements.⁹⁸

A comparison between the Class ranks for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts during the first post-war decade (1945–55) show reduced differentiation between the requirements for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Outdoor exercises became slightly more demanding for girls while physical requirements for boys were lowered. For example, Third Class Boy Scouts no longer needed to finish a 300-metre tracking test in 15 minutes. This was replaced by a 3-km ‘forest hike’ accompanied by a Scout leader (which included laying out a track, identifying map signs and north–south navigation). The hiking test for Second Class Boy Scouts (a 10-km walk or a 12-km cross-country ski, with the final 4 km navigated in unfamiliar terrain with map and compass) was replaced by a 6-km hike accompanied by a Scout leader.⁹⁹

One of the most decisive ideological changes in the 1950s Swedish Boy Scout movement was the reassessment of masculinity. In 1950, Bengt Junker wrote in the Scout leaders’ magazine Totem that the organization had reason to re-evaluate its position vis-à-vis the Girl Scouts: ‘We should acknowledge the critique in one particular area, regarding the relationship boys–girls. What have we accomplished except penning some ridiculous, Victorian regulations in our statutes?’¹⁰⁰ The following year, Junker called for intensified cooperation between boys and girls: ‘As sure as society is built by men and women together, nothing would be more dangerous than to establish an unrealistic masculine ideal for our boys.’¹⁰¹ Junker requested increased cooperation between boys and girls: ‘The ‘patrol age’ [roughly: 10–14 years] should be a preparation for the kind of cooperation in life, that we so often demand: in workplaces, in all civil society organizations, in Swedish democracy … ’¹⁰²

In the early 1950s, Bengt Junker attacked the ‘cult of false masculine ideals’ in scouting.¹⁰³ Scouting should never, argued Junker, become a ‘school for admiration of supposed masculine superiority’. Instead, citizenship education should centre on compassion (Swedish: medmänsklighet).¹⁰⁴ From a rhetorical standpoint, this position signified a rather distinct shift from the masculine ideals of previous decades that held toil and struggle as key components of character formation. In 1930, Scout leader Axel Haerberger had written:

Chivalry was born first and foremost out of battle, during times of turmoil and struggle and heroic deeds. One must judge the battle harshly: its goal is ultimately destruction. But it requires strict discipline and hard self-denial and sacrifice to the utmost. And these are valuable character traits that humanity cannot afford to relinquish.¹⁰⁵

Even after the Second World War, the introduction of the 1946 edition of the handbook Scouthandboken stated: ‘With clenched fists and pursed lips, you must fight to become [an honest Scout]. That is manly!’¹⁰⁶ In the subsequent 1952 edition of this handbook, this introduction had been removed.

Meanwhile, the Girl Scout Association was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for co-educational scouting, but its leadership maintained that Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should maintain their distinct traits.¹⁰⁷ During these years, the Girl Scouts did not face the same internal or external pressure to re-evaluate its gendered notion of citizenship. Regardless, gender integration continued with increased cooperation among Senior Scouts during the 1950s. In 1952, the first common course for new leaders of the Girl Scout and Boy Scout Associations of the older age groups was held.¹⁰⁸ Increased parental support also came to act as an incidental driving force for gender integration. During the 1950s, Sveriges Scoutförbund increased its efforts to gain active support from parents, to increase overall membership and enrol new leaders. Bengt Junker now described Boy Scouting as a ‘family programme’. Parents requested common parental groups for boys and girls, which further propelled increased cooperation between the organizations.¹⁰⁹ The ‘domestication’ of Boy Scouting was also felt in camp culture and outdoor life, where parents were invited to take more active part in summer camps.¹¹⁰

Following the debates on masculinity in Sveriges Scoutförbund, the organization arranged its first co-educational camp in 1953. Just seven years later, in 1960, the largest Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations in Sweden, Sveriges Scoutförbund and the Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, merged.¹¹¹ These changes occurred rapidly, sometimes even to the surprise of the reformers, and were met with little internal opposition.¹¹² In the Scout movement, the decision to merge the organizations was initially an administrative one, but in the following decade, co-educational groups for Scouts of all ages were introduced, thus effectively bringing an end to Boy Scouting (and Girl Scouting) as gendered activities in Sweden.¹¹³ These organizational changes occurred as the educational system in Sweden became more co-educational. In 1956, termination of gendered-segregated schools for girls in secondary education began. While increased co-operation between boys and girls was part of a general tendency in post-war Swedish education, Swedish Scout leaders acknowledged that co-educational reform of scouting appeared as a radical experiment in many other countries.¹¹⁴ One possible explanation for the relative ease with which co-educational reform was implemented in Sweden was the country’s growing self-identity as a modern and progressive country for others to follow.¹¹⁵

In all, the reconfiguration of citizenship education in the Swedish Boy Scout organization after 1945 had a profound impact on scouting in Sweden. As one of the largest civil society organizations for children and youth, these changes affected tens of thousands of children and youth. While the qualitative impact of the organization’s citizenship education programme is difficult to measure, membership figures provide a hint as to whether the reforms were successful. After five years of stagnation, membership in Sveriges Scoutförbund rose from 29,000 to 45,000 during the 1950s. By 1970, membership in the merged, co-educational organization Svenska Scoutförbundet exceeded 86,000.¹¹⁶ The organization thus had reasons to conclude that it had managed to update its programme to fit contemporary demands and expectations.

Conclusions

During the twentieth century, the Boy Scout movement in Sweden displayed a noticeable continuity in its efforts to use camping and hiking as methods for promoting citizenship. However, several characteristics of virtuous or desirable citizenship changed over time. For example, the movement’s initial emphasis on loyalty and subordinance was partly challenged in the 1920s and 1930s by further stressing self-improvement and resourcefulness as key components for active citizens.

Although Sweden was not directly involved in the Second World War, this conflict nonetheless had a profound impact on the Boy Scout movement. Membership figures increased significantly as Sveriges Scoutförbund adapted its camping and citizenship education programme to make useful contributions to society in terms of farm work, forestry and civil defence. As shown in this article, the Boy Scout Association first attempted to return to its pre-war camp practices after 1945, but instead entered a period of self-examination. As the Swedish welfare state took shape, mirroring decades of Social Democratic dominance over Swedish politics, the Boy Scouts reconfigured its programme for citizenship education to align with contemporary social currents, including increased cooperation between boys and girls and greater knowledge about social affairs and democratic participation. As part of this process, explicitly masculine ideals were rejected, which in turn narrowed the divide between Boy Scout and Girl Scout ideology. While Scout leaders justified elements of romanticism as a means of capturing the imagination of boys, some sought progressive approaches to community service as a strategic choice to remain relevant. By envisioning scouting as an education in applied democracy, elements of political participation became a more pronounced part of the movement’s citizenship training. In 1960, Sveriges Scoutförbund merged with the Girl Scout organization Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, giving rise to one of the first co-educational Scout organizations in the world.

While the qualitative impact of the organization’s citizenship education programme is difficult to measure, increased membership figures after 1955 suggest it was successful in its efforts to update its programmes to align with contemporary demands and expectations in the Swedish welfare state.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2022.2142095

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Björn Lundberg

Björn Lundberg is a postdoctoral researcher in history at Lund University, Sweden. His main research interests concern the history of knowledge and the history of childhood and youth. He has published research articles in Contemporary European History, Media History, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, and contributed to several edited volumes. His doctoral thesis (2018) examined outdoor recreation and education in citizenship among Swedish youth organizations. Lundberg has a background in journalism and has written articles for several popular history magazines. His most recent book is a biography of Swedish middle-distance runner Gunder Hägg (2020).

Notes

1. Formark, Den välsituerade flickan; and Proctor, Scouting for Girls.

2. Today, the World Organization of the Scout Movement has 172 national member organizations across the world, and the movement estimates its worldwide membership to exceed 54 million. Source: ‘National Scout Organizations’, www.scout.org/worldwide. During the twentieth century, the movement was banned in several totalitarian states, such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It is still banned in a few countries today, such as North Korea.

3. Westberg Broström, “Wild Scouts,” 20.

4. Pryke, “Popularity of Nationalism”; Rosenthal, Character Factory; Warren, “Sir Robert Baden-Powell”; Schaanning, Barneridderne; Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ; and Springhall, “Baden-Powell and the Scout Movement.”

5. Recent exceptions include Honeck, Our Frontier, who discusses how the Boy Scouts of America raised ‘Cold Warriors,’ and Edwards, Youth Movements.

6. Puke, Scoutings historia.

7. For example, the Boy Scouts of America have accepted girls since 2018, but in gender-segregated troops. In Britain, the Scout Association has accepted girls in co-educational sections since the 1990s, with mandatory admission for girls since 2007. However, in the United States and Britain, the Girl Scout/Girl Guide organizations have remained exclusively for girls, whereas the Swedish Girl Scout Association (Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund) eventually disbanded. Mills, “Scouting for Girls?”

8. Sandin, “Children”; Bendixsen, Bringslid and Vike, “Introduction”; and Berggren and Trägårdh, Är svensken människa?

9. It should be noted that the Agrarian Party (Bondeförbundet) formed a short-lived minority government from June to September 1936, known in Sweden as the ‘vacation government.’ Since the parliament did not convene during these months, its political influence was very limited. For a discussion of the Nordic welfare states in the post-war era, see Hilson, The Nordic Model. For an overview of the history of Social Democracy and the welfare state, see Misgeld et al., Creating Social Democracy.

10. While the Social Democratic Party was doubtlessly important, its supposed hegemonic position has also been described as overestimated: Andersson, “Model of Welfare Capitalism?,” 568.

11. Dahlstedt, “Swedish Road to Democracy,” 4.

12. The distinction between front stage and back stage is influenced by Erving Goffman’s model for the analysis of the presentation of self. Goffman, Presentation of Self.

13. Block and Proctor, eds., Scouting Frontiers; Honeck, Our Frontier; Jeal, The Boy-Man; Jordan, Modern Manhood; Warren, “Sir Robert Baden-Powell.” For a history of Girl Guiding, see, for example, Proctor, “On my Honour”; Alexander Guiding Modern Girls; and Formark, Den välsituerade flickan.

14. This article examines material from Sveriges Scoutförbund, the largest Boy Scout organization in Sweden. However, the organizational structure of Scouting in Sweden was rather complex. Apart from the two major Scout organizations for boys and girls (Sveriges Scoutförbund and Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund), there were official Scout organizations within the Salvation Army (Frälsningsarmén), the YMCA (in Swedish: Kristliga Föreningen av Unga Män, KFUM) and YWCA (Kristliga Föreningen av Unga Kvinnor, KFUK), and the temperance movement (International Organization of Good Templars, IOGT and Nationaltemplarorden, NTO). The Scout troops of the Mission Covenant Youth of Sweden (Svenska Missionsförbundets Ungdom) became formal members of the national Scout council in the 1960s. See Puke, Scoutings historia; Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ; and Sterzel, I begynnelsen var.

15. Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys, 297.

16. Mills, “Be Prepared,” 432.

17. Sandell and Sörlin “Naturen som ungdomsfostrare,” 45; Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ.

18. Edwards, Youth Movements, 16; and Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, 25.

19. Wittemans, “Double Concept.”

20. Berggren, “Forward-Facing Angel”; and Tingsten, Gud och fosterlandet.

21. In the introduction to the Swedish translation of Scouting for Boys, future Scout chief Ebbe Lieberath noted these differences, but concluded that the programme of Scouting was nevertheless universally applicable. Ebbe Lieberath, “Förord” [1917], 9–10. For an overview of Baden-Powell and imperialism, see Boehmer, “Introduction.”

22. Sandell and Sörlin, “Naturen som ungdomsfostrare”; and Berggren, Seklets ungdom.

23. Björk, Att förhandla sitt medborgarskap; Lindgren, “Att ha barn med”; Eskilsson, Drömmen om kamratsamhället; and Tistedt, Visioner om medborgerliga publiker.

24. Honeck, Our Frontier, 20– 6; Mosse, The Image of Man, 135; and Rosenthal, The Character Factory, 131–61.

25. Sven Hedin, “Scouterna och fosterlandet,” Scouten, no. 1 (1912): 4. My translation. All quotes from Swedish Scout sources featured in this article have been translated by the author.

26. Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls, 107.

27. Formark, Den välsituerade flickan; Lundberg, Naturliga medborgare, 55–98. For the history of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides in Britain and the United States, see Alexander, Guiding Modern Girls; Miller, Growing Girls; and Proctor, “On My Honour.”

28. Quoted in Proctor, Scouting for Girls, 12.

29. Proctor, “On My Honour,” 22.

30. Warren, Allen. “‘Mothers for the Empire’: The Girl Guides Association in Britain 1909–1939.” In Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism, edited by J.A. Mangan, 96–109. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990.

31. Formark, Den välsituerade flickan, 40.

32. Heidenstam, “Scoutens självdisciplin,” 3.

33. Jordan, Modern Manhood, 92–120.

34. Honeck, Our Frontier, 182.

35. Petersson, “Constitutional History.”

36. Nilsson, Mellan arv och utopi; Torstendahl, Mellan nykonservatism och liberalism, 94–118. Regarding the meagre election results of National Socialists during the 1930s, see Hadenius, Swedish Politics, 45; and Lööw, Nazismen i Sverige.

37. Nils Krusell, “Kan scoutrörelsen vara politiskt neutral?” Totem, no. 10 (1931): 13.

38. Arne Kastlander, “Kan scoutrörelsen vara politiskt neutral,” Totem, no. 1 (1932): 11.

39. Totem, no. 1 (1932): 11; and Totem, no. 2 (1932): 13.

40. Frykman, “Nationella ord och handlingar”; and Pihl Atmer, Livet som leves.

41. Lieberath, “Vad scoutrörelsen är,” 26.

42. Götz, “Modern Home Sweet Home.”

43. Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ, 349.

44. Lundberg, Naturliga medborgare, 55–99.

45. Edwards, Youth Movements, 21.

46. Ben Jordan has observed that the BSA in the United States used camps to promote activities that taught ‘both self-reliance and interdependence’. Jordan, Modern Manhood, 136.

47. See also Deloria, Playing Indian, 106–7; and Berggren, Seklets ungdom, 33–9.

48. Andersson, Scoutrörelsen, 26.

49. Anderson, Scoutrörelsen, 26.

50. Baden Powell, Scouting for Boys, 212.

51. Wall, Nurture of Nature, xii.

52. Research on the experiences of children and youth and their conditions in war-time Sweden include Nehlin, “Building Bridges of Trust”; Sköld and Söderlind “Agentic Subjects”; Larsson, “Att fostras till landets försvar”; and Richardson, Hitler-jugend.

53. Lundberg, Naturliga medborgare, 145–74.

54. Elis Andersson, quoted in Totem, no. 1 (1941): 11.

55. For membership figures, see Lundberg, Naturliga medborgare, 147; and Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ, 75.

56. “St Georgsdagen 1940,” Scouten no. 4 (1940): 59.

57. See for example Lindskog-Pavo, “Flickscouter,” 247. Bernadotte, “Sveriges Scoutförbund 1944,” 59.

58. Therborn, “A Unique Chapter.”

59. Edwards, Youth Movements, 151–7.

60. Totem, no. 7 (1938): 101; and Ek and Bergqvist, Förbundsläger, 65.

61. Totem, no. 6 (1946): 113.

62. Puke, Scoutings historia; and Sterzel and Neveling, Sköredtid och framtidstro. Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ, 84.

63. Totem, no. 2 (1946).

64. Totem, no. 6 (1946).

65. Östling, Sweden after Nazism; see also Johansson, Den nazistiska utmaningen; and Richardson, Hitler-Jugend.

66. Qvarsebo, Skolbarnets fostran; and Östling, Sweden after Nazism, 169–233.

67. Östling, Sweden after Nazism, 197, 218.

68. Levsen, “Authority and Democracy.”

69. Östling, Sweden after Nazism, 192–219.

70. The Conservative Party in Sweden (Allmänna Valmansförbundet, later Högerpartiet) accepted parliamentary reforms after the First World War but did not embrace democracy unconditionally until the 1930s or even after the Second World War. Nilsson, Mellan arv och utopi.

71. In 1950s Sweden, author Herbert Tingsten sparked a debate regarding ‘the end of ideology’ due to the triumph of democracy, anticipating the 1990’s end of history debate, by stating that democracy had become a super-ideology, embraced by all. See Strand, “No Alternatives,” 89–92. A precondition for this development was also the de-radicalization of Social Democracy in terms of its use of democracy as a political concept during the inter-war period, see Friberg, Demokrati bortom politiken.

72. Totem, no. 6 (1946): 125.

73. For international examples of Indian lore in scouting, see Deloria, Playing Indian, 95–126; and Jeal, Boy-Man, 376–82, Honeck, Our Frontier, 107–15.

74. Totem, no. 3 (1946).

75. Totem, no. 5 (1946): 110.

76. Ibid.

77. Expressen, March 1, 1949, 4; Sven-Arne Stahre, “Kritisk syn på scouting,” Örnledaren no. 1–2 (1950): 11–12; and Gösta Lundqvist, “Radiodebatten,” Totem no. 3 (1949): 47.

78. Totem, no. 2 (1949): 31; Totem no. 2 (1949): 21–2; and Totem no. 2 (1942); Junker, “Jubileumstal”; and Totem, no. 3 (1950): 46.

79. Totem, no. 2 (1949).

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Svenskt scoutliv (1952): 21.

83. Totem, no. 3 (1950): 45.

84. Svenskt scoutliv (1952): 21.

85. Baden-Powell, Aids to Scoutmastership; and Philipps, The Patrol System.

86. Dahlby, Scouthandboken (1946): 371.

87. Totem, no. 8 (1949): 143; and Totem, no. 9 (1951): 129. For a similar discussion in the Girl Scout Association (Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund), see: SFS Ledarblad, no. 7 (1944): 86; no. 8 (1944): 106; no. 9 (1944).

88. Totem, no. 4 (1957–8): 66. See also Scouten, no. 9 (1959–60): 264.

89. Totem, no. 4 (1954): 59.

90. Wennerström, Lägerliv, 10.

91. Scouten, no. 6 (1956–57): 184.

92. Seniorscouthandboken, 88, 156.

93. Lundberg, “Discipline and Punish.”

94. Junker, “Kvinnligt – manligt – mänskligt,” 90.

95. SFS Ledarblad no. 7 (1960): 105. See also Samspel (September 1960): 100.

96. Bjerkö, “Lägersekreteraren har ordet,” 23.

97. Treklövern, no. 3 (1950): s. 51.

98. Flickscouternas handbok (Stockholm: Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, 1954) s. 11; Jämför Flickscouternas bok (Stockholm: Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, 1945), 87, 193.

99. The requirements are found in Dahlby, Scouthandboken (1946) and Dahlby, Scouthandboken (1952).

100. Junker, “Scoutrörelsens ställning,” 47.

101. Junker, “Jubileumstal,” 24.

102. Junker, “Mer om samarbete,” 33.

103. Ibid., 34.

104. Junker, “Kvinnligt – manligt – mänskligt,” 90.

105. Haerberger, “Scoutlagen,” 23–4.

106. Dahlby, Scouthandboken (1946), 20. Emphasis in original.

107. Bernadotte, “Samarbete,” 1.

108. “Samarbete i framtiden vi vill,” SFS Ledarblad no. 9 (1952).

109. “Ge mer åt fler!,” Totem no. 7 (1954–5).

110. Öberg, “Vuxenmedverkan,” 58; and “Scoutföräldrar på sommarläger.”

111. Treklövern, no. 7 (1953); SFS Ledarblad, no. 8 (1953), 95; Samspel, no. 4 (1960); Treklövern, no. 8 (1960): 123; and Puke, Scoutings historia.

112. Lundberg, Naturliga medborgare, 258–65.

113. The issue of masculinity was discussed frequently during the 1950s, see for example: Totem, no. 3 (1953): 34; Samspel, no. 5 (1958/59): 90; and Samspel, no. 4 (1960): 80

114. Samspel (Sept. 1960): 100.

115. Tied to the notion of Swedish progressiveness is the image of a distinct Scandinavian or Nordic modernity. Löfgren “Nationella arenor”; Musial, “Roots of the Scandinavian Model”; Stråth, “Nordic Modernity”; and Towns, “Paradoxes of (In)equality.”

116. This latter figure includes members of Sveriges Flickors Scoutförbund, adding roughly 13,000 to the overall total during the 1960s. Sidebäck, Kampen om barnets själ, 75.