De kunde icke vika, blott falla kunde de : En struktureringsteoretisk analys om Svensk Lärartidnings rapportering om nazismens skolpolitik i Tyskland och Norge under åren 1940–1945

Sammanfattning: Previous studies have reached interesting conclusions regarding Swedish school policy during World War II. This paper brings a new perspective to this complex and multifaceted subject – to study how the union paper Svensk Lärartidning (the Swedish Teachers’ paper) reported on the impact of National socialist practice in school as an institution, both in Germany and Norway during the years 1940–1945. The analysis is based on Anthony Giddens structuration theory using the three dimensions: domination, legitimation and signification. The reports in Svensk Lärartidning highlight the institutional changes and consequences within the school, but the reports omit an important part: that the ideological content of Nazism led to the expurgation of Jewish teachers and students, which in turn had a major impact on German school as an institution. This study shows that Swedish elementary school teachers who followed Svensk Lärartidning reports can be considered to have had a directly negative view of Nazi school practice. It cannot, however, be assumed that Svensk Lärartidning reports influenced the Swedish elementary school teachers to take a negative view of Nazism based on its ideological meaning.