Från intet allt vi vilja bli : Om arbetarrörelsens bildningsverksamhet 1900-1932 med fokus på ABF i Kalmar

Sammanfattning: This paper strives to answer a question most anyone remotely involved with education has encountered: what is the relationship between the content taught and its purpose? In this case, the question is in the context of the Workers’ Education Association in Sweden (ABF) and other educational efforts made by the Swedish labour movement. In order to answer such a question one must first outline in some detail what the content to be taught was, and what purpose the association itself saw as the important one. But the matter is also further explored: the Swedish labour movement appears to view education and culture in a rather non-Marxist manner, which poses a question to be untangled in order to fully understand the connection between content and purpose, namely that of what view they did in fact hold. Here, it will be argued that the Swedish labour movement held a proto-Bourdieuan view of culture as a form of societal and cultural capital which must be distributed in order for the emancipatory and egalitarian efforts to succeed.