Governing togetherness: Revisiting the politics of space in 1970s Nordic comprehensive schools through former pupils’ narratives
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study explores former pupils’ narratives of everyday life in lower secondary schools in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark during the 1970s, shortly after the establishment of the Nordic comprehensive school model. While the reform aimed to integrate children from diverse social backgrounds in common schools, little is known about how the spatial practices of these schools continued to reproduce social differences. Drawing on go-along and life history interviews with 33 informants who attended comprehensive school in the 1970s, we investigate how their narratives construct the spatial practices of everyday schooling and the difference-making these practices contributed to. Theoretically, we conceptualise the comprehensive school as a meeting place shaped by Doreen Massey’s notion of throwntogetherness and engage with Foucauldian theories on power and spatial organisation in school environments. Narratives reveal how spatial practices – such as the division of buildings into smaller units or the isolation of special-needs classes – contributed to place-bound experiences of social differences. Our findings provide socio-historical insight into how the politics of space shape pupils’ long-term social experiences and contribute to understanding the comprehensive school as both a political and educational space.
Source: Paedagogica Historica
Authors: Tuuli From, Stig-Börje Asplund, Anna Öhman
Institutions: University of Helsinki, Karlstad University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7154268491
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