A conflicted political will to levy local taxes: inequality and local school politics in Sweden, 1840–1900

• Main Author: Johannes Westberg
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2018-01-01
• Series: Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy
• Subjects: History of education; political voice; local school politics; inequality; local elites
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2018.1442981

Through an extensive study of 12 parishes in the Sundsvall region, this article, informed by studies in the economic history of education, examines changes and continuities in local school politics during the period of 1840–1900. Using the Sundsvall region in the northern part of Sweden as its point of departure, this article shows how basic political conflicts shifted when political franchise, tax regulations and the social structure of the region changed during the second half of the nineteenth century. At the end of the investigated period, the basic conflict of school politics was no longer between those who owned land and those who did not but rather between high- and low-income groups. Judging from local school politics, the local elites of the Sundsvall region, in contrast to local elites in the USA, England, Spain and Prussia, focused their attention on school funding. The main conflicts between the social groups not only concerned the distribution of school expenditures but also included issues, such as the location of schools.