From Dismantling the Class Society to Investing in Human Capital: The Rise and Fall of the Selective Student Finance System in Sweden 1939-1964

The article highlights the history of the early gift-based and selective student finance system of the social democratic welfare state in Sweden, targeting students from the working classes. This lesser-known system, introduced in 1939, preceded the present loan-financed and universal system establi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: A1:1, A1:20 Minutes with appendices, Gustavsson, M. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Umea University 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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020 |a 20017766 (ISSN) 
100 1 |a A1:1, A1:20 Minutes with appendices; 
245 1 0 |a From Dismantling the Class Society to Investing in Human Capital: The Rise and Fall of the Selective Student Finance System in Sweden 1939-1964 
260 0 |b Umea University  |c 2021 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.36368/njedh.v8i2.295 
520 3 |a The article highlights the history of the early gift-based and selective student finance system of the social democratic welfare state in Sweden, targeting students from the working classes. This lesser-known system, introduced in 1939, preceded the present loan-financed and universal system established in 1965 designed to reach students from all classes. The arguments for launching the selective system, how this system met the objective of broadening the social recruitment of students and the arguments behind the dismantling of the system are analysed. The equalising effect of the selective system was strong, but student loans were nevertheless more compatible with an emerging idea, imported from the Chicago School, that education could be considered an (loan-financed) investment in human capital, that provides future yields rather than a right. Historical institutional theory is used to analyse the shift between two diametrically opposed models that took place within the same Social Democratic regime. Nordic Journal of Educational History 2021. © Martin Gustavsson 
650 0 4 |a critical junctures 
650 0 4 |a historical institutionalism 
650 0 4 |a human capital 
650 0 4 |a social recruitment 
650 0 4 |a Student finance 
700 1 |a Gustavsson, M.  |e author 
773 |t Nordic Journal of Educational History