Educating for a Better World: Historical Perspectives on Swedish Development Aid Education 1965-1995

The purpose is to investigate the historical relationship between Swedish development aid (biståndet) and popular education (folkbildningen) and how development issues, as an area of cultivation (bildningsområde), has been understood, communicated and negotiated in their intersection.

From there, the study aims at investigating how national and social identities, and roles in the emerging field of international development aid, are constructed over time.

Departing from a critical discourse historical approach (DHA), the study focus on archives with educational activities that have been conducted by the former Swedish International Development Authority, SIDA, and its educational institute, the “Sandö-school”, under the operating years of SIDA, 1965-1995.

The research questions revolve around the aims of the institution and the educational content and pedagogies over time. How have the purpose and the function of the institute been described and motivated? What actors are involved and how? Who is subjected to the educational activities? What is considered valuable knowledge, and what is not?

How and what are the students supposed to learn?

How are classed, gendered and racialized notions of development issues, as well as identities and roles in aid, expressed and negotiated? The study will contribute to the fields of History of Popular Education as well as History of Aid. The project includes 36 months, of which 24 will be spent in Norway, producing 4 articles.