How Swedish schools shared teaching innovations before the internet era
A new study reveals that educational journals from 1920–1960 were the primary channel for spreading experimental teaching methods across Swedish schools. The research shows how knowledge brokerage shifted over time—from teachers sharing peer experiences to researchers and administrators taking control—a pattern with implications for how organizations today manage and disseminate innovation.
Originaltitel: Skolan som försöksverkstad: Spridning av kunskap och erfarenhet av försökundervisning i svenska pedagogiska tidskrifter 1920–1960
<p>The purpose of the article is to look at how knowledge about experimental teaching was disseminated through educational journals 1920–1960. Throughout the period, there was an interest from teachers and schools to experiment with new ways of teaching. Educational journals had an important role here to spread knowledge from these experiences. During the interwar period, it was mainly teachers who acted as brokers and shared knowledge of their experiences from experimental teaching. The knowledge shared was often a mix of teachers’ experiences and pedagogical perspectives. During the 1950s, other brokers took up more space, such as researchers and school mangers. Although the journals shared pedagogical perspectives from different countries, rarely individual countries came into focus. Often here too it was a combination of perspectives that are presented via the articles on experimental teaching.</p>