Undesirable citizens: Education, care and control of the “Feeble-minded” in the Swedish Province of Malmöhus, 1900–1950
This paper contains the main results of a recently completed historical research project about the situation of persons cate- gorized as“feeble-minded” in Sweden. In this study, the case of Malmohus province constitutes the microhistorical core. Here, educational and care institutions such as schools, asylums and working homes were particularly established in the first half of the 20th century. The motives behind these foundations will be discussed and the working routines in those institutions will be analysed in terms of teaching and after-care of the inmates and their exclusion justified by social constructs such as “uneducable” or “moral imbecile”. This paper aims at demonstrating how feeble-mindedness was perceived as a social problem, and how close the efforts of education and care were connected to eugenic ideology and control. Thereby, the history of the feeble-minded will be interpreted as a striking example of the contradictions of modernity. The coincidence of social inclusion and exclusion was a characteristic of the situation of an undesirable group of citizens in the Swedish society under the era of modernization. This outcome is of high relevance for understanding the early historical development of the Nordic welfare state.
Det sinnesslöa skolbarnet : Undervisning tvång och medborgarskap 1925-1954
In 1944 special compulsory schooling for feeble-minded children was introduced in Sweden. This meant that these children could no longer be taught in ordinary elementary school classes. Instead they now had to be transferred to schools for the feeble-minded.The main purpose of the study is to investigate the meaning assigned to feeble-mindedness, the arguments in favour of compulsory schooling for the feeble-minded, and the significance that it subsequently had for the citizenship of these individuals in society. For this purpose, articles published in 1925-54 in four professional journals, reports of inquiries, legislation, and material from two schools for the feeble-minded have been studied.In the study the complexity that characterized compulsory tuition for the feeble-minded is revealed and related to contemporary welfare policy as a whole. Because of the special compulsory schooling, its institutional form, and the link to legislation on sterilization, the special education for the feeble-minded was to be both a form of tuition adjusted to the special needs of the children and an efficient instrument of control, at once a benefit and an imposition. The compulsory schooling made it possible to enrol feeble-minded children and keep them in the institutions, if necessary against their will and that of the parents. The sterilization laws also meant that sterilization could be made a condition for discharge. At the same time, the feeble-minded children were said to be given not only tuition adjusted to their abilities but also a suitable and sheltered environment in which to grow up with classmates of equal status and in many cases a better home than their parents could offer.Arguments in favour of special tuition for the feeble-minded were that it prevented them from growing up into asocial adults, while furthering their development into socially well-adjusted citizens. Work and social adjustment were also the characteristics of the feeble-minded individuals- citizenship, as this was described both in the professional debate and in the parents- correspondence with the Storangen institution for the feeble-minded. However, this citizenship did not include the right to form a family and have children.
Heritage Languages: In the 'Wild' and in the Classroom
Heritage speakers are people raised in a home where one language is spoken who subsequently switch to another dominant language. The version of the home language that they have not completely acquired – heritage language – has only recently been given the attention it deserves from linguists and language instructors. Despite the appearance of great variation among heritage speakers, they fall along a continuum based upon the speakers’ distance from the baseline language. Such a continuum-based model enables researchers and instructors to classify heritage speakers more accurately and readily. This article discusses the results of research on lower-proficiency speakers, identifying recurrent features of heritage languages in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Preliminary results indicate that different heritage languages share a number of structural similarities; this finding is important for the understanding of general processes involved in language acquisition. The article also presents implications of the main findings for language education and identifies areas needing further study.