Approaches to Changing Values of Upbringing and Education in the Nordic Societies

Ulla Aatsinki, Johanna Annola, and Mervi Kaarninen

The Nordic societies are known for their welfare state model and equality. They have dominated international statistics on egalitarianism, well-being, happiness, and education in the twenty-first century.1 While it has been suggested that this development is the result of the long-standing stability and homogeneity of the Nordic societies, the overall picture is much more complicated: Nordic communities and societies have undergone changes, too.

Families have played a major role in coping with change. To survive, families choose to keep certain values and abandon others. New, relevant values and forms of information are sought and used. Our collection of essays opens new perspectives on this process by rethinking the history of upbringing, education, and the transfer of values and knowledge in Northern European families from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. We examine the ways in which families incorporated value-based upbringing and education in their survival strategies and passed them on to the next generation.

In this volume, family is understood as a historical and social concept. The concept of ‘family’ usually refers to a group of people, which is bound together by kinship, marriage, or co-residence. As the ways in which people have defined the boundaries of this particular group have varied culturally, legally, and economically with time and place, the form and size of a ‘typical family’ have varied, too (in this introduction, 7–10; Warner 2018; Caine 2005).

Values are understood as common, general, and sustained preferences shared by a certain organisation, community, or society. They adhere to current cultural, economic, social, and political conditions and beliefs. Therefore, values are not universal but variable. Children are integrated into the prevalent culture of their families and communities through primary socialisation. Children learn the values, norms, conventions, and attitudes around them through bidirectional interaction with their parents and other members of the community. As children grow, secondary socialisation becomes more important. Secondary socialisation—bringing up and educating children outside the home—takes place in schools, youth organisations, and various recreation groups, among others (Antikainen, Rinne, and Koski 2013, 28, 41–43; Durkheim 1956; Maccoby 2015, 3–4).

Psychologist Eleanor E. Maccoby (2015, 25–26) has discussed the hierarchical parent-child relationship and the parents’ responsibility to teach and direct children and rein in their impulsiveness. Simultaneously, she stresses the ‘good socializing relationship’, which makes children more willing to adopt their parents’ values, follow their instructions, and obey the moral code. The relationship is built by parental firmness (humour, responsiveness, and warmth) instead of parental control (rule setting, monitoring, and controlling with discipline). However, the socialising relationship is historical, too. Before the nineteenth century (and in some cases long after that), upbringing was firmly based on Christian doctrines, values, and conventions. More attention was paid to children’s needs during the Enlightenment, and new pedagogical methods were developed and put into practice at the same time as the industrialisation and nation-building processes (Stearns 2011, 71–76).

This collection has three main objectives.

Until now, research on these topics has mainly focused on the development of educational institutions (e.g. Aasgard, Bunge, and Roos 2018; Ahonen and Rantala 2001; Buchardt, Markkola, and Valtonen 2013). This collection, however, takes the family and the interaction between family members as its point of departure. It emphasises the experiences of those who were raised and educated and the consequences of formal educational policies on families and communities. Looking at a broad variety of families, the book combines the innovative ‘history from below’ approach with an exceptionally long time span, which allows for the examination and interpretation of new kinds of source material. The collection therefore looks at the changes and continuities in this field from a fresh angle. It suggests that people’s desire for information—coupled with their peripheral location—drove them to engage in social intercourse with European scholars and authorities; circulation of values was a transnational process.

The book mainly covers Northern Europe, but it also deals with immigrant Finnish communities in the USA and Canada. While the concept of the ‘Nordic region’ is now associated with five countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—the geographical boundaries of the region have changed alongside national boundaries from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.

The ethnic, cultural, religious, and social features of the Nordic societies have been affected by their low populations and great distance from the European heartlands. However, being on the geographical periphery did not mean social, cultural, economic, or academic isolation. In fact, distance intensified mobility: the desire for information forced the people of the Nordic region to head for Central Europe to interact with scholars and other authorities based there. A growing number of Nordic individuals with an inquiring mind studied at universities and other institutions—or learned their trade with a master tradesman—in Central Europe. When they returned home, they brought new information with them.

The accumulation of information led to Nordic adaptations of transnational values and skills. This development was marked, for example, by the spreading of the master-journeyman-apprentice system and the foundation of the first universities in the Nordic countries (Uppsala in 1477, Copenhagen in 1479, and Turku in 1640), as well as by the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century. At the same time, outside interest towards the Nordic region increased. Political networking strengthened relations between Nordic courts and the European nobility. Large forests, rich ore fields, and massive rapids tempted industrialists and foreign capital to the Nordic region, and, in time, Central European craftsmen, traders, and ordinary people started to look for a better future in the region.

The Nordic countries have been tied together not only by their geographic location and shared past but also by developments that have arisen from social practices and dialogue between peoples (Haapala and Lloyd 2018, 18–26; Lamberg, Hakanen, and Haikari 2011; Jalava 2013, 248–249). The period after World War II saw the formation of the Nordic countries as a unit with similar views on universal social security, education, and equality. As historian Marja Jalava (2013, 257–258) suggests, there is no ‘unbroken chain of events leading from the pre-modern agrarian monarchies to the post-WWII welfare states’. Rather, as a historical region, the Nordic countries have shared ‘certain principles, practices, and institutions’ that might have contributed ‘significantly to a common mentality and social relations’. For example, the idea of welfare and social security was influenced by the shared branch of Protestantism—Lutheranism—which had moulded the culture and mentality of individuals and communities in the region (Christiansen and Markkola 2006, 10–11, 15–16; Markkola 2011). In this sense, it is reasonable to suggest that there was a particularly Nordic set of values.

Although Christian values were embedded in the Nordic region in the thirteenth century, it was the Protestant Reformation that harmonised the values, norms, and moral code of the Nordic countries from the sixteenth century onwards. After victories in the struggle for power, Evangelical Lutheran Churches became the domination, and the church was gradually closely bound to the state all over the Nordic region. People were educated according to the Lutheran Catechism, which ensured the power of the monarch, the estates, and the church until the nineteenth century (Arnason and Wittrock 2015, 11; Heinonen and Räsänen 2016; Larson 2010).

According to the Swedish Church Law of 1686, the church was responsible for teaching ordinary people the values manifested in the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer, plus the Small Catechism and its annotations. Parents, however, were responsible for teaching their children to read. Parishioners were regularly assembled for catechetical meetings, where a public examination of their ability to read and master Christian doctrine would take place (Aavitsland 2018; Jacobsen 2018; Lahtinen 2018, 76–90). If a parishioner failed to pass muster, he or she would not be allowed to marry or participate in the Holy Communion. Values like obedience towards God and the authorities, the constancy of social order, and the hierarchy between the sexes were deeply instilled into people’s minds in divine services, catechetical meetings, compulsory confirmation classes, and ambulatory schools. Together with agrarian values such as humility, modesty, and diligence, the crossing of social borders was almost impossible for ordinary people before the Age of Enlightenment and liberalism.

The change of social, political, and cultural values in the Nordic region was a slow process. New values were built on the old ones. The influence of Lutheran doctrines, albeit with new nuances, continued to be reflected in the values of new generations. Nevertheless, industrialisation and new ideologies accelerated the change of society and undermined conventional lifestyles and moral codes. The debate on citizens’ rights became central. Alongside Lutheranism and the strong state, various popular movements (such as the revivalist, temperance, national, and labour movements) emerged in Nordic societies together with a civic society that shared the values of equality and progress. The development of democratisation brought about conflicts in Denmark (tax revolts), Norway, and Sweden (bread riots), but the level of violence was greatest in Finland during the Civil War of 1918. In Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, peoples’ civil rights and living conditions were improved by reforms and legislation before the 1920s, and governmental integration policies maintained societal balance (Grell 1994; Alapuro 2012; Lundkvist 1977; Mikkelsen, Kjeldstadli, and Nyzell 2018). Families

To understand the transfer of values on a micro-level, it is useful to take a closer look at Nordic families on the one hand and education in the Nordic region on the other. After all, these were the forums in which children were integrated into the prevalent culture of their kin and/or society.

The history of the European family has been a subject of critical demographic, economic, cultural, and historical study from the 1960s onwards.2 According to John Hajnal (1965), the Nordic countries were located within the cultural sphere of the Western pattern of marriage and family formation, which was characterised by the establishment of a separate nuclear household upon marriage. The area of modern-day Finland, however, was regarded as an exception because it lay on the border between the Western and Eastern tradition.3

The Hajnal model has been both refined and criticised over the years.4 It has been suggested that family patterns cannot be explained by cultural trends alone; one must also consider the economic, ecological, and political realities that determined what kinds of livelihoods were available to any particular family during any particular period. Differences and changes in the families’ surroundings are reflected in the different or changing patterns of family formation and family life (Hareven 1982, 1991; Moring 2003, 103). For example, according to historian Beatrice Moring (2003), there are considerable regional variations in family patterns in the Nordic countries. Whereas regardless of geographical location, wage work in fishing and agriculture favoured the formation of small nuclear households—which follows the Hajnal model relatively well—households tended to be more complex whenever the accumulation of capital and land were required for economic activity.5

In previous research on family history, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the transfer of values. This volume suggests that families were not passive; they sought to meet the demands of their changing surroundings by selecting and employing different strategies. This, in turn, accelerated economic and social change.6 In this book, the term ‘strategy’ is used as an analytical construct, a tool for understanding the behaviour of families and their individual members.7 This means, first, that a strategy is linked with both the material and non-material aims of the families. Second, a strategy is not always visible to the subjects of research; it is rather an implicit pattern that is anchored to contemporary values and transferred through family ties.

This book contributes to the ongoing discussion on family ties by exploring the ways in which families in Northern Europe used them to mediate and pass on values they deemed relevant. According to a quantitative model introduced by David S. Reher (1998), the Nordic countries and most of Central Europe form an area where families and family ties are relatively weak in comparison to the Mediterranean region, which is characterised by strong families and family ties. Reher suggests that the differences become manifest in the way in which the most vulnerable members of families are cared for; while weak family ties are associated with tax-funded poor relief or welfare systems, strong ties are linked with intrafamilial care for the old, the sick, and the young.8 However, quantitative analyses do not always reveal the nature of family ties or family life in general (Muravyeva and Toivo 2016; Sovicˇ, Thane, and Viazzo 2016), which is why new qualitative analyses, such as the ones presented in this volume, are needed as well.

Though in all ages parents have given care, warmth, and love to their offspring, understandings of childhood as a special phase of life have changed. Childhood is a historical concept that is constructed socially and culturally. Major economic, social, and cultural changes have affected the idea of childhood in society. For example, the minimum age for marriage or work has varied according to the era and region. In Northern Europe, girls typically married in their twenties (Dribe and Lundh 2010; Steedman 2004), several years later than their sisters in Southern Europe. The use of child labour was common in Nordic agrarian and industrialised societies. The Enlightenment brought new aspects to childhood; the goodness, needs, and care of children arose in public debate, not least because of the child labour issue. Restrictions and laws concerning the use of child labour in factories and for other paid work, except in agriculture, became standardised in most European countries at the turn of twentieth century (Aries 1962; Katajala-Peltomaa and Vuolanto 2013; Ozment 2001; Stearns 2011, 75–76).

However, child welfare was relative; the family’s social position moulded the individual child’s opportunities and duties in his or her early years. Thousands of children from working-class or unpropertied families performed low-paid work in sawmills, factories, and the crafts and service sectors in Northern countries, while the children of the upper classes focused on schooling and leisure activities. As historian Ellen Schrumpf (2009, 575–576) states, working children were ‘economic agents’, and they played a significant part ‘in the family’s breadwinning strategy’. Child labour was used not only in the industrial sector but also on farms and in households. In the latter cases, however, there was a difference: the children were not paid. The Nordic countries adopted European-style legislation on child labour; from the 1870s to the 1890s, laws that restricted child labour were enacted in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. In the following decades, as industrialisation and nation-building proceeded, more attention was paid to children’s education; children were to be educated as patriotic and useful citizens of the nation. Schooling was seen as their primary duty, even though children generally continued working at home and on farms—for example, the parish apprentice system was still in use in Finland in the 1930s (Schrumpf 2009, 576–578; Rahikainen 2009, 522–524; Stearns 2011, 73; Hobsbawn 2010, 91–94). Education

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, parental faith in education has paved the way for the schooling of children in the Nordic societies. In Finland, this helped create a meritocratic society under the Russian regime, and education became a tool for social mobility. The autonomy of the Finnish Grand Duchy created the need for Finnish civil servants to staff the authorities’ bureaucracy, and Finns were recruited from the educated upper and middle classes, which meant the rise of a patriotic intelligentsia.

In public schooling and teacher training, the Nordic countries followed the German rather than the French or English example9; laws on school attendance and elementary schools were enacted in Northern Europe in the early nineteenth century. Denmark passed elementary school legislation in 1814, followed by Sweden in 1842 and Norway in 1848. The different countries drafted their own provisions. In Sweden, for example, compulsory school attendance—albeit part-time in some parts of the country—was extended to all seven to twelve-year-olds in the 1880s. In Finland, a decree on elementary schools was passed in 1866; universal compulsory education came into force after a lengthy period of planning in 1921, shortly after the country gained independence. The Finnish elementary school system differed from the earlier-established Nordic school systems because it fell under municipal rather than Lutheran church control. The rural municipalities established schools, employed teachers, and created the day-to-day administration for the schools. In Iceland, elementary school legislation was enacted in 1907, but the practice differed again; the compulsory schools were so-called work-schools that made it possible for children to participate in seasonal work up until 1947, when a child protection law was passed (Aasgard, Bunge, and Roos 2018, 2; Gar?arsdottir 2018, 181–183; Schrumpf 2009, 578–579).

Education has been seen as a path to a better life, both from the perspective of individuals and of society as a whole. Families attempted to educate their offspring according to the dominant religious, nationalist, or social values, but they also tried to challenge some attitudes, such as gendered or socially segregated educational structures, which prevented or interfered with their plans. Education began to define normal or ‘model’ citizenship, much like churchgoing had in earlier times (Rinne and Kivirauma 2003; Stearns 2011). Furthermore, education played a central role in the process of building the welfare state. The generations that had lived through times of war and the Great Depression wanted a better education for their children than they had received themselves, whereas parents in the early twenty-first century aim to ensure that their children receive at least the same level of education as they themselves received.

After World War II, major school reforms were undertaken in all the Nordic countries. The most substantial change was that children and young people remained in the education system for increasingly long periods of time. The state plays a strong role in the Nordic model of education, and it is the state’s duty to provide equality of opportunity for all members of society. Education and schooling are thus understood as elements of the welfare state. In the 1960s and 1970s, compulsory education in all the Nordic countries was extended to nine years, and the comprehensive model was adopted as the starting point for developing the entire education system. Sweden was the pioneer, and it became the model for Denmark, Finland, and Norway.10 Structure

The book is divided into four parts, which discuss the transfer of intangible family heritage from one generation to the next in the contexts of religious upbringing, livelihood, social mobility, and nation-building. The values are multi-dimensional, hence it follows that the themes are intersecting. Family strategies and networks play significant roles in most of the chapters, as does the continuity of Christian values. The intersections only show how tightly values and knowledge were intertwined with the development of society and the everyday life of families. They form the greater picture that can be observed from various perspectives.

The first part of the book deals with the role of religion and ideals in upbringing. The chapters draw a line of continuity in upbringing from the early modern period to the twenty-first century (Lidman, Toivo, Häkkinen), revealing the slow change of family values and the power of the church over this period. This part discusses ideal parenting in the light of familial advice books, the public and private limits of early modern upbringing, and the ideals of the good life across three generations.

The second part focuses on families’ strategies of earning a livelihood and transferring professional skills, maintaining or strengthening their economic status, or integrating into communities or societies by working (Ijäs, Uotila, Banik & Ekholm, Selin). The chapters feature analyses of the family strategies and networks used by the German merchant elite and the Jewish lower middle class in the Nordic region, particularly in terms of marriage and education. The parents’ ways of transferring tacit knowledge and established practices of craft, business, or vocation from the early modern era to the 1960s were far-reaching for the children concerned.

The key themes in the chapters of the third part are faith in education, education as a value, and education as a tool for social mobility. It explores families’ patterns and attempts to guarantee a better future for the next generation through education (Matikainen, Kaarninen, Annola). By examining the challenges of education—such as gendered or socially segregated educational structures but also attempts to break dominant values and attitudes—the chapters reveal new information on social mobility and transitions concerning the higher education of girls.

The fourth part deals with the methods families used to maintain and transfer their own cultural, ethnic, or political heritage while under pressure from national awakenings and drives for societal uniformity. Subjects are studied from the point of view of ethnic minorities: Finnish Americans in the 1920s, the indigenous Sami people of Northern Europe, and so-called foreign children in Denmark since the 1970s (Aatsinki, Andresen, Buckhardt). The chapters explore how immigrants constructed their citizenship; what policies recognising the Sami population meant for their transfers of knowledge and culture in schools and local communities; and how Danish school authorities and professionals saw foreign children’s families as problems, explanatory factors, or resources in curricula and schooling. Sources and Methods

Focusing on values related to families, education, and upbringing means that versatile and varied types of source material are needed for examination and interpretation. Every chapter is based on solid empirical sources. In many articles, egodocuments, such as diaries, correspondence, interviews, and memoirs, make up the primary material.11 For example, the chapters by Annola and Ijäs have utilised unique source material from the Tamminen and Hackman family archives. From the surviving diaries of a young man, Annola gleans detailed information on the shared values and conflicts in the Tamminen family, whereas Ijäs reveals the Hackman family’s strategies related to education and marriage through the family members’ letters and diaries. Häkkinen’s family life-course interview database contains oral history sources; it consists of 135 life-course interviews with three generations of Finns living in Finland and Canada. He identifies and classifies values and compares them between generations and places of residence. Aatsinki traces through the autobiographies of two Finnish-American girls to determine how citizenship was understood in their families. The oral histories’ chronological connection to the events is long, so it is necessary to closely read and contextualise them to obtain precious information (Abrams 2010; see also Fingerroos and Haanpää 2012).

Typical public documents and other contemporary sources are also used, such as lower secular court records (Toivo); national and universal laws and reports (Andresen); statistics, official records of ministries and other authorities, curricula, educational orders and regulations, and student guidance material (Selin, Buckhardt); and vital records (Matikainen, Banik and Ekholm).

To examine the contemporary understanding of ideal parenting, Lidman uses familial advice books—a pan-European literary genre popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As she clarifies the patriarchal and religious impact of these works in the northern parts of Europe, they are also a research subject in her study. In Uotila’s and Kaarninen’s chapters, collective biographies are used as the methodology.12 Both chapters explore a large population of individuals: female students in Kaarninen’s case and rural artisans in Uotila’s. The chapters’ authors have used a wide array of materials as source material, including parish registers, student rolls, and taxation documents. Findings

The volume reveals a continuity of Christian values as the basis for upbringing from the sixteenth century to the end of twentieth century, the significance of networks and family strategies in securing safety and wealth, and the emergence of new ideas and values that later built up the Nordic model of societies. It also shows how communities and societies have regulated upbringing to maintain societal, political, or cultural order. Social changes affected the structures of education; the growth of the economy and administration opened new channels for the educated middle class and women from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and families naturally pursued these opportunities to maintain or improve their social status.

The family plays a major role in socialising children into everyday life, but formal societal actors (the church and state) have always been involved in upbringing. At first, this was legitimised through the doctrine of the Three Estates (the rulers’ regime, the church, and estates) and later through the nation-building process and the need to create modern members of society. In the late nineteenth century, civic society developed as a firm foundation for people’s cultural, political, and social activities. Popular movements vigorously entered the field of education; they established study groups that highlighted their own values and aims. This tradition carried on even abroad; migrants’ groups from Northern Europe were active in American society.

Christian values have had a long-term effect. They were first embraced by the estates, but through popular conversion, they soon spread among the common people and have reflected the values of their times. Lutheran values tied the Nordic region to Protestantism. These patriarchal and gendered values were firmly planted into people’s minds by the church in the early modern era. Information on ideal upbringing spread to all parts of Europe in the form of familial advice books that were transmitted by the church. The values and patterns offered by the books were based on the doctrines of Christianity and the contemporary world order. They strengthened patriarchal and hierarchical authority in the household and society and defined the behaviour permitted of individuals, genders, and estates. According to the advice offered, it was the parents’ duty to raise their children to become respectable adults who obeyed their fathers and the authorities, adopted gendered models and expectations, and accepted and understood discipline as a method of upbringing. Ideal parenting in accordance with Christian and patriarchal values was to maintain the social order in the community and reflected the surrounding society more widely (Lidman, Toivo). It also legitimised the Three Estates in the Nordic region until the end of the nineteenth century, when new classes revolutionised social relationships and the societal system.

Religious values were deeply rooted into society and people’s minds; they contributed to the social debate, culture, and worldview and the intercourse of families and neighbours. Patriotism and nationalism were promoted as religious and conservative values in the nation-building process, whereas socialists strongly opposed patriarchal values related to social and political structures. Consequently, Finnish-American socialist and conservative families brought up their children as citizens differently in the 1920s, but at the same time both maintained the traditional family model—the father’s word was law (Aatsinki). Even though the Nordic societies are quite secular today, religious values matter. When, a few decades ago, Danish school authorities developed and drew up curricula and other pedagogical documents concerning foreign students and their parents, the category of different religion/culture became a significant definition in the field of education (Buckhardt). Religion has had a significant effect on the older generations who were born and raised in the spirit of nationalism. In comparison, younger generations do not emphasise religious values but rather ideas of a good life (Häkkinen).

In terms of networks and family strategies, the parents’ strong influence was often a decisive factor for children on their path to education and work life and in becoming new members of society in general. Family networks and strategies were important for the children’s future position and status in society. Wide transnational networks were at first the privilege of the elite, while the general populace usually had a local network; however, due to liberalisation and immigration, networks also expanded for the non-elite. Family networks and strategies advanced integration into occupations, business, societies, and new homelands. Rural artisan families transmitted their expertise, skills, and occupational knowledge from father to son (Uotila). Due to being newcomers in an ethnic and religiously different area, Eastern European Jews very often relied on each other to make a living (Banik and Ekholm). The Sami people also turned to each other, and like the Jews, they did so to preserve their indigenous ethnic heritage in the face of nationalistic policies (Andresen). The interests and values of parents and the family in general did not always match those of the individual. Sometimes families repressed their children’s aims and dreams and denied or obstructed them because of economic, gendered, or social reasons (Annola, Kaarninen, Selin).

One tried-and-tested family strategy was marriage. It was used to guarantee social status, advance business interests, or preserve important cultural and family values. For example, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the German urban elite in Finland improved its expertise and social capital by marrying its daughters to men of the new establishment. Sons, on the other hand, were married off with the aim of keeping the family assets undivided. A rather similar strategy was used in rural artisan families. If parents had no sons, daughters were married to other artisans. In this way, artisan skills were kept within the family, and occupational continuity was secured (Ijäs, Uotila). In addition, educated men with a landowning peasant background sought higher social status by marrying the daughters of the clergy (Matikainen). The importance of marriage as a tool for family security diminished in the twentieth century as social security and education developed.

Educational values gradually became appreciated family values. The development of education from the elite’s privilege to a common civic duty took centuries, and it was finally realised in the Nordic model following World War II. Simultaneously, the role of secondary socialisation became more significant as greater attention was paid to social coherence. When studying was limited to only a few and the need for educated people in society was low, education did not play a major role in families. Until the eighteenth century, education was only systematically pursued by upper class and artisan families. By obtaining skills and knowledge as an apprentice or a student at a European university, children secured the continuity of the family business and the accumulation of tacit knowledge, which were the most important assets to these families (Ijäs, Uotila). However, as society developed and became more complicated, the appreciation of education increased; it began to be seen by families as an interesting tool for social mobility from the nineteenth century onwards (Annola, Kaarninen, Matikainen).

Social and political changes affected the structures and meaning of education, and, likewise, educational changes affected the structures and meaning of society and politics. Meritocratic and bureaucratic modern societies needed a diverse workforce, and horizontal mobility also became possible for students from the lower classes. Through education, they took the lead in nationalist movements and established their hegemony in the nation-building process, especially in Finland (Annola, Matikainen). The nation-building era, with its need to create decent, modern members of society, increased the interests of the authorities in education. Civic education strengthened national coherence, but it also led to ethnic, religious, and ideological prejudices. Besides creating social categorisations, inequalities, and dissonance in society, the authorities also ignored the values of minorities and generated tensions within communities and societies. As a counterbalance to these issues, families pursued opportunities in civic society or their communities to educate their offspring according to their own values (Aatsinki, Andresen, Banik and Ekholm).

At the turn of the twentieth century, a belief in schooling and education prevailed, but equal opportunities to education had to wait for another seventy years when the elementary school system gradually was established in the Nordic countries. Until then, the formal education of children depended on the parents’ values and the family’s economic situation—that is, whether they appreciated education or not, what kind of education was appreciated, and whether they could afford it (Selin, Kaarninen). Today education is highly valued by the most citizens, which is a clear indicator of the general attitudes, development, and political decisions related to education and schools in the Nordic countries. From the 1960s, expanded educational opportunities in higher education and secondary and vocational education offered the chance of a better life even to the children of the labouring classes. As the idea of a monolithic nation state has begun to crack, education has been seen as key to a coherent society, and it has expanded its authority over students and their parents (Häkkinen, Selin, Buckhardt).

Gendered values related to upbringing and education developed; the aspiration for equality between the sexes began to manifest itself in the nineteenth century. It developed alongside yearnings for social and economic equality, and today these concepts are essential constituents of Nordic societies. In patriarchal communities and societies, the status of women was confined to the families and households, and the abilities of women to run businesses or educate themselves were limited. However, the boundaries were moving in some communities; the daughters of artisan families could learn craft skills from her father, even if the daughters were not eligible to work as an artisan—it was the son who followed the father’s trade. In some middle-class Jewish families, conventions still followed the older patterns, even in twentieth-century Nordic societies; the husbands were the public faces of the companies, but wives actually ran some businesses (Uotila, Banik and Ekholm).

Equality between the sexes entered the public debate in the late nineteenth century in the Nordic countries. It was pursued by feminist movements and supported by women from all social classes. Nevertheless, gender equality still had a long way to go before becoming an acceptable value in the family because patriarchal values dominated. Gradually, the boundaries of gendered patterns began to break down, especially in upbringing and education. Ideas of liberalism, individualism, and equality advanced women’s and girls’ opportunities to study, but it was especially the growth of vacancies in the fields of administration, social work, and education that made women a desirable group for recruitment. The value of educating girls was first seen by upper-class families, but very soon middle-class families followed suit, although university studies caused tensions in the girls’ families. In the long run, education was a gendered way to achieve, maintain, or improve the social status of women (Annola, Kaarninen).

Communities and societies also participated in the upbringing of children for different reasons. Raising one’s children well was not simply a private matter in the early modern era or even later in rural communities because upbringing played an important role in maintaining societal order. Later, upbringing and education served to ensure the coherence of the social groups and classes. Migrant communities had a special role in raising children in their new homeland; in many cases, they provided extra support or substituted for the extended family because typically only the younger generations migrated, leaving the older relatives back in the home country. Finnish-American socialists used to spend their leisure time in community halls, and gradually a special hall community and culture developed that promoted socialist values, ideals, and beliefs among children. Somewhat similarly, Sami societies, which were under attack on their own soil from the nationalising policies of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, developed new communal and familial methods to preserve their knowledge, culture, and language (Banik and Ekholm, Aatsinki, Andresen).

Notes

1. According to statistics from international organisations such as the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the OECD, the Nordic countries rank in the top 10 for democracy, equality, competitiveness, and education.

2. According to Sovicˇ, Thane, and Viazzo (2016), prior to the 1960s, the field of research was dominated by a master narrative that was inspired by nineteenth-century social theorists, such as Ferninand Tonnies, Lewis Henry Morgan, Frederic Le Play, and Emile Durkheim. According to the narrative, the size and composition of families had been rather similar all over Europe in the past, and the twentieth-century differences were the result of different speeds and rates of modernisation.

3. John Hajnal (1965) suggested that there existed a cultural divide between the Western and Eastern European patterns of marriage and family formation, with a major dividing line running from St Petersburg to Trieste. The Western way of life was characterised by a preferred inheritance norm of primogeniture, late marriage, a period of paid employment before marriage, and the establishment of a separate nuclear household upon marriage. The Eastern family formation tradition, on the other hand, included early marriage, a patrilocal residence pattern, and the division of the household after the death of its head.

4. For a good overview on the research, see Sovicˇ, Thane, and Viazzo 2016. For future views, see Ruggles 2012.

5. For variations in landownership within and between the Nordic countries, see, e.g. Koskinen 2016.

6. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall (1987, 31) suggested already in 1987 that the family should not be regarded as a ‘preindustrial enclave’ that passively adapted to the transformations brought about by industrialisation and modernisation.

7. For an overview of the use of the term ‘strategy’ in research, see Vuolanto 2015.

8. For an overview on sociologically oriented research on the relationship between the family, social security, and the welfare state in contemporary Europe, see Viazzo 2010.

9. The Kingdom of Prussia offered free compulsory education to children aged seven to twelve years already at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Education was based on Lutheran values. The system was transferred into German society in the 1870s. With its pedagogical scholars and institutions, Germany was innovative in the field of education. German pedagogy was also followed in US states, and the first free elementary school was established in Pennsylvania in 1834. The first compulsory attendance law was enacted in Massachusetts in 1852. By 1918, education was compulsory in all the states of the Union. Pedagogy developed in leaps and bounds in the USA during the Progressive Era. France passed an act on compulsory education in 1882, and England and Ireland did so in 1897 (Stearns 2011, 77–78).

10. In Sweden, the final resolutions on the nine-year length of compulsory education were passed in 1962 and 1968. In Norway, compulsory schooling was extended to nine years in 1959 and 1969. In Finland, nine years of comprehensive schooling was established after a lengthy planning phase with the passing of an act in 1968. Denmark made its final breakthrough for nine years of compulsory education at the same time as Finland. For Iceland, this process occurred during the 1970s (Telhaug, Medias, and Aasen 2006, 245–283).

11. Egodocuments, such as diaries, letters, almanacs, notebooks, memoirs, and autobiographies, provide new opportunities for research. They have been widely used since the 1980s, when they were reassessed as sources and used in new cultural historical and micro-historical research. They have fictional sides, but also sides that make it possible—or at least seem to make it possible—for the reader to be in contact ‘with someone from the past’. According to Dekker (2002, 13–14, 24–25, 31), ‘These [egodocuments] are texts not so much in need of editing or processing, but accounts which must be read and reread, and whose interpretation will vary over time’.

12. Among historians, there has been debate about the definition of the collective biography and the relationship between collective biography, set biography, group biography, and prosopography. In some studies, the collective biography has been understood as a synonym of prosopography, but, on the other hand, some scholars have drawn a distinction between collective biography and prosopography. Defining the collective biography, Katharine S. B. Keats-Rohan (2007) states that it is not based upon rigorously established selection criteria, and the focus remains the individual. In the collective biography, the subjects are selected by the compiler towards an end: the group is created by the compiler. According to Keats-Rohan, in a prosopography the number and identity of individuals who compose the group is not usually known at first, because the group is selected as the starting point of the inquiry. From this point of view, it is possible to distinguish between collective biography and prosopography.

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