The Victory of the Victims: The Paradoxical Result of the Swedish Teacher Strike of 1966

• In Event: Teachers Strike! Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

For the presentation, I examine the case of Sweden and the 1966 teacher strike. The analysis draws primarily on media analysis. Using databases of digitized newspapers, articles are used to develop an overview of the cultural significance of teacher strikes across time and space as well as the meanings of the Swedish strike of 1966. Questions such as the reason to go on strike, the frequency of strikes, the problems and possibilities associated with strikes, will be addressed in order to understand what a strike signifies in a given cultural or national context.

The frequency of teacher strikes varies across the world. In some countries teacher strikes are relatively common, in some they are non-existent. Sweden occupies a position somewhere in the middle: teacher strikes have occurred but are rare. As state employees/civil servants, teachers were originally not allowed to strike. In 1966 that changed. Teachers were permitted to strike and the very same year secondary school teachers used that newly granted right for weeks. From teachers’ perspectives, the action was an opportunity to better working conditions and salary. In this respect the strike demands were typical. However, what set this strike apart from others was that it changed the role of pupils in schools.

Pupils – described as the victims of the strike – had recently organized themselves in a national organization, which sometimes was seen as the “pupils’ union”, and was also seen as part of a democratization of education. During the strike, this resulted in pupil councils partly taking over the role of the teachers in schools. This was seen, in the press, but also in a study conducted by the National Board of Education, as an experimental situation that indicated that pupils could, even in non-strike circumstances, take greater responsibilities in the classroom and school.
The public perception of the strike was that the teachers had engaged in a luxury strike. The pupils, on the other hand, demonstrated that they were capable of more responsibilities and influence in schools. The pupils may have been deemed victims of the strike but were also described as the only true “winners” of the strike. The teachers’ strike may be seen as a failure, both in terms of the concrete gains related to their demands and in terms of legitimacy. However, the right of teachers to strike and their use of it coincided with, even buttressed, attempts to democratize the school.

Author

• Joakim Landahl, Stockholm University