Chapter 12
Doing Harm to Educational Knowledge:
The Struggle over Teacher Education
in Sweden and Norway
Carl Anders Säfström and Herner Saeverot
12.1 Introduction
In the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden and Norway, the concept of
educational sciences (in Swedish: utbildningsvetenskap; in Norwegian: utdan-
ningsvitenskap) has, over the last 20 years, emerged as an overarching and unifying
concept, which has subjugated pedagogik and other disciplines. For this reason we
wish to analyse this particular concept. But before we do that, we need to know
what the concepts of‘utbildning’and‘utdanning’signify.
Both concepts consist of a combination of the preposition‘ut’[out] and the
verbal nouns‘bildning’and‘danning’. The preposition‘ut’signifies a direction, i.e.
‘out from’and‘out towards’(see Wivestad 2015 : p. 115). In this way, we see that
‘utbildning’and‘utdanning’have a beginning (out from) and an end (out towards),
that is to say that‘utbildning’and‘utdanning’are something that take place within
a particular period of time. Something will happen during this time period. When
the education or‘utbildning’and‘utdanning’is over, the person involved is con-
sidered to be either‘utbildad’or‘utdannet’. The person is in other words formed
into something specific.
Could we then say that‘utbildning’and‘utdanning’are connected to the con-
cepts of‘bildning’and‘danning’, what is known asBildung? Not quite, as‘ut-
bildning’and‘utdanning’ are directed towards specific goals, within a certain
period of time. On the other hand, if we turn to Goethe’s prototypical
Bildungsroman—Wilhelm Meister(1795–96)—we may see thatBildungis basi-
cally understood as an education or‘utbildning’/‘utdanning’of man’s inner and
C.A. Säfström(&)
Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail: [email protected]
H. Saeverot
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway
e-mail: [email protected]
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
M.A. Peters et al. (eds.),A Companion to Research in Teacher Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4075-7_12
179