Corporal Punishment, Disciplinary Regimes and the Irony of History What Happened to the Progressive Vision of the New School?

After the Second World War, the vision of a single comprehensive school definitively asserted itself in Swedish educational policy. The existing system of parallel schools with its several forms of elementary school and secondary school was to be super-seded by a single compulsory comprehensive school for all children. This reform, however, involved much more than merely a reorganization of the school system; it was an expression of the grandiose post-war times political ambitions aiming at noth-ing less than a new kind of society founded upon science and democracy.1 An impor-tant role in this drama was played by the 1946 Schools Commission. In its final re-port, Guidelines for the Development of the Swedish School System, the Commission claimed that the existing school system had not kept up with the on-going develop-ment in society and argued for a foundational shift from an old authoritarian and bu-reaucratic system to a modern and democratic one. The Commission viewed its guide-lines as a major contribution to this process.2 In order for the school to fulfill its new progressive role in society, a radical redefinition of its character forming task became necessary. The traditional emphasis on obedience and good manners were exchanged by modern and progressive concepts such as democracy, independence and individual freedom. The primary duty of the school system should no longer be to produce useful citizens for the common good of society, but rather to stimulate the growth of a free and democratic spirit among the pupils, characteristics that would be essential for the new society.3 However, the Commission’s progressive agenda soon came into conflict with the very practical