ABF som folkfostrare
1920-1949
-1949 [26][upps-01.gif] The aim of this master thesis is to investigate how W.E.A. Workers Educational Association, took part in the great changes of society and in the modernizing process in the period of 1920-1949. The examination is based upon three journals of educational material that were connected with W.E.A. The question at issue is to show how the people behind W.E.A. aimed to educate and indeed educated the workers to modern people and moreso to see how the articles in fact were written and to analyse in what way they turn to the workers and get their attention. I also want to examine if it is possible to observe a change in the upbringing-process through the time period and if the focus was altered in that very process. I have divided the articles into three parts: one moral, one physical and one educational which in their turn are subdivided on the basis of how the articles are written, not accordingly to their subject. The essay also contains a short review of the Swedish political history and what the modernisation in Sweden looked like between the 1880s and 1950s. Furthermore, I have studied the establishment of the W.E.A. as well as its development and cultural point of view. The results indicate that the W.E.A. intended to give a total education - the inner side through opinions, knowledge and moral, the outside through gymnastics, personal in addition to public hygiene. In these articles I have distinguished between three different ways in which the W.E.A. intended to educate. Firstly, a stupefying manner that manifested to what extent people ought to dislike certain phenomena. Secondly, a transmitting of opinions and values already accepted in the society and finally, the viewpoint that educating was to speak well about certain phenomena.