This spring, my participation in radical education is in a linedance course. For some reason, US country-western dancing has gained quite a following in our Swedish village, and there are now three courses offered every week, at a price of about fifty dollars for a whole semester. While most people take these courses because dancing is fun, they are also part of a history of radical education: folkbildningsrörelsen, “the people’s education movement.”
This educational movement is run by various studieförbund, “study associations,” the largest of which is the worker’s-movement affiliated ABF.[1] In 2009, studieförbund had almost 20 million participants.[2] For a country whose total population is only slightly higher than that of New York City, this is quite impressive; the average person in Sweden participates in over two studieförbund programs every year! These numbers still mark a continuous decline over the past few years, down 24 percent since 2004.
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