Trine Øland

Disturbed by ‘the stranger’: state crafting remade through educational interventions and moralisations

This article addresses two questions. First, how does a state, in casu the Danish welfare state, based on universalism and social rights as regards its citizens, deal with immigrants and their descendants through education? Second, how does such a state manage to make its differential treatment of human beings work legitimately, that is, what arguments, what interventions and moralisations, are used through the workings of school education? The article carries out an analysis of policies since the 1980s and depicts the construction of ‘the stranger’ parallel to an analysis of the state crafting processes that go on in terms of professional educational interventions in Højmarken School, a school placed in an urban poor area.

‘Human potential’ and progressive pedagogy: a long cultural history of the ambiguity of ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’

This article examines the cultural constructs of progressive pedagogy in Danish school pedagogy and its emerging focus on the child’s human potential from the 1920s to the 1950s. It draws on Foucault’s notion of ‘dispositifs’ and the ‘elements of history,’ encircling a complex transformation of continuity and discontinuity of progressive pedagogy. The Danish context is identified as being part of an international and scientific enlightenment movement circulating in, e.g., the New Education Fellowship (NEF). The cultural constructs embedded in progressivism are clarified in the article: the emergence of ‘intelligence’ and life as a biological phenomenon from the 1920s is illustrated; the emergence of ‘Black culture,’ ‘Negros’ and ‘races’ from the 1930s is depicted, and the emergence of ‘national cultures’ from the 1940s – enhanced by UNESCO after World War II – is demonstrated. Although race somehow is replaced by culture, it is suggested that progressivism, unintentionally, exhibits a racist discourse.

Politi- og gadeplansarbejdets forebyggelsesprojekt med ’indvandreren’

Tim er politibetjent og har igennem mange ar lavet kriminalpraeventivt arbejde. Han fortaeller, at denne del af politiarbejdet har faet flere og flere okonomiske ressourcer gennem arene og tilmed er vokset i omfang internti politiet. Men han fortaeller ogsa omen mere omfattende faglig optur, hvor andre faggrupper som socialarbejdere og laerere onsker at samarbejde med dem i kriminalpraeventiv afdeling. Tim definerer kriminalitetsforebyggelse i modsaetning til politiarbejdets ’brandslukningsopgaver’ og ydermere som det at arbejde med bekymrende adfaerd generelt, samtidig med at ’indvandrergruppen’ er overrepraesenteret i arbejdet.