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The Labor Movement As an Educational Movement: A Conceptual History of Sivistys Within the Finnish Workers’ Educational Association 1920s–1960s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2021

Elina Hakoniemi
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Abstract

Education and popular adult education have been central in the development of Nordic societies, and as such, emphasis on education has also been an essential component of the Nordic labor movements. The article focuses on the conceptual history of sivistys (Bildung), a key concept and a characteristic element of the Finnish workers’ educational movement through the Finnish Workers’ Educational Association during its era of political education from the 1920s until the 1960s. Workers’ education took the concept sivistys from 19th century projects for people’s education, and thus tied workers’ education tightly to the broader field of Nordic popular adult education. In fact, the Finnish workers’ educational movement received more influence from Nordic people’s education than international socialist theories and programs for workers’ education – of which the use of the concept sivistys is a clear example.

Introduction: the labor movement as an educational movement

The role of education, and especially popular adult education, in the fashioning of Nordic societies is often highlighted.Footnote 1 For example, “The Nordic Secret” project states that “the secret” behind the success of the Nordic countries has been a special Nordic popular education or “Bildung,” which, “developed everybody's potential and changed their fate.”Footnote 2

It is easy to agree with the notion that education has been central in the development of Nordic civil societies. However, educational discussions have not been linear national projects. Education and educational visions have served different purposes and had diverse meanings for different actors participating in societal life.

My article examines the societal role and status of education from the viewpoint of the Social Democratic labor movement in Finland, focusing on the umbrella organization for the Finnish workers’ education, the Workers’ Educational Association (Työväen Sivistysliitto, TSL). I am especially interested in the connection between education and societal change within the Social Democratic educational ideas: What was the Social Democratic labor movement's outlook on education and its importance in societal life? What were the expectations for societal change and the future society in the educational discussions, and what role did education have in achieving this future? What kind of education was offered and to whom?Footnote 3

As education and popular adult education have been central for the development of the Nordic civil societies, they have also been key questions also for the Nordic labor movements, and the labor movements need to be studied as educational movements as well. I argue that in the Finnish case, the workers’ educational movement has been influenced significantly by the Nordic tradition of peoples’ education—and importantly, more so than by international socialist theories and ideas of workers’ education.

The projects for people's education (folkbildning) had been established and had become massive elements of societal life during the nineteenth century, before the labor movements started to organize. Thus, the already developed organizations for people's education were the central context within which the labor organizations were founded. From the movement of people's education, the mobilizing labor movement borrowed practices, such as lecture and public speech events, and social evenings with poems, plays, and discussions.Footnote 4 In addition to practices, the labor movements were also highly influenced by the ideals of education developed within the folkbildning projects and actively discussed in political life due to leading figures such as N.F.S. Grundtvig in Denmark or J.V. Snellman in Finland.

One central aspect in the Nordic tradition of people's education has been the union between democracy, citizenship, and education. Whereas in the German tradition of Bildung, where education meant both personal development and a class mark, the developing Nordic educational activities soon turned to the democratization of education. As a part of the process of democratization, popular adult education begun to be led by social movements, such as the labor movement, but also the agrarian movement and the temperance movement. Within the discourse of democracy, education was joined with active and capable citizenship, participation in society, and equality.Footnote 5 At the same time, the educational movements of the nineteenth century did not focus only on lifting the people and democratizing the society—it also addressed participation in nation-building and defining a homogenized good citizen of the nation state. Workers’ education has been viewed as acting outside this nation-building project. However, in Finland, the process of democratization and abandoning the national Bildung project was not so clear-cut, as the article will discuss.

Borrowing and interpreting the ideals of people's education, the labor movements’ own views on education developed into highlighting the aspects of raising the working-class people from society's margins and of developing people in order to create development and change in society through education.Footnote 6 The labor movements set up special projects for working-class, popular adult education and began to take active part in educational politics—thus they became educational movements. Petros Gougoulakis, for example, has come to the conclusion that “throughout its history—the Swedish social democratic labor movement has often seemed to be a huge educational project.”Footnote 7

I utilize a conceptual history approach to study the Finnish workers’ educational movement. I focus on sivistys, the key concept within Social Democratic workers’ education. Workers’ education in Finnish was discussed as “working class people's sivistys,” and the Workers’ Educational Association had sivistys in its name. There are similar concepts in Swedish (bildning) and Danish/Norwegian (dannelse), and all three are closely connected to German Bildung.Footnote 8

My article covers the era of the TSL's political education: from its establishment in 1919 until the 1960s, when the focus of the TSL's activities shifted from study circles to professional short courses. Two phases are analyzed. First, the discussions during the 1920s–1930s, which dealt with defining workers’ education and sivistys within workers’ education, with the ideas of Väinö Voionmaa, the founder of the TSL, leading the way. The second phase includes the development of the previous definitions during the 1940s–1960s, when the focus shifted from discussing workers’ education to participation in the reforming of the national educational system. The primary materials consist of a broad collection of the TSL's documents: the annual reports from 1919–1970, minutes from representative's assemblies from 1919–1970, publications of the TSL, speeches, and the magazine Työläisopiskelija.Footnote 9

The conceptual analysis is based on Reinhart Koselleck's conceptual history. I trace the meanings and definitions of sivistys and workers’ sivistys with a special focus on the temporal dimensions of historical time within the concept. According to Koselleck, historical time consists of historical layers varying in time and place. The dimensions of historical time are space of experience and horizon of expectation, expressing the experiences of the past and the expectations for the future, and their presence in the present time.Footnote 10 The workers’ educational movement was all about creating a future society, and thus analyzing the layers of historical time has proven to be fruitful in attempts to grasp the views of sivistys.

The international context of the Finnish workers’ educational movement

Internationally, the organization, forms, participators, and objectives of workers’ education vary greatly. For this article, I focus especially on workers’ education by the labor movement in an educational association working as a part of the movement, which leaves out workers’ education taking place in other institutions of workers’ education.Footnote 11 Analysis of the Finnish Workers’ Educational Association is set within an international context. This is not an easy task, as there is a lack of an up-to-date comparative study on workers’ education from an international perspective.

One common, general categorization of workers’ education is the division between cultural civic, popular education and member training,Footnote 12 but there have also been more detailed categorization efforts. In the 1920s, the Belgian Social Democratic (and later fascist) political philosopher Hendrik de Man presented four categories for workers’ education: the German politico-dogmatic, the trade-union-utilitarian tradition of the United States, the eclectic workers’ education in the United Kingdom, and the synthetic in Belgium. According to de Man, the Scandinavian workers’ education followed the German tradition.Footnote 13 Another example is the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences from the 1930s, which listed three different traditions: the culturists, the workers’ schools, and the class-conscious laborists.Footnote 14 A somewhat more recent example is by Philip G.H. Hopkins, as he divides workers’ education into five types of objectives: 1) individual development for its own sake (the United Kingdom); 2) stability and coherence in the society (Communist countries); 3) change and transformation in the society (de Man); 4) efficient labor movement organizations; and 5) improved socio-economic contributions from the workers and their organizations.Footnote 15 These categorizations bring out the different general lines of workers’ education: member and professional training, socialization to the labor movement and its ideology, cultural and enlightening work among the working-class people, and political education to change society. Where, then, in these categories does the Finnish case fit?

The international discussions and practices of workers’ education in different countries were an important reference for the TSL. For example, active members often cited the ideas of de Man and the Austro-Marxist educational theorist Max Adler.Footnote 16 However, for the TSL, the most important context was the Nordic workers’ education, which should be viewed as a category of its own. The Nordic workers’ education produced its own special institutions, such as the Gruntvigian people's high school, workers’ and people's institutes, and the Nordic study circle.

In general, Nordic workers’ education received influences from the English Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), as well as the Austrian and German traditions of workers’ education. However, as discussed in the introduction, the Nordic tradition of people's education also had a significant impact on the Nordic labor movement, and thus the workers’ education conducted by them.

One example of categorizing the Nordic tradition of workers’ education is Bengt Gustavsson's analysis of the Swedish workers’ educational movement. Gustavsson has divided the objectives into three paths: 1) the ideal of citizenship education; 2) the ideal of self-education; and 3) the new humanistic idea of education of the personality.Footnote 17 These aspects come very close to the aspects of sivistys within the TSL discussed in the article.

The Workers’ Educational Association

The TSL was founded in September 1919, shortly after the Finnish Civil War. The war, which lasted from January 1918 until May 1918, was very violent. It was a class war between “Reds” and “Whites,” and it resulted in defeat for the working-class Reds.

The war hit the labor movement and party organization hard. Many members who survived fled to Russia. The labor movement was divided, the future unknown. Those who had not participated in the war took the lead in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and the labor movement started to revive via reformist policies. For some members of the SDP, workers’ education was the answer to the problems the labor movement was facing.

Voionmaa, a university researcher in history who became a member of parliament in 1919, was a key figure in establishing the TSL. Educational issues were close to his heart. Before the TSL, he had actively participated in the Society for Popular Enlightenment (Kansanvalistusseura), a popular adult education organization founded in 1874, and in the temperance movement. Voionmaa's background was thus similar to that of Richard Sandler, a key figure in the Arbetarnas bildningsförbund (ABF), the educational arm of the Swedish labor movement.

Voionmaa viewed the events of 1918 as a sign that previous tactics had failed, and as a proof of the lack of sivistys among working class people. For Voionmaa, it was important to continue and deepen the educational work. He advised the Social Democratic Youth Union to take the initiative in building an umbrella organization for workers’ education. The Youth Union set up a preparatory committee and Voionmaa was named committee chair. Once the TSL was established, he was elected chairperson and held the position until his death in 1947.

The TSL was not a completely new idea. There had been educational activities within the labor movement since its establishment in the late nineteenth century. The early educational activities were agitation and agitator training, conducted by the SDP. The focus was on spreading the ideology and program of the movement. Yet, since the beginning, visions of acquiring sivistys and enlightenment for working-class people had existed within the labor movement and its educational activities.Footnote 18 Compared to this earlier workers’ education, the TSL placed new emphasis especially on sivistys, and within the association, a new ideal for workers’ education started to develop.

The task of the TSL was defined as “spreading social enlightening among the working class people and satisfying its intellectual cultural needs.”Footnote 19 The rules, the organization, and the study circle pedagogics were imported from Sweden. Study circles and correspondence school were the core of the TSL's activities. Hundreds of students participated in the study circles during the 1920s and 1930s, and the numbers began to increase significantly after the 1940s. During the 1960s, there were tens of thousands of students.Footnote 20 The TSL counted various labor movement organizations among its member organizations, working closely, for example, with the SDP and the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions.

The TSL received financial support from the state in the form of discretionary state subsidies for lectures and study circles starting in 1920. This continued until 1964, when a new study circle law changed the subsidies to be based on the number of study circles. During the 1970s the subsidies became expense-based.

It is important to point out that the TSL was a Social Democratic educational association. The Finnish People's Democratic League joined the TSL after the Second World War when Communism was decriminalized in Finland, but its members ended up in the opposition within the TSL administration. Little by little, they stopped being active and founded the Communist Educational Association (Kansan Sivistystyön Liitto, KSL)Footnote 21 in 1964, with the support of the subsidy reforms.

Defining the aspects of workers’ sivistys in the 1920s–1930s

Sivistys and workers’ sivistys were actively discussed within the TSL during the 1920s and 1930s. Concept definitions and the program for workers’ education were developed during this era, with Voionmaa leading the conversation. Voionmaa's successors in the TSL, R.H. Oittinen, Arvi Hautamäki, and Yrjö Kallinen, shared his visions, and the definitions and the program of the 1920s and 1930s were maintained at least until the 1960s. By highlighting the special characteristics of workers’ education, Voionmaa and his colleagues emphasized that the working class needed its own enlightenment project. The central aspects of the special workers’ sivistys were the societal impact, self-education, autonomy, and objectivity.Footnote 22

Societal impact

The reform and development of society were central in conceptualizing workers’ education in Finland: for Voionmaa and his followers, educational activities and sivistys were intended to create societal change following the objectives of the labor movement. In addition, a key aspect of the educational ideas was that without sivistys and the educational work, the change could not happen. Sivistys was the key concept for the horizon of expectation of the educational movement. “As the workers’ education has won, socialism has won,” Voionmaa stated in 1922.Footnote 23

Sivistys had been joined with change or development of the society also in the discourses of the nationalist upper class project of people's education. J.V. Snellman, a key figure in the political life of nineteenth-century Finland, had considered bildning to be the key element of progress for the state. Snellman's ideas were influential within the TSL, especially via Voionmaa. Voionmaa looked at the society and sivistys in a way that he interpreted Snellman had also done.Footnote 24 Following Snellman, Voionmaa's visions for the future focused on a new society and an improved nation reformed by sivistys.

Similar outlooks to the union of education and societal change were also present in the Swedish discussions about workers’ education. For example, Sandler's visions about cultural socialism highlighted the societal role of bildning and its meaning for participation and activity within society.Footnote 25 Similar ideas were also present in the ideas of Max Adler and de Man. Especially Adler's vision of new people creating the new societyFootnote 26 was often repeated within the TSL, especially by Voionmaa's successor, R.H. Oittinen. Moreover, de Man's ideas about the relationship between education and change clearly influenced the Finnish discussions.

During the establishment of the TSL, Voionmaa emphasized the importance of a reform of workers’ education as part of “the grand social reform, which, despite all the events, is as an outcome of the World War about to start also in our land.” The role of the educational association as a part of this reform was to “develop intellectually independent, progress willing and progress capable, harmonious individuals with teaching and self-education, to enrich the educational and cultural life of the people and to improve the society with the help of these individuals.”Footnote 27

To highlight the connection between sivistys and societal change, Voionmaa started to separate socialist from bourgeoisie sivistys. The difference between the two was not the content or form of sivistys, but the use to which it was put. According to Voionmaa, the bourgeoisie sivistys was inherited and individualistic, and it left the relationship between the individual and the society loose. Especially higher education merely served personal goals, such as status and pleasure. This was not the case with socialist sivistys, which was the answer for the future as it broadened the importance of sivistys from the personal and private to the societal: education and knowledge needed to serve “a clear societal purpose.” According to Voionmaa, a person should not use the gained sivistys for personal good but the good of the whole society. This required active participation to the societal life.Footnote 28

The societal impact of sivistys did not mean that workers’ education should only focus on topics that dealt with society. Sivistys was to be societal in an “inner sense,” which meant it would change “the intellectual and moral conditions of society,” and would “awake an inner societal spirit” among the workers.Footnote 29

Societal impact also included the idea of the importance of sivistys for the relationship between the individual and society. Sivistys was to create and maintain “a useful interaction between the individual and society: as the societal improvements need to benefit the individual, the activity, including intellectual activity, of the individual, needs to benefit society.” This would lead to “a societal balance,” which Voionmaa even stated to be the main purpose of the whole workers’ education. According to Voionmaa: “This purpose is ground breaking, is revolutionary. Socialism cannot imagine the future society without fully educated (sivistyneitä) members of society.”Footnote 30 To achieve full societal balance, socialism should secure the possibilities of gaining sivistys for everyone.

Sivistys could not be individualistic, but at the same time, the individual was the key to societal change via sivistys. In an article in Työläisopiskelija in 1929, Voionmaa emphasized that workers’ education was about the person: “the deepest and finest roots of workers’ education deal with the soul.”Footnote 31 For Voionmaa and other active members of the early TSL, the goals of workers’ education were intellectual, and they were built around the significance of “intellectual life” for society. Voionmaa quoted the German philosopher and social pedagogue Paul Natorp: “We dare not demand, but based on reliable scientific conclusions we can expect that intellectual development will once break from the inside and finally tear down the current economic, political and religious parties.” Voionmaa called this “the creed of sivistys.”Footnote 32

The quote makes an evident point about the influence Natorp and other social pedagogues from the turn of the century had on the ideas of Voionmaa. There is a strong resemblance between visions of the role of sivistys in building harmonious relationships between the individual and society, and Natorp's theory, where education is the key in building an equal and communal society. The notions shared the idea of the personal development of each individual, which would lead to the development of society.

Self-education

The emphasis of the individual within the society went together with the centrality of self-education within workers’ education. This was a significant aspect in defining the special workers’ education from the very beginning, also within the TSL. In general, self-education has been a significant part of international practices of workers’ education. For the TSL, the Swedish ABF was again an important source of influence.

The cornerstone for self-education was the study circle, a central format for TSL activities. It was imported from Sweden's ABF and Oscar Olsson's visions of self-education in study circles. In study circles, education happened by reading and discussion. The point was to enforce the participants’ own learning process and their abilities to be in charge of it themselves. A central element was that the chair of the study circle, if there was any, was responsible only for practical affairs, and the actual learning happened democratically and equally without anyone acting as an authority. Jenny Jansson has argued that in Sweden it was especially the study circle that made workers’ education a significant factor in the formation of the collective identity of working-class people.Footnote 33

Self-education also defined sivistys. Voionmaa, for example, criticized state schools for “planting” information in students and “passing on” information. For Voionmaa and his companions, workers’ education was something more: it reached for “a higher level of knowledge—a well-founded and understood knowledge.”Footnote 34 As the years passed, the self-educating techniques of workers’ education became something to boast about. Hautamäki wrote in 1939: “A thought has been brought up that the labor movement and the workers’ education carried out within it have vitally influenced the development of some of the essential principles of modern popular education.”Footnote 35

Autonomy

Another central aspect of workers’ education lies in the concept itself: workers’ education was viewed as education offered especially by the labor movement for working-class people, which separated it from other forms of education. Both organized and unorganized working-class people were included.Footnote 36

Since the late nineteenth century, the mobilized labor movement had wanted to distinguish its educational activities as different from the other branches of popular adult education. This idea also maintained power later on within the TSL. Separate workers’ education was justified based on two central experiences: first, the working class was viewed as excluded from the sphere of education, and second, working people were defined as a special group with their own characteristic educational needs.

The idea of the working class being excluded from the sphere of sivistys was central. Here, sivistys derived its meaning from opportunities (or their lack): the working class had no opportunities to become educated (sivistynyt). According to Voionmaa, economic exploitation had caused intellectual and educational exploitation.Footnote 37 The law on compulsory education of 1921 had not fixed this; experience demonstrated the need for education extended beyond elementary school. When discussing equality in education, Voionmaa actually claimed that this aspect was the only reason for special workers’ education: “If our nation had an ideal educational system that would equally concern and satisfy all the layers of the society, there would be no need for a special movement of workers’ education.”Footnote 38

Yet, sivistys was not just about exclusion. A repeated phrase was that workers’ education responded to the special need for education of working-class people. Voionmaa summarized this need into three factors: 1) social political reasons (intellectual misery); 2) a common need (the labor movement needed the help of sivistys); and 3) the need for a new social world view.Footnote 39 Special workers’ education needed to be closely connected to the original everyday life of working people.Footnote 40

Another basic element for workers’ education was the key role of the working class in the Marxian vision of the future. Sivistys was the key to change, and the working class was responsible in creating the change—thus the working class needed to acquire sivistys and the labor movement needed to be the source of sivistys. A good example of this outlook was the first ever article published in the Työläisopiskelija, “When Starting Work.” The article highlighted the importance of the labor movement's own institutions, and stated that workers’ education could not be taken under control by “objectives alien to working class people.”Footnote 41 The goals of workers’ education were defined as “maintaining and developing the intellectual independence of working class people, intellectual preparation of the working class for societal reform reached for by the labor movement, and preparing each individual worker to become a proper citizen in the new society.”Footnote 42

The post-civil war space had an influence here: official institutions were controlled by those who had won the war, and there was little leeway for working-class ideas. Voionmaa wrote in 1922: “Because the bourgeois institutions of sivistys serving capitalism have been unable to raise the deep masses from intellectual darkness, working class people themselves need to start to fulfill this task.”Footnote 43

In addition, working-class people needed more practical skills to work in the labor movement and society, and especially the worker organization officials needed to be up to their tasks.Footnote 44 This kind of educational work was more often linked with the concept of education (kasvatus) than sivistys. Yet being up to one's tasks did not just mean practical knowledge, it required a wide range of knowledge—and sivistys. Voionmaa wrote in 1919:

The world is in for great reforms, and as a part of them working class people in each civilized (sivistynyt) country will rise to become the defining factors in societal and political life.—The circumstances have made each socialist into liable citizens, even though they might lack civic confidence. In a word, time demands from each individual belonging to the working class the kind of power and ability that can only stem from a deeper sivistys/education of the intelligence, the heart and the whole of life.Footnote 45

In the discussions about workers’ education two concepts were central: workers’ education was to be autonomous (omaehtoinen) and free (vapaa). Regarding the concept of being free, liberal adult education (vapaa kansansivistys) definitions provided an important context. In 1929, Zachris Castren led the committee work on “State and Liberal Adult Education.” The committee memo put into words something that for a long time had been central to the workers’ educational movement: liberal adult education meant “free” educational activities of civic organizations and citizens, and the state should be involved only in terms of material support. Liberal education was a counter concept for formal school education, which was under the guardianship of the state.Footnote 46

Yet, whilst being a part of the field of liberal adult education, workers’ education also served a special purpose as original, or autonomous, education of working-class people. The concept autonomy appeared in the discussion at the end of the 1930s and soon became a key aspect of workers’ education. The definition was as follows:

The autonomous education of the working class people holds as its starting point the thought that the conditions that the workers have been and are still in, and the collaboration that they have carried out in the wide-ranking activities and tasks of the labor movement, have created for them a specific intellectual atmosphere and special needs for sivistys.Footnote 47

Autonomy was thus a defining concept for the space of experience of the educational labor movement.

Even though special, the autonomous workers’ education was mainly not viewed as separate from the broader national sivistys. It was a part of the big entity, yet the status it possessed was viewed as needing improvement. There were, however, other kinds of viewpoints as well, especially regarding the question of a special working-class culture.Footnote 48 However, the lead of the TSL presented culture and sivistys as one and undivided.Footnote 49

Objectivity

In the conceptualizations of workers’ education, an oft repeated theme was abandoning agitation and propaganda and defining workers’ education as objective. Objectivity was entwined with ideals of being scientific and valuing science-based knowledge and truth; workers’ education was about “cultivating independent critical thought.”Footnote 50

Jorma Kalela has pointed out that workers’ education emphasizing objectivity and scientific thinking could easily be subjected to the control of the educational administration, which was a condition for state subsidies.Footnote 51 Yet the concept of objectivity was discussed broadly, especially during the 1920s and 1930s. Objectivity was supported, but at the same time, it was stated that it should not mean abandoning the specific working class worldview or any lack of engagement with the sphere of everyday lives of the working-class people.Footnote 52

Simultaneously, radical leftists started to be more and more critical of the TSL, especially on account of the rhetoric concerning objectivity and the receiving of state subsidies.Footnote 53

Here the workers’ education conducted within the TSL disengaged itself from earlier emphasized Marxist ideas about consciousness and class-consciousness as the basis for the labor movement's intellectual activities. Voionmaa and others stressed, in reference to pre-1918 education discussions, that consciousness would not automatically create sivistys, and therefore the labor movement needed to educate working-class people by means of critical, objective knowledge. Voionmaa wrote in Työläisopiskelija in 1929:

Now we no longer think that the “spontaneously understood” vested interest or the dictatorship of the proletariat stolen with violence would be enough of a foundation for the socialist society. Now we see clearly that the future social activity of working class people requires preparations and special education.—It is easy to learn to destroy, but it takes a lot of persistent educational work until the socially passive worker will become a socially active, creative employee.Footnote 54

Aiming for the highest possible: defining the concept sivistys within workers’ education

Sivistys was an actively discussed concept, but there was little effort made to define what was understood as sivistys. More effort was put to defining the aspects and special characteristics of workers’ sivistys, but all of these definitions mainly dealt with the outcomes and principles of workers’ sivistys, not what sivistys here included or meant.

In general, the concept was rather directly adapted from nineteenth-century discussions. Only soon after the establishment of the TSL and during the first years of publishing the Työläisopiskelija was the actual content of the concept discussed. Voionmaa defined the elements of sivistys in 1922 as “intelligence and knowledge, sense and virtue.”Footnote 55 A very common way to define sivistys was to view it as a process of evolving. For example, Paavo Niemi, the study advisor of the TSL in the 1930s, reflected, “In defining sivistys it is not enough that someone is knowledgeable and skillful—then one has only reached the level of enlightenment. —To the knowledge and skills one must also add that the person has internally and externally changed, evolved.”Footnote 56 Coupling sivistys with personal development and evolvement is in many ways a typical way to define, for example, the German Bildung.Footnote 57

One way to take a closer look into how sivistys was defined is to examine the courses provided by the TSL. Common subjects were the so-called social subjects, such as socialism, history (general history and labor movement history), political science, and economics. In addition, practical skills, such as municipal activities, organizational work, and speech, were central in the curricula. However, not all topics dealt with politics or the labor movement. For a long time, literature was one of the most actively studied subjects. In addition, science and arts were central. Over time, languages were also introduced.

Thus, there was no special sivistys for workers’ education. Because of this, the upper class Bildung did not look much different than sivistys within workers’ education. One interesting example of this is an 1928 article in Työläisopiskelija entitled, “How to Look Like Someone Who Has Sivistys?” The article described manners, tidiness, and politeness as the keys to sivistys. It was also important to follow fashion as, “it is like a sign of a new era for working class people towards freedom and human dignity.” Moreover, “facial expressions” should express dignity. Oral expression was also part of sivistys: it was not suitable to “speak whatever one wanted to” and using standard language and speaking “coherently and pleasantly” were sivistys—“because how can we participate in discussions otherwise than being able to fix our words.”Footnote 58 Sivistys was both internal and external. Being well-spoken was also emphasized as a part of sivistys during the 1940s in the “Language Club” (Kielikerho) section in Työläisopiskelija. Manners were also a part of sivistys later on: an illustrative example of this is how Arvi Hautamäki interpreted the disappearance of signs forbidding spitting on the floor in public spaces as an indication of increasing sivistys.Footnote 59

Reading was an integral aspect of sivistys. TSL publications included detailed instructions about what the working class should be reading. For example, in 1922, longtime labor and education activist Nils Robert af Ursin, had the following advice for working-class readers: “One should begin with reading “the best novels in world literature,” such as Goethe, Dickens, George Sand, Zola, and Tolstoy. One was allowed to read romantic novels, but books focusing on “individualistic love,” according to af Ursin, did not sufficiently develop the reader. After the grand novels, one should move on to “the biographies of great men.” After this, one was ready to read geographical, historical, and natural scientific texts. And finally, it was time to grasp “the most difficult sciences” in a manner that would best “help the readers in their life struggles.”Footnote 60 Until the 1950s, Työläisopiskelija had a section with reading recommendations. So-called proletarian literature received a lot of column space, yet in general the recommendations ranged from scientific literature to fiction classics.Footnote 61

Books held a central status as tools for sivistys. The home library was valued as a symbol of sivistys: “A home, no matter how luxurious, which has no home library, is a proof of great intellectual poverty.”Footnote 62 Literature also served an instrumental purpose: it was often recommended as the first subject for study circles in order to have an easy start.Footnote 63 In addition to literature, arts in general were important for sivistys, especially during the 1940s and 1950s.Footnote 64 Traveling was also viewed as part of sivistys.Footnote 65

Sivistys was also defined as “the good life.” A common phrase at the time was that a person does not live by bread aloneFootnote 66: “Only intellectual cultural life and practicing sivistys will make the life of an intellectually active person worth living.”Footnote 67 The outlook comes close to Reinhart Koselleck's notion regarding the German (upper class) Bildung, where Bildung has been conceptualized as “a conduct of life” and a central part of “a model of the cultivated (gebildet) lifestyle.” This lifestyle included the idea of life as something that is not just tolerated or suffered but conducted by Bildung. Moreover, the aspects that Koselleck describes as main elements of this kind of lifestyle are tourism, culture, nature, music, museum, theatre, film, television, sports—thus very similar elements as within the TSL.Footnote 68

Sivistys was also valued as the counterpart for hard work, creating balance between everyday life and mechanical work.Footnote 69 In addition, sivistys was described as a factor that increased work effectiveness. For example, Ursin stated in Työläisopiskelija in 1929 that workers with sivistys were more efficient.Footnote 70 Oittinen followed the same thinking into the 1960s, when he suggested that, “the knowledge and overall intellectual maturity of a person will significantly affect their work contribution.”Footnote 71

Thus, sivistys was something that the individual needed to have: a symbol of progress and success. It was the opposite of living in intellectual darkness, with no awareness and knowledge, nor manners or sense of beauty. Issues of gender were not touched upon within the discussions, and there were no separate discussions about sivistys for men or women—the issue of sivistys was viewed as an issue of class, not gender. However, in discussions on workers’ sivistys, the imagined worker was usually male.

Workers’ sivistys dealt with participating in the development where the rising working class would adopt the best parts of the capitalist culture while, at the same time, building the new socialist one. Oittinen wrote about this in 1954 as occupying and reforming the capitalist culture.Footnote 72 Interestingly, the reform meant equality and giving everyone access to the highest possible sivistys. Sivistys and upper-class sivistys as such were not rejected, only the use of them (societal aspect vs. individual pleasure) was.

Workers’ education as a part of the developing national educational system in the 1940s–1960s

The increasing importance of sivistys

Discussions about educational reform accelerated during the 1940s and the TSL participated actively. An especially burning issue was the comprehensive school, although the school reform was just one part of broader plans to establish a national educational system that included all levels of education, from comprehensive school to secondary school, as well as universities and adult education.

During the 1920s and the 1930s, TSL discussions about sivistys had mainly concentrated on developing workers’ special project of popular adult education. During the 1940s this changed. Working-class people began to be positioned more as part of the nation, not outside or marginal to it. Active participation by the working-class educational movement in national education politics reflected a broader change occurring in the relationship between the labor movement and the nation state.

At its founding, TSL demands included “truly universal, efficient and free elementary school education, vocational and citizen education open and possible for all youth of the nation, opening up university education for everyone who wanted it and was able to enjoy it.”Footnote 73 In 1939, Voionmaa stated that “the reform of the national educational system with the spirit of societal justice” would from now on be “one of the main objectives of the working class people's educational movement.”Footnote 74

With Voionmaa leading the way, the TSL started to take a more active role in educational politics during the 1940s. In the pages of Työläisopiskelija, topics covered changed from discussing the concept of sivistys and workers’ education to presenting and discussing national educational politics and international trends and events. Developments in Sweden were monitored extra closely.

Sivistys began to be viewed more and more as a motor for the progress and success of not only working-class people and the labor movement but people and society as well as the nation in general. This development in the history of the concept becomes very clear when taking a closer look at temporal speech concerning sivistys within the TSL. By temporal speech I mean words used with sivistys to describe its relationship to the past, present, and future.

As previously discussed, sivistys was very closely connected to the future and a central part of the horizon of expectation for the educational labor movement. Sivistys was understood as a force directing societal development or change. The labor movement needed sivistys to achieve its goals.

The conceptualizations of sivistys also joined closely to the past, especially concerning conceptions of the history of the workers’ educational movement. The space of experience and the relationship with the past changed as the years went on. In the early years of the TSL's activities, the past meant a lack of sivistys and intellectual darkness. With time, the past started to fill up with the achievements of the educational movement. For example, by the late 1930s, the rise of democracy started to be viewed as an accomplishment of popular adult education in general and workers’ education in particular.Footnote 75 At the same time, educational activities were increasingly considered as the reason for the success of the whole labor movement.Footnote 76

Perhaps, most importantly, sivistys was a concept that reflected the present time. Sivistys was often linked with such words as “now,” “currently,” and “today.” The development of democracy was a key factor here: “nowadays” the working-class people also possessed political power, which set a standard for their level of knowledge and sivistys.Footnote 77 Since the beginning of the TSL it was argued that “in today's world” education was a necessity, and “currently” “the university of life” did not meet the standards for the required knowledge and sivistys. Society was changing, and the significance of sivistys and education was growing with the development; sivistys was needed for working-class people to keep up with all the changes that were taking place.Footnote 78 Technological change and the effects it had on working life, radically shifting currencies and economic crisis, the war, the bipolarizing world, the decrease in working hours and increase in leisure time, and the progress of science, all made sivistys an increasingly important matter in the space of experience of officials of the TSL. The meaning of sivistys changed from the key to success to something that was necessary in order to at least somehow keep up with the changing world.Footnote 79

Sivistys for the working class, the society or the nation—TSL and educational reform

The so-called Nordic model of education is usually referred to as a result of Social Democratic educational politics.Footnote 80 In Finland, the SDP played an active role in educational politics. In educational affairs, the relationship between the SDP and the TSL was very close, and the leading persons in the SDP's educational politics were the same people that made up the management of the TSL. Thus, the TSL's conceptualizations of sivistys were brought into the SDP's educational politics. When looking at educational reform from this perspective, it seems that things did not, actually, proceed quite according to plan.

It was Oittinen who led the program work of the SDP, first as chair of the committee for educational affairs established at the SDP's party conference of 1944. Other TSL officials, such as chairperson Yrjö Kallinen and secretary general Arvi Hautamäki, were active participants in the SDP's program work. The program for sivistys policies was published in 1949, and it led the way for Social Democratic educational reform policies for the decades to follow.

In general, from the 1940s to 1960s, the programs emphasized the meaning of sivistys and education for the individual and society in the same way as the TSL. The objective of educational equality and offering the opportunity for gaining the highest possible education to all, regardless of economic background, were the key elements in the educational politics, as well as reforming society by means of education.Footnote 81

As the focus of discussions about sivistys shifted to establishing a national educational system, what was left of the autonomy and special nature of workers’ education? According to the vision of the TSL and the program work within the SDP, autonomous workers’ education was still important and served its own special task as a part of the national educational system. The relationship between workers’ education and the state was still viewed as free, following the ideas of Castren. At the same time, popular adult education—workers’ education included—and school were viewed as a single entity, or as Oittinen put it, they “belonged together internally.”Footnote 82

Within this entity, the division of labor between the school and the workers’ education was clear. Oittinen wrote in Työläisopiskelija in 1952, that whereas fifty years ago free popular education had been about filling in the shortcomings of the school system, today the school system reform had become decisive also for popular education.

In the new situation, the task of school was to “share the general knowledge necessary to all citizens,” and to present problems “appearing in the societal sphere in different walks of life.” According to Oittinen, school could not provide detailed solutions to these problems, as school would “first and foremost need to stick to certain kinds of generally accepted solutions,” which can “substantially satisfy the different spheres of society.” As for popular education, its task was “of course to share the kind of information that school has been unable to give.” This information consisted of knowledge that could not be taught to children of school age, namely the most recent knowledge and controversial social issues. It was also important that the new school would encourage students to take part in the educational activities of popular education.Footnote 83 The program work of the SDP emphasized the role of popular education in general, and workers’ education in particular, in supplementing the school system.

Thus, on the horizon of expectations, workers’ education was to continue better than ever after the school reform. But it did not go as planned. Once all levels of education from elementary school to university became tuition-free and a nine-year common comprehensive school was established, the demand for general education offered by the TSL decreased. Beginning in the 1970s, the focus of the TSL shifted from study circles to professional short courses, and the ideals of sivistys as defined in the 1920s and 1930s started to lose their meaning.

Conclusions: sivistys in workers’ education

The workers’ educational movement in Finland took the concept of sivistys from nation-building projects for people's education, and the use of the concept tied Finnish workers’ education tightly to the broader field of Nordic popular adult education. With the concept came a belief in the power of knowledge, education, and sivistys and the centrality that sivistys had in societal life. Sivistys was the key concept on both the horizon of expectations and in the space of experience for the educational labor movement.

The TSL was also influenced by international workers’ education and its ideas and ideologies. From international discussions and leading authorities, the Finnish actors acquired the idea, form, and definitions for the need for special workers’ education. However, the definitions, use and centrality of the concept sivistys illustrate that the Nordic tradition of people's education in many ways surpassed the influence of the international workers’ education movement. The tension between the two diverse influences was, to some extent, solved via the definitions of the aspects of workers’ sivistys: societal impact, self-education, autonomy, and objectivity. Even though these definitions determined the meaning of workers’ education, they left the contents of sivistys open. Thus sivistys within workers’ education very much followed the contents of traditional upper-class sivistys.

The Finnish case is an example of how workers’ education was neither merely member training, ideological training, nor simply cultural enlightening or civic education: It was instead an ideological and societal program to change society based on faith in sivistys within society. The core of the discussions about sivistys within the TSL was to have working-class people and the labor movement break free from the margins. The goals were to acquire more sivistys for the working class, more workers’ sivistys within popular adult education, and more working-class people within sivistys and education.

The objectives of the TSL and the workers’ educational movement developed in the 1920s–1930s lasted throughout the reform discussions in the 1940s–1960s. What changed after the 1940s was the relationship between the labor movement and the state; working-class people were no longer positioned outside the state and society. The TSL took an active role education politics. The conception of sivistys within workers’ education was integrated and became part of the reform of the national educational system, with unanticipated results.

References

NOTES

1. Ahonen, Sirkka and Rantala, Jukka, Nordic Lights: Education for Nation and Civic Society in the Nordic Countries 1850–2000 (Helsinki, 2002)Google Scholar; Laginder, Ann-Marie, Nordvall, Henrik, and Crowther, Jim, Popular Education, Power and Democracy: Swedish Experiences and Contributions (Leicester, 2013)Google Scholar.

2. Andersen, Lene Rachel and Björkman, Tomas, The Nordic Secret: A European Story of Beauty and Freedom (Stockholm, 2017)Google Scholar, https://www.nordicsecret.org/.

3. There are not that many previous studies on the history of the TSL. In 1978, Jorma Kalela wrote a two hundred-page “research plan,” focusing on the history of the TSL in 1919–1979. Pentti Järvinen, later employed by the TSL, wrote a master's thesis about the TSL and radical left-wing movements. Väinö Voionmaa, the founder of TSL, has been broadly researched by Maria Lähteenmäki. Finniss labor movement's relationship to sivistys has also been discussed in the article collection “Working class people and sivistys.”

Jorma Kalela, Työväen Sivistysliitto 1919–1979: Tutkimussuunnitelma [Workers' educational association 1919–1979: A research plan] (Helsinki, 1968); Pentti Järvinen, “Työväen Sivistysliiton perustamiseen ja kehitykseen vaikuttaneet aatteelliset ja poliittiset ristiriidat” [The ideological and political contradictions that have affected the establishment and development of the TSL] (Master's Thesis, University of Helsinki, 1968); Maria Lähteenmäki, “Holhotuista vapaiksi: Väinö Voionmaa työväestön sivistysliikkeen rakentajana” [From guardianship to freedom: Väinö Voionmaa as the builder of the educational movement of the working people] in Valistajia, sivistäjiä, poliitikkoja ja asiantuntijoita: Näkökulmia aikuiskasvatuksen kentän vaikuttajiin, Kari Kantasalmi and Mauri Nest (eds.) (Helsinki, 2014), 161–180; Maria Lähteenmäki, Väinö Voionmaa: Puolue- ja geopoliitikko [Väinö Voionmaa: party- and geopolitician] (Helsinki, 2014). See also Jussi Pikkusaari, Työväen omaehtoisen sivistystyön aatteen kantavuus: Työväen Sivistysliitto 1919–1999 [The permanence of the ideology of the autonomous workers’ education: TSL 1919–1999] (Helsinki, 2014); Sakari Saaritsa and Sinikka Selin, Työväki ja sivistys [The working class people and sivistys] (Helsinki, 2016).

Regarding Nordic workers’ education, especially Sweden, see, for example: Burman, Anders and Sundgren, Per, Svenska Bildningstraditioner (Göteborg, 2012)Google Scholar; Gustavsson, Bengt, Bildningens Väg: Tre Bildningsideal i Svensk Arbetarrörelse 1880–1930 (Stockholm, 1991)Google Scholar; Jenny Jansson, “Manufacturing Consensus: The Making of the Swedish Reformist Working Class,” (Doctoral Dissertation, Uppsala Univeristy, 2012); Jansson, Jenny, “Class Formation in Sweden and Britain: Educating workers,” International Labor and Working Class History 90 (2016): 52–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sundgren, Per, Kulturen Och Arbetarrörelsen: Kulturpolitiska Strävanden Från August Palm till Tage Erlander (Stockholm, 2007)Google Scholar.

4. For example, Risto Alapuro and Henrik Stenius, “Kansanliikkeet loivat kansakunnan” [The social movements created the nation], in Kansa liikkeessä, Risto Alapuro et al. (eds.) (Helsinki, 1987), 7–49; Sirkka Ahonen and Jukka Rantala, Nordic lights; Burman and Sudgren, Svenska bildningstraditioner.

5. Sven Högnäs, “The Concept of Bildung and the Education of the Citizen - Traits and Development in the Nordic Countries 1870–2000,” in Nordic Lights: Education for Nation and Civic Society in the Nordic Countries 1850–2000, Sirkka Ahonen and Jukka Rantala (eds.) (Helsinki, 2002), 29–50; Burman and Sundgren, Svenska bildningstraditioner; Ahonen and Rantala, “Norden's Present to the World,” in Nordic Lights: Education for Nation and Civic Society in the Nordic Countries 1850–2000, 9–25.

6. Gustavsson, Bildningens väg.

7. Gougoulakis, Petros, “Popular Adult and Labor Education Movement in Sweden: History, Content, Pedagogy,” International Labor and Working-Class History 90 (2016): 12–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 17–18.

8. Sivistys, like Bildung, is not easily translated into English. Especially from the outlook of conceptual history sivistys and, for example, education are not similar concepts, even though Bildung is often translated as education (see, for example, Reinhart Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts [Stanford, 2002], 173–174). Therefore, in my conceptual analysis, I prefer to refer to the concept in its original form Sivistys.

9. Työläisopiskelija (Worker-student) (since 1967 Aikamerkki) has been released by the TSL nine times per year since 1928.

10. Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History; Koselleck, Reinhart, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

11. In Finland, workers’ education took place not only in the TSL but also in institutions such as municipal workers’ institutes (työväenopistot), the Workers’ Academy (Työväen Akatemia), and the Civic College (Kansalaiskorkeakoulu). Workers’ institutes were mainly municipal organizations offering adult education for the working class. They were based on the organization of the Swedish workers’ institutes. The Workers’ Academy was founded in 1924, and it was a folk high school organized by the labor movement to open access to higher education for the working-class people. It got important examples from other Nordic folk high schools and the English workers’ academies. The Civic College (later on School of Social Sciences) was founded in 1925. It was closely connected to the labor movement and shared the objective to open higher education for the labor movement, yet it was organized outside the labor movement. Similar institutions aiming to grant access to higher education for the working class have been established in many countries, such as the worker's faculties, rabfak's, in the Soviet union. The objectives of the TSL were a bit different, as its activities were not so directly aimed at opening access to higher education: TSL was to offer workers’ education for the working-class people; this could lead to further studies at other institutions, higher education included, but this was not the main goal.

12. See, for example, Steele, Tom, Knowledge Is Power!: The Rise and Fall of European Popular Educational Movements, 1848–1939 (Bern and Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar.

13. de Man, Henri, “Arbeiterbildung in der Welt,” Die Tat (4) 1926: 290–299Google Scholar; Marius Hansome, “Worlds Workers’ Educational Movements: Their Social Significance,” (Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia University, 1931), 94; Hopkins, Philip, Workers’ Education: An International Perspective (Milton Keynes and Philadelphia, 1985), 21Google Scholar.

14. Selig Perlman, Workers’ Education, in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 15 (1935): 484–487; Hopkins, Workers’ Education, 21.

15. Hopkins, Workers’ Education, 26–28.

16. Adler was most often cited for his book New People focusing on socialist education, Max Adler, Neue Menschen: Gedanken über sozialistische Erziehung (Saarbrücken, 2007 [1924]).

17. Gustavsson, Bildningens väg.

18. Anna Rajavuori, “Esityksen Politiikka: Sosialistinen agitaatio keskisuomalaisella maaseudulla 1906–1908” [The politics of performance: Socialist agitation in rural central Finland in 1906–1908] (Helsinki, 2017); Elina Hakoniemi, “Työläiset ja kansalaiset matkalla peruskouluun: työläisen ja kansalaisen käsitehistoriaa sosiaalidemokraattisessa koulutuspolitiikassa ja -toiminnassa n. 1890–1970” [Conceptual history of worker and citizen in social democratic educational policies and activities ca. 1890–1970], Finnish Labour Studies Yearbook 2017, 14–21. See also: Elina Hakoniemi, “Usko sivistykseen: Työväen Sivistysliiton perustamisvaiheen sivistyskäsitys” [Faith in sivistys: conceptualizing sivistys in the establishment of the Finnish Workers’ Educational Association] The Finnish Labour Studies Yearbook 2019, 4–16.

19. The rules of the TSL 1919, Työväen Sivistystyö 1 [Workers’ education 1], 85.

20. TSL/annual reports 1919–1970.

21. Kari Kantasalmi: “Kansan Sivistystyön Liitto: Toimintalinjoja ja refleksiivisyyden pulmia” [Civic Association for Adult Learning: Lines of action and problems of reflexivity] in Sivistystyön itseymmärrys: Tekstejä järjestöllisestä sivistystyöstä, Kari Kantasalmi, Liisa Korhonen, Jukka Tainio (eds.) (Helsinki, 2004), 7–71.

22. The analysis of the aspects of sivistys within Finnish workers’ education is a further developed version of the analysis in: Elina Hakoniemi “Sivistys yhteiskunnallisena voimana: Työväen sivistystyön sivistyskäsite” [Sivistys as a societal force: the concept of sivistys in workers’ education], in Sivistys ja kasvatus eilen ja tänään, Juhani Tähtinen, Jyrki Hilpelä, and Risto Ikonen (eds.) (Helsinki, 2018), 155–179.

23. Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliittoa perustamaan,” 2.

24. Väinö Voionmaa: Snellman ja köyhälistö [Snellman and the proletariat] (Helsinki, 1906), 3; See also, Lähteenmäki, Holhotuista vapaiksi, 161–164, 169; Lähteenmäki, Väinö Voionmaa, 96–97.

25. Gustavsson, Bildningens väg, 94–97, 108–111.

26. Max Adler, Neue Menschen.

27. Väinö Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliittoa perustamaan” [Establishing Workers’ Educational Association], Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, 30.1.1919, 2.

28. Väinö Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä” [Thoughts on the workers’ educational movement], in Työväen sivistystyö I (Helsinki, 1922), 5–13, 10–12. The same division is also, for example, in: Väinö Voionmaa, “Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita” [The foundations of the workers’ educational movement], in Työväen sivistystyö II (Helsinki 1939), 3–16, 11. See also Lähteenmäki, Holhotuista vapaiksi, 170–171, and Kalela, Työväen Sivistysliitto, 16–17; Työläisopiskelija, “Miksi työväki pyrkii sivistykseen” [Why the working class aims for sivistys], 1/29, 1–2. (Note: when the author of the article in Työläisopiskelija is not stated, the name of the magazine begins the reference).

29. Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä,” 12–13.

30. Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä,” 12; see also Työläisopiskelija, “Yksilö ja joukko sivistyselämässä” [The individual and the mass in sivistys life], 3/1929, 41–42.

31. “Suomen työväen henkinen nousu” [The intellectual rise of the Finnish working class people], Työläisopiskelija, 7/1929, 153–155, 154.

32. Ibid. Voionmaa had also quoted Natorp also in Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliikettä perustamaan,” 2.

33. Jansson, “Class Formation in Sweden and Britain,” 55, 63.

34. Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliikkeen perusteita,” 6.

35. Arvi Hautamäki, “Kokemuksia ja havaintoja työväen omaehtoisesta sivistystyöstä ja sen muodoista” [Experiences and observations about the autonomous workers’ education and its forms], in Työväen sivistystyö II (Helsinki, 1939), 100–130.

36. For example, J.H. Vehkamäki: “Työväen Sivistysliiton toimintatavoista” [The courses of action of the TSL], in Työväen sivistystyö I, (Helsinki, 1922), 36–49, 36.

37. Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä,” 6–7.

38. Voionmaa, “Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita,” 10.

39. Ibid., 5–6.

40. For example, Työläisopiskelija 3/35, “Olemmeko oikeutettuja puhumaan työväen sivistysliikkeestä” [Do we have the right to talk about a workers’ educational movement?], 49; Työläisopiskelija 7/1932, “Yleissivistys – työväen sivistys” [General sivistys – workers’ sivistys], 121–122.

41. Työläisopiskelija 1/1928, “Työhön käydessä” [When starting work], 1.

42. Ibid.

43. Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä,” 6, 10. See also Kalela, Työväen Sivistysliitto, 139.

44. For example, Mikko Ampuja: “Työväen Sivistysliitto,” Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 01.02.1919, 6; and Työläisopiskelija, “Opintokerhotyön merkitys työväenjärjestöille” [The significance of study circles for labor organizations], 1/1928, 2.

45. Väinö Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysriennot,” Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, 22.1.1919, 2,

46. For example, Väinö Voionmaa: “Kansan sivistämistä, sivistynyt kansa” [Educating people, educated people], Työläisopiskelija 9/1944, 237–328.

47. Hautamäki, “Kokemuksia ja havaintoja,” 100.

48. For example, Into Kallio, “Aatteellinen juhlatoiminta työväenliikkeessä” [Ideological events in the labor movement], Työläisopiskelija 8/1943, 222–223; Sylvi-Kyllikki Kilpi: “Proletaarisivistys” [Proletarian sivistys], Työläisopiskelija 3/1933; 33–35; Into Kallio: “Ajatuksia työväen nykyisestä kulttuuritoiminnasta” [Thoughts about the current cultural activities of working class people], Työläisopiskelija 1/1949, 16–17.

49. “Miksi työväki pyrkii sivistykseen,” 1; Työläisopiskelija 8/1934, “Työväen omatoiminen sivistystyö ja kansamme sivistyksellinen yhteisyys” [The autonomous education work or the working class people and the unity of our people's sivistys], 129; Väinö Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliitto ja sen sija Suomen työväenliikkeessä” [TSL and its status in the Finnish labor movement], Työläisopiskelija 6/1929, 104–105.

50. Työläisopiskelija 11/1928, “Työväen omatoimisen sivistystyön puolueettomuus” [The objectivity of the autonomous education of working class people], 1–2; R.H: Oittinen: “Sivistystyö vaaliaikana” [Educational work during elections], Työläisopiskelija 2/1944; 25–26; Työläisopiskelija 4/1951, “Tieteellinen totuus sivistystyömme tavoitteena” [Scientific truth as the goal of our educational work], 67; Voionmaa, “Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita”; Hautamäki, “Kokemuksia ja havaintoja”; Arvi Hautamäki, “Työväen Sivistysliiton toimintaperiaatteista ja asemasta työväenliikkeessä” [On the principles of the TSL and its status within the labor movement], Työväen omaehtoinen sivistystyö (Helsinki, 1954), 119–122; Arvi Hautamäki, “Tieteenomaisuus sivistystyömme eräänä tavoitteena” [Scientificality as one goal of our educational work], Työläisopiskelija 8/1957, 199–200.

51. Kalela, Työväen Sivistysliitto, 20.

52. See, for example, Voionmaa, “Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita,” 12–14.

53. Järvinen, Työväen Sivistysliiton, 35–37; see also Kalela, Työväen Sivistysliitto, 23.

54. Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliitto,” 103.

55. Voionmaa, “Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä,” 6.

56. Paavo Niemi: “Ei sivistymistä ilman leipää” [No sivistys without bread], Työläisopiskelija 8/1937, 152.

57. Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History, 170–207.

58. “J.H.V.”: “Kuinka näyttäisin sivistyneeltä” [How to look like someone who has sivistys?], Työläisopiskelija 4/1928, 9.

59. Arvi Hautamäki, “Lisääntyykö sivistys elintason myötä” [Will sivistys increase with standards of living], Työläisopiskelija 4/63, 117.

60. N.R. af Ursin, “Lukemistaidosta” [On the skill of reading], Työväen sivistystyö 1, (Helsinki 1922), 51–53, 55.

61. See, for example, Työläisopiskelija 2/1953, “Luonnontiede työväen sivistystyössä” [Natural sciences in workers’ education], 27–28.

62. Siippainen: “Lainakirjasto – itseopiskelijan kotiopettaja” [Library – the private tutor of the self-student], Työläisopiskelija 1/1945, 12–14; Ellilä, “Kodin kirjasto” [The home library], Työläisopiskelija 5/48, 99–102.

63. For example: Ursin, “Lukemistaidosta,” 53; Aaltonen: “Miten ja miksi luemme kaunokirjallisuutta I” [How and why we read fiction, part 1], Työläisopiskelija 6/1961, 104–105; Aaltonen: “Miten ja miksi luemme kaunokirjallisuutta II” [How and why we read fiction, part 2], Työläisopiskelija 7/1961, 140–141; Työläisopiskelija 4/1934, “Opintokerhojen ainevalinta, [Choosing the subject of study circles], 54; Työläisopiskelija 8/1962, “Kirjallisuus kasvattajana” [Literature as educator], 226–227, 230.

64. For example, Työläisopiskelija 5/1948: “Kuvaamataiteiden harrastusten tukeminen” [Supporting leisure activities in the fine arts], 97–98; Työläisopiskelija 4/1959: “Kuvataiteiden harrastuksen elvyttäminen” [Resurrecting leisure activities in the fine arts], 71; Sakari Saarikivi: “Kuvataide ja työväki,” Työläisopiskelija 2/1952; Työläisopiskelija 3/1933: “Kuvataide omaksemme” [Claiming fine arts], 58–59.

65. For example, E.K. Louhikko: “Työläisten matkailusta sivistys- ja kasvatustekijänä” [On working class traveling as a factor of sivistys and education], Työväen sivistystyö II: Työväen Sivistysliitto 1919–1939 (Helsinki, 1939), 225–231; Pekka Railo: “Matkailun sivistyksellinen merkitys” [The sivistys meaning of traveling], Työläisopiskelija 5/1939, 107–108.

66. For example, Voionmaa, Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä, 7.

67. Työläisopiskelija 9/1931, “Sivistystyömme yksilöllisiä näkökulmia” [Individualistic aspects of our educational work], 157.

68. Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History, 181–184.

69. Voionmaa, “Suomen työväen henkinen nousu,” 154–155, quote 155.

70. N.R. af Ursin, “Sivistyksen merkityksestä ihmiselle” [The meaning of sivistys for a human being], Työläisopiskelija 9/1929, 189–191.

71. R.H. Oittinen, “Tiedon merkitys nykyaikana” [The significance of knowledge in today's world], Työläisopiskelija 8/1962, 231; see also Laurila, “Työväenliikkeen taidepolitiikka” [The art politics of the labor movement], Työläisopiskelija 9–10/66, 254–257.

72. R.H. Oittinen, “Työväenliikkeen kulttuuripoliittiset tavoitteet” [The labor movement's cultural political goals], in Työväen omaehtoinen sivistystyö (Helsinki, 1954), 49– 81, 58.

73. Voionmaa, “Työväen sivistysriennot,” 2. The same idea held its position for a long time, see, for example, Voionmaa, Työväen Sivistysliikkeen perusteita, 10–11.

74. Voionmaa, “Työväen Sivistysliikkeen perusteita,” 11.

75. For example, Väinö Voionmaa, “Puhe Helsingin työväensivistysjärjestön 10v. juhlassa 12.4.1942” [Voionmaa's speech in the 10-year anniversary of the Helsinki workers’ educational organization], Työläisopiskelija 5/1942, 141–143.

76. For example, Into Kallio, “Työväen omatoiminen sivistystyö ja yhteiskunta” [The autonomous education of working class people and society], Työläisopiskelija 3/1938, 45; Yrjö Kallinen, “Työväen sivistystyöstä ennen ja nyt” [Workers’ education before and now], Työläisopiskelija 6/1946, 113–114; Työläisopiskelija 4/1949, “TSL toiminut kolme vuosikymmentä” [TSL in action for three decades], 116–118; Oiva Valavaara, “Työväen sivistyspyrkimysten monihaaraiset juuret” [The multiple roots of workers’ education], Työläisopiskelija 2/1959, 34–36; Voionmaa, Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita, 5; Työläisopiskelija 6/41, “Oittisen 15.5.1941 pitämä radiopuhe” [A radio speech by Oittinen], 161–162; see also, Oittinen, Työväenliikkeen kulttuuripoliittiset tavoitteet, 51–58.

77. Pekka Railo, “Työväen omatoimisesta kansansivistystyöstä” [On the autonomous education of working class people], Työläisopiskelija 4/1928, 2–4; Voionmaa Työväen sivistysliikkeen perusteita, 4; Oittinen, “Uusi henki,” 71; Yrjö Kallinen, “Poliittisen kasvatuksen tarpeesta” [On the need for political education], Työläisopiskelija 8/1962, 224–225, 230.

78. For example, Työläisopiskelija 4/1933, “ Opiskelun merkitys kokemusten kartuttajana” [The meaning of education in gaining experience], 49; Työläisopiskelija 2/1933, “Kasvatuskysymysten opiskelun tarpeellisuudesta” [On the necessity for studying educational issues], 17.

79. Arvi Hautamäki, “Ihmisen kasvattaminen” [Educating people], Työläisopiskelija 8–9/1955, 195–196; “Tajuammeko kasvamisen vaatimukset” [Do we understand the demands for growth], Työläisopiskelija 1/64, 3–4; Väinö Linna, “Kansalaisten sivistyksestä: Puhe Pohjoismaiden kansansivistyskonferenssissa 7.8.1963” [On the sivistys of the citizens: A speech at the Nordic conference of popular education], Työläisopiskelija 7/1963, 183, 186–189; Olavi Hurri, “Jättiläistehtävä” [The gigantic task], Työläisopiskelija 9–10/1965, 235–236. See also Voionmaa, Mietteitä työväen sivistysliikkeestä, 7.

80. Antikainen, “In Search of the Nordic Model in Education”; Nina Volckmar, “Knowledge and Solidarity: The Norwegian Social-Democratic School Project in a Period of Change, 1945–2001,” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 1/2008, 1–15; Alfred Oftedal Telhaug, Odd Asbjørn Mediås and Petter Aasen, “The Nordic Model in Education: Education as Part of the Political System in the Last 50 Years, ” Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 3/2006, 245–283.

81. The SDP's educational policy program 1949; The SDP's short term educational policy program 1957; The SDP's cultural policy program 1963; The SDP's program, “The reforming school” 1969.

82. R.H. Oittinen, “Koulu ja vapaa kansansivistystyö” [School and liberal popular education], Työläisopiskelija 4/1952, 72.

83. Ibid., 72–73, quote 72. See also: R.H. Oittinen, “Kansansivistystyö on kasvatuksen maailmaa” [Popular education is a part of the educational world], Työläisopiskelija 7/1952, 111–112; R.H. Oittinen, “Opintokerhotyö kasvatusjärjestelmässämme” [Study circles in our educational system], Työläisopiskelija 1/1957, 2; Oiva Valavaara, “Koulu-uudistus ja kansansivistystyö” [School reform and popular education], Työläisopiskelija 4/1957, 83–84, 87, 97.