Abstract
In this chapter, we aim to analyse differences and similarities between Sweden and Brazil in terms of education performance. We emphasize two periods marked by globalization and modernization drives in education: the first period stretches from circa 1870 to about 1910, when economic integration and the Second Industrial Revolution opened up opportunities and posed challenges to both countries. For Brazil, we also extend our study to include the 1920s, which is an interesting decade in terms of expansion and innovation in education. The second period begins in 1945 and ends in the early 1970s, when increasing world trade and fast technological transformation challenged the two countries. Education played different roles in the two countries. In Brazil, education expanded as a weak and delayed response to the challenges posed by globalization. Thus, education did not play an important role in the limited modernization that took place from the 1870s to the 1970s. In Sweden, by contrast, education was an integral part of modernization processes. The country made a head start thanks to the relative abundance of human capital in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and education continued to play a vital role in the building of the welfare state between 1945 and 1970.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Lee and Lee (2016) defined a ceiling at 100%, even though gross enrolment ratios can be larger than 100%.
- 3.
While the power of states (formerly provinces) increased, the central government had more financial resources and armed forces than all states combined (Topik, 1987).
- 4.
On the role of immigrants in the industrialization of São Paulo, see Dean (1969). Summerhill (2003) argues that railroads built from the late nineteenth century led to efficiency gains of between 6 and 8% of GDP in 1913. On the expansion of the coffee economy and modernization, see Cano (1977) and Hanley (2005).
- 5.
In cultural terms, this was epitomized by the 1922 Modern Art Week in São Paulo, which attracted attention to modern Brazilian artists and scandalized more conservative members of the elite.
- 6.
Considering only the population over 15 years of age in 1920, 57.1% of men over were illiterate, while the illiteracy rate for women in the same age group reached 62.8%.
- 7.
The technical college in Gothenburg was founded as early as 1829 but the school was initially more a vocational school. In 1850, an ‘upper part’ was added, with high-quality technical education lasting three to four years.
- 8.
As we have seen, boys and girls had separate courses in the practical subjects, and there is some anecdotal evidence that girls received less education in history and geography (Aquilonius, 1942).
- 9.
The Vargas period (1930–1945) is formally divided into three stages: provisional (1930–1934), constitutional (1934–1937) and the openly autocratic Estado Novo (1937–1945).
- 10.
The country managed to keep the ISI strategy alive until the second oil shock, but the second oil shock and the subsequent debt crisis hit the Brazilian economy in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
- 11.
From 1970 onwards, Lee and Lee’s (2016) figures consider the new eight-grade primary level (after the 1971 reform). These figures cannot be compared to earlier periods.
- 12.
Tax revenues increased from 16.0% of GDP in 1963 to 26.0% in 1969.
- 13.
This does not deny the importance of SENAI. Former President Lula, a trade union leader, was trained at SENAI, like several of his colleagues, in the metallurgical sector (Weinstein, 1996).
- 14.
Barro and Lee (2013) may have underestimated average years of schooling figures in Brazil, particularly from 1970 to 1980. An ongoing research by Julia Walter and Thomas Kang has found 4.2 years in 1980. While the methodology of this study was specifically devised for Brazilian data and is not comparable to Barro and Lee’s, the difference is large enough to call our attention. Nevertheless, 4.2 years is still a low level even bearing in mind Latin American standards at the time.
- 15.
The most important factor behind the rise in income inequality during the 1960s. Langoni may have overlooked the effect of the wage-setting policies of the military regime on inequality, as Fishlow (1972) pointed out, but his general point remains important.
- 16.
In 1960, about 45% of the graduates from lower secondary school continued to upper secondary school and about 15% to technical or commercial schools (Ohlsson, 1986, figures X:4 and X:5).
- 17.
The first Folk high schools (folkhögskolor) were founded in Denmark, based on Grundtvig’s ideas on citizenship for the rural masses. In Sweden, the first schools were established in 1868. Citizenship as well as practical knowledge in agriculture were core subjects in the Swedish schools. The concept was later used also by other organizations; in 1901, for example, the labour movement (Social democratic party and the trade unions) founded a Folk high school (Lundh Nilsson & Nilsson, 2010).
- 18.
The elementary school built on the previous primary school, which was extended to seven grades in the 1930s and 1940s and to eight grades in the early 1950s.
- 19.
Part-time vocational courses were not included. Instead, they became the bulk of a new form of schools, called municipal education for adults, which started in 1968 (Nilsson, 2014).
- 20.
For students in the technical programme, there also existed a fourth, optional, year, mainly for those who wanted to enter the labour market rather than continue studies in technical colleges or universities.
- 21.
With the transformation of the education system discussed above, the lower secondary level became part of the mandatory comprehensive school.
- 22.
The figures refer to general, commercial and technical upper secondary school.
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Kang, T., Nilsson, A. (2022). The Role of Education in Modernization Drives in Brazil and in Sweden. In: Álvarez, J., Prado, S. (eds) Scandinavia and South America—A Tale of Two Capitalisms. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09198-8_6
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