1. Christie’s doctorate dissertation was published in 1960. Nils Christie, Unge norske lovovertredere [young Norwegian law offenders] (Oslo, Oslo University Press, 1960).
2. Heido Mork Lomell and Vidar Halvorsen, “Nils Christie, 1928–2015,” Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention 16, no. 2 (2015): 144.
3. Nils Christie, “Conflicts as Property,” British Journal of Criminology 17, no. 1 (1977): 2.
4. Christie, “Conflicts as Property,” 1.
5. Christie, “Conflicts as Property,” 8, 7.
6. Most notably, Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).
7. During his time as secretary of education in Rio, Brazilian educator Freire’s engagement of the local communities in designing the frameworks for the communities’ schools (escola cidadã) provides a succinct example of how this notion can be enacted in practice. See Moacir Gadotti and Carlos Alberto Torres, “Paulo Freire: Education for Development,” Development and Change 40, no. 6 (2009): 1255–1267.
8. Currently, the growing issue of surplus populations—referring to the surging number of (educated) adults looking for work—seems to indicate that the need for other and, in Christie’s spirit, more communal modes of organizing the activation of society’s members might be worth pursuing for older members of the population as well. See Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Inventing the Future (London: Verso, 2016).
9. For readers interested in further exploring these connections, we recommend Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron’s classic, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture (London: Sage, 1977).
10. The Camphill Schools are a global movement of nongovernmental schools serving children and youths with developmental disabilities. For more information on the Camphill movement—or to arrange a visit to one of its communities, as Judith Suissa describes in her essay—we encourage you to see www.camphillschool.org.
11. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Continuum, 1970). See also Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New York: Basic Books, 1976).
12. “Interview with Betsy DeVos, the Reformer,” Philanthropy (Spring 2013), https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/article/spring-2013-interview-with-betsy-devos-the-reformer.
13. Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, In Defense of the School: A Public Issue (Leuven: Education, Culture and Society Publishers, 2014): 17.
14. Two classical works undergirding these positions, respectively, are US scholar Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), and French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991).
15. The widespread promotion of choice and performance measurement in global education policies are hallmark examples of how efficiency-oriented policies have tended to produce adverse results when looking at school segregation, social control, and academic improvement. For an overview of these policies and their effects in the contexts of the United States and United Kingdom, respectively, see Megan Erickson, Class War (London: Verso, 2015); Stephen Ball, Global Education Inc.: New Policy Networks and the Neo-Liberal Imaginary (London: Routledge, 2012).
16. Gert Biesta, Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy (London: Routledge, 2010), 2. See also Steen Nepper Larsen, “Blindness in Seeing: A Philosophical Critique of the Visible Learning Paradigm in Education,” Education Sciences 9, no. 1 (2019): 1–12.
17. In their 2015 Demain, French filmmakers Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion document several ongoing projects where people are engaging in more sustainable relationships with their surroundings, inviting communities to engage more actively in the quality and development of various public services.
1. All references will be given in this form. A complete reference list can be found in the back of the book.
2. Editors’ note: Although he doesn’t specify as such, Christie is most likely referring to chapter 3.
3. Editors’ note: In this passage, Christie conflates imagery from 19th century Dakota Territories with the conditions on the Lakota reservations in the 1960s. While both Sitting Bull (1831–1891) and Gerald One Feather (1938–2014) are associated with the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, the vastly different political contexts surrounding their lives are somewhat obscured. Generally, when reading this passage, it is important to bear in mind that Christie is referring to the period in the Pine Ridge reservation as they are described by Wax and colleagues around the 1960’s.
4. Editors’ note: Christie uses the Norwegian word Indianerne (Indians) throughout the chapter in reference to the native population of the Pine Ridge reservation. In this text, the terms Native Americans or Sioux people will be used.
5. Editors’ note: For readers interested in exploring the topic of cultural deprivation as it was discussed around the time of Christie’s writing, Paul Willis’s Learning to Labor (1977), Basil Bernstein’s Class, Codes and Control (1971), and parts of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) provide succinct analyses of the problematic relations between dominant cultures and upbringing in different contexts.
6. Editors’ note: Anchored in the Butler Act of 1944 (also known as the 1944 Education Act), schools in England at the time of Hargreaves’s study were structured around a highly meritocratic system. Generally, the system was based on sorting students into three variations of secondary schooling depending on their performance in the primary school leaving exam (known as “eleven-plus”), but districts such as Lumley has some degree of autonomy in designing their own system. In the introduction to the book cited by Christie, Hargreaves explains the Council in Lumley’s policy for secondary schools, which provides a useful backdrop to the situation of Adrian and Clint:
In Lumley School the pupils are streamed by ability and achievement. On entry, they are not specially assessed for allocation to streams. The Headmaster assigns boys to the five streams on the basis of their scores in the eleven-plus examination. Where two boys with the same eleven-plus score fall at a point of division between two streams, the boy with the more favourable Primary school report is assigned to the higher stream. The school is ‘fed’ by six main Primary schools, all of which are in the immediate vicinity of the school, and the new entrants are divided into five streams, A to E, the lowest (E) stream containing boys who are considered backward or retarded (Hargreaves 1967, 2).
7. Editors’ note: Christie engages in wordplay here to highlight two points in the original text: the positions that the students find themselves in are both external (ytre) and extreme (ytterliggående).
1. There are, however, also important differences between the two. I have discussed some of these in relation to the field of criminology in Christie 1971.
2. Some of the content found in this chapter comes from three articles I have written on youths over the past three years. References to these articles can be found in the literature list (Christie 1968, 1969, 1970).
3. Editors’ note: Christie’s tale of the Norwegian family moving to town—and as a corollary, its negative implications for the children’s usefulness—echoes a concern with situated learning formulated perhaps most clearly in the works of Dewey. In The School and Society, Dewey thus writes that “we cannot overlook the importance for educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got with nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the actual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their social necessities and uses.” J. Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 8.
2. Editors’ note: Dokka (1913–1999) was a Norwegian scholar at the University of Oslo from 1955–1980. Besides the doctoral dissertation that Christie references here, Dokka wrote several books, such as Reforms in Norwegian Schools from 1950s to 1980 [Reformarbeid i norsk skole: 1950-årene—1980] (1981) and 250 Years of Schools [En skole gjennom 250 år: den norske allmueskole, folkeskole, grunnskole 1739–1989] (1988).
3. Editors’ note: Norwegian rigsdaler was a type of currency used in Norway between 1816 and 1878.
4. Editors’ notes: Hovdhaugen (1908–1996) was a Norwegian politician, farmer, and public school teacher. He was the secretary general for the Farmer’s Party in 1946–1949, and held positions in councils such as the Norwegian Language Council and Norwegian Broadcasting Council. He wrote eighteen books on a wide range of topics including immigration to the United States, cultural and local history, and issues relating to farming. He withdrew from his position on the Nobel committee after Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) and Lê Đuức Thọ (1911–1990) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Also, until the system was abolished in 2009, the Norwegian Parliament consisted of two complementary units, the Odelsting and Lagting. The Odelsting was responsible for considering all bills before sending them on to the Lagting. In certain respects, the structure was similar to the current division of responsibility and powers between the House of Representatives and Senate in the US Congress.
5. Editors’ note: Undheim (1905–1988) was a Norwegian politician and member of Parliament for the Center Party in 1961–1969. He was the principal of Rogaland High School in 1947–1972.
6. Editors’ note: Dyring (1916–1975) was a Norwegian politician, member of the Norwegian resistance movement during World War II, and in charge of the Larvik area for the Norwegian Home Guard in 1948–1955. He was a member of Parliament for the Center Party in 1965–73.
7. Editors’ note: Hovi (1905–1980) was a Norwegian politician, farmer, and member of Parliament in 1961–1973 for the Labor Party. He was a member of the Standing Committee on Education and Church Affairs (Kirke- og undervisningskomitéen) from 1965 to 1969.
8. Editors’ note: Lindbekk (1933–2017) was a Norwegian professor of sociology at the University of Trondheim (now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology) from 1969 onward. He was also a politically active member of the Conservative Party. He has published several works such as Educational Systems and the Attainment Process (1987) and Educational Reforms and Their Attainment Outcomes (2001).
9. Editors’ notes: Christie seems to be mistaken regarding the year of publication of Young’s book. The correct year is 1958, and not 1966. Michael Young (1915–2002) was a British sociologist, writer, social activist, and politician for the Labor Party. He famously coined the term “meritocracy,” founded the Institute for Community Studies (2005, Young Foundation), and was involved in the establishment of other institutions such as the Open University, National Consumer Council, National Extension College, and Open College of the Arts.
10. For an overview, see Lindbekk 1968.
11. Cf. Lindbekk 1964, especially tables 5a–5b.
12. This seems to be one of the key points for Illich (1969a) and the circle of educators he convened in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
13. Editors’ note: A more recent examination of these connections can be found in A. Wolf, Does Education Matter?: Myths about Education and Economic Growth (London: Penguin Books, 2003).
14. Editors’ note: The University Library refers here to the current Royal Danish Library, which used to be part of the University of Copenhagen until 1930, when it was subsumed under the Ministry of Education.
15. Editors’ note: This trend still seems to exist. The global scientific output doubles every nine years, according to R. Van Noorden, “Global Scientific Output Doubles Every Nine Years,” Nature, May 7, 2014, http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/05/global-scientific-output-doubles-every-nine-years.html.
16. Editors’ note: As made clear in his work on restorative justice and social inequality, Christie’s skeptical stance toward the open school should not be read in the sense proposed by some conservative educators and politicians—that is, as advocating one national curriculum. If anything, Christie’s proposed notion of overview should be read as a call for educators to promote school activities that are culturally, linguistically, and demographically sustaining, rejecting the naturalization of dominant perspectives in curriculums and schools. Sealing up the bubble, in short, does not necessarily entail creating a similar bubble in all spaces but rather suggests a practice based on acknowledging the values and sovereignty of multiple cultural spaces. For more recent investigations of these practices of recognition and cultural sustenance, see L. Delpit, Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (New York: New Press, 2006); D. Paris and H. S. Alim, eds., Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World (New York: Teachers College Press, 2014).
1. Editors’ note: Andenæs (1923–1975) was a famous Norwegian lawyer, publisher, and member of Parliament for the Norwegian Labor Party.
2. I agree unconditionally with Egil Frøyland (1971, 80), who in a spirited article writes that the National Curriculum Committee has set out to create a “school that can be described as a system for the production of preranked and quality-sealed students ready to be funneled into the stations of society where they may best be of service to the gross national product.” The committee has—still in the view of Frøyland—prioritized the values of production over the values of the individual, creating a system that places value in their ability to be replaced rather than seeing them as valuable in and of themselves (egenverdi). “The committee has chosen to ignore the questionable responsibility of schools to select and rank students according to their capabilities. We will, accordingly, still have an educational system based on selection—or a ‘separator-school for everyone,’ as Hans Tangerud put it” (Frøyland 1971, 79).
3. Editors’ note: Christie elaborates on this point—and the general nature and effects of a subject-based school—in chapter 5.
4. Editors’ note: The so-called Steen Committee acquired its name from the committee’s chair, Norwegian politician Reiulf Steen (1933–2014). Among many other political positions, Steen was notably the vice president of Socialist International from 1978 to 1983.
5. Editors’ note: Harbo (1927–) was a professor of pedagogy at the University of Trondheim between 1971 and 1982, and the University of Oslo from 1983 to 1997. He is the author of Introduction to Didactics [Innføring i didaktikk] (1966), and coauthor of The Struggle for the National Standards [Kampen om Mønsterplanen: språk og sak] (1982) with R. Myhre and P. Solberg.
6. Editors’ note: Homans (1910–1989) was an American sociologist. He is the originator of social exchange theory and author of The Human Group (1951)—where the analysis of Hilltown can be found in chapter 13—and Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms (1961).
7. Editors’ note: Christie elaborates on and provides an example of this point in the “A Place to Be” section in chapter 5.
8. Editors’ note: ABC refers to books for beginning readers.
9. Editors’ note: The references L and R here refer to, respectively, Lov, meaning “act,” and Reglement og instrukser for grunnskolen, meaning “regulations and guidelines for primary and lower secondary schools.”
10. Editors’ note: Jaabæk (1814–1894) was a Norwegian farmer and politician. He founded the Liberal Party of Norway, and throughout the duration of his lengthy career in the Norwegian Parliament, was an advocate for economic liberalism and the devolving of governance to local institutions.
1. Dokka (1967) describes this as applying to teachers while Edvard Befring (1971) shows that much of the same holds true for university-schooled educators.
2. Editors’ note: Especially in the late 1960s, an array of new schools with an open classroom design began to appear throughout the Western world offering alternative learning spaces. For a historical overview of changing school architecture over the course of the last century, see T. Hille, Modern Schools: A Century of Design for Education (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011).
3. Within large and dense bureaucracies, specific and isolated solutions often arise, such as the National Council for Innovations in Education, Oslo Youth Office, or new educational centers that are starting to emerge. In these cases, the bureaucrat will obtain significantly more decision-making freedom than is usual within a bureaucracy. This greater freedom leads to rapid growth. But looming within this growth is the beginning of the end: the growth of these specific and isolated solutions—frequently initiated as breathing spaces within the bureaucracy—produces a separate bureaucracy all its own. The increased size implies that the decisions have consequences, also beyond the scope of the bureaucrats’ actual purview, beyond the parameters of the breathing spaces. This increased influence, in turn, will cultivate counterforces elsewhere in the system and undermine their decision-making freedom as soon as the breathing spaces that have been created become visible for others. New breathing spaces will then presumably appear elsewhere. It would be advantageous if such small breathing spaces didn’t exist, so the system in its entirety would be forced to change in important and permanent ways.
4. Ministry of Education and Research, press release no. 31, August 1971. Here the Ministry of Education would appear to be hinting at reforms that have not yet been incorporated into the Curriculum Guidelines: “As soon as possible, the ministry will aim to abolish the final exam in primary school.” This does not necessarily mean that exams and/or standardized tests will be eliminated but rather may imply that steps will be taken in that direction. Furthermore, the press release states that “the ministry is of the opinion that proficiency in German should no longer be a requirement for admission to upper secondary school.” Something important may happen.
5. For a sharp critique of many of these factors, see Tangerud 1971.
6. Editors’ note: In recent years, the notion of involving students in gardening, farming processes, and cooking has gained increasing attention. Notably, Alice Waters’s collaboration with the King Middle School in Berkeley, California—known as the Edible Schoolyard Project—has drawn attention to the educational and experiential benefits of establishing functional teaching gardens on school sites. See https://edibleschoolyard.org/about.
7. Not only is this self-evident, but it has been amply researched. Roger Barker and Paul Gump are pioneers within this field. Based on extremely detailed assessments of ordinary schoolchildren’s behavior within both small and large schools, they document how small schools to a larger degree force students to participate in extracurricular activities. Not only do the students from these small schools participate more frequently in such situations, but they participate more actively and in situations in which they assume greater responsibility (cf. Barker and Gump 1964; Barker 1968).
8. Editors’ note: cf. the “And the teachers?” subsection in this chapter.
9. Editors’ note: cf. the “A Place to Learn” section in this chapter.
10. To be sure, the Standing Committee on Education and Church Affairs (Recommendations to the Odelsting XLV, 1968–1969, 8) highlights that “primary and lower secondary school as a whole must be based on the ethical values of Christianity.” With the arrival of the current subjects-based school, however, compliance with this is of course impossible.
1. Editors’ note: Here Christie is referring to the Greek word scholē (σχολή). For a more contemporary take on the notion of schools as a form of leisure time, see J. Masschelein and M. Simons, In Defense of the School: A Public Issue (Leuven: Education, Culture and Society Publishers, 2013).
2. For a description of Vidaråsen, see Engel 1971a.