The Swedish author and educator Ellen Key (1849–1926) became one of the most prominent writers on educational matters in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, following the publication of The Century of the Child in 1900. It is less widely known that this pioneer of progressive education and women’s and children’s rights also advocated the improvement of humanity through eugenics and publicly endorsed the foundation of the Swedish Institute for Racial Biology in 1921.
In this talk, Emma Vikström will present parts of her recently published thesis on eugenics and education in Ellen Key’s work. Focusing on the connection between progressive education and eugenics, Vikström will illustrate how eugenics was integrated into Key’s pedagogy as part of her educational aims, proposed learning content and ideas about socialisation. The analysis shows that Key strived to create a new kind of human being by combining the two knowledge fields, which was possible through her problematisation of taken-for-granted dichotomies, including for example nature/nurture, body/soul and sense/sensibility.