ABSTRACT
This chapter compares teacher types in the Nordic countries with those in Germany, Ireland, and the United States. It explains the emergence of organic versus colonising teacher types by looking at the geographic, social, and educational backgrounds of teachers. The chapter analyses the cultural significance of recruitment into and location of pre-service teacher education institutions in the period between ca. 1880 and 1920. With reference to Norbert Elias and others, it is argued that all nation-states must be understood as survival units with specific national cultural survival strategies, including in the area of education. The chapter distinguishes between two ideal types: a culturally expansive strategy and a culturally defensive one. Descriptive statistical analysis of quantitative data on teacher recruitment patterns (sociocultural background, rural/urban origin, gender, etc.), and the rationales behind the geographical location of pre-service teacher educational institutions, is combined with qualitative and historical analysis. By mixing methods, it becomes possible to assess the quantitative data on ‘urban’ versus ‘rural’ and ‘elite’ versus ‘folk’ recruitment, and the male/female recruitment ratios in the Nordic region, before assessing the broader cultural and political significance of these recruitment patterns in an international comparative perspective.
