Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Introduction. In order to examine the consequences that a changed view of the child had on early twentieth-century teaching in Sweden, this article analyses a battle that erupted when a proposal for new lesson content for Swedish school gymnastics was presented.

Material and methods. The study method is a comparative qualitative analysis of texts which present the views of the supporters and opponents of the proposal. The data analysis is based on a model showing five different constructions of childhood: a moment of innocence and purity; a period of lacking, but with naturally unfolding potential for, rational power; the primitive stage of human evolution; a time for redemption: saving the child from his/her sinful nature; and a period of active growth.

Results. For the proposal's supporters, the fact that they mainly regarded childhood as a time of active growth meant a form of gymnastics more suited to children and their needs as well as a desire to get them to participate and become involved. For the proposal's opponents, the notion of childhood as the primitive stage of human evolution meant that considerable space was accorded to order movements, commands, and other military elements designed to subjugate and control in order to develop and civilise pupils in accordance with the values and ideals this side represented.

Conclusions. The findings show that the views of both sides concerning which gymnastics should be practised can be linked to different notions of the child.

Ridning kan ha stor betydelse för personer med fysiska funktionsnedsättningar. Som rehabilitering för kroppen, men också för att stärka självkänslan och att vara en del i en gemenskap. Hästen gör det dessutom möjligt att få tillbaka delar av livet före sjukdomen eller skadan. Under 1900-talet skapade två världskrig tillsammans med flera polioepidemier ett behov av olika former av rehabilitering. Ridning blev ett sätt att möta dessa behov. Behandlingsformen användes först i England men spreds sig sedan snabbt över Europa och till Nordamerika. Att polioskadade Lis Hartel från Danmark tog en silvermedalj i dressyr i OS i Helsingfors 1952 belyste ytterligare ridningens förtjänster. Det gav också personer med funktionsnedsättningar en möjlighet att tävla mot icke funktionsnedsatta.

Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were used to examine the influence of riding on the identity construction of people with disabilities. The 15 participants, three men and 12 women, were between 15 and 65 years old and have various physical disabilities. The data analysis derives from identity theory, a social–psychological theory that understands identity as an interaction between the individual and society. The findings show that: the informants either acquire a new identity as a rider or they resume with the rider identity they had before their illness or accident; riding offers a link to their previous lives; and riding helps to focus on what the informants can do, and not, as this group is often viewed by society, on what they cannot do. The findings thus show that riding can influence the identity construction of people with disabilities.

Elin Falk var gymnastikdirektör och är en av de kvinnor som haft stor betydelse för svensk gymnastikpedagogik.

Elin Falk var gymnastikdirektör och är en av de kvinnor som haft stor betydelse för svensk gymnastikpedagogik.

Det är uppenbart att det inte bara är i Sverige som mötet mellan nyantagna studenter och högre utbildning numera allt oftare utmynnar i ömsesidig besvikelse och missnöje. Studenterna är inte redo för den förhöjda kravnivå som högre studier innebär, och läroanstalterna har inte sett sig föranlåtna, eller lyckats, skapa en inlärningsmiljö som är anpassad till studenternas lägre ingångsvärden. Vi nödgas hoppa över djupare analyser av möjliga orsaker till det uppkomna läget, och konstaterar endast att situationen kräver sådana analyser, och åtföljande verkstad. I väntan på att det händer – och vi håller inte andan – kan åtminstone idrottsstudenter nu ta del av en, enligt vår recensent, alldeles utmärkt grundläggande manual för universitetsstudier inom idrott riktad till förstaårsstudenter. Pia Lundquist Wanneberg har läst, och imponerats av, Study Skills for Sports Studies av Tara Magdalinski (Routledge). Enligt förlaget är detta den enda boken i sitt slag, och att döma av vår recensents positiva bedömning lär det för närvarande knappast behövas några andra. Författaren är senior lektor vid University College Dublin Centre for Sports Studies där hon också belönats för sina pedagogiska insatser. Pia Lundquist Wanneberg säger inte att Magdalinskis nya bok bör sättas i händerna på alla idrottsstudenter under första dagen på högskolan, men det är en slutsats som åtminstone denne redaktör drar av recensionen.

Inom idrottsforskningen pratar man ofta, med Alan Guttmann, om begreppet sportifiering eller försportligande, den process som beskriver övergången från rituella fysiska spel och lekar till tävlingsidrott i modern mening. På ett likartat sätt kan man tala om försportligandet av akademin, av forskning och högre utbildning. Den processen började vid olika tidpunkter i olika länder och olika vetenskapliga discipliner – till exempel utfördes idrottspsykologiska experiment av Norman Triplett i USA redan på 1890-talet, medan den första utexaminerade idrottsvetaren i Storbritannien lämnade Liverpool Polytechnic 1975. Svenska Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan grundades 1913, men ämnet gymnastik hade introducerats vid Københavns Universitet redan 1909. Just det, för precis 100 år sedan. Exakt när Institut for Idræt bildades har inte kunnat fastställas, men det är i dess hägn idrottsforskningen vid KU bedrivs numera, och det är där man på olika sätt firar 100-årsjubileet. Bland har man givit ut en jubileumsbok, Forskning i bevægelse: Et nyt forskningsfelt i et 100-årigt perspektiv, sammanställd av Anne Lykke Pulsen med flera, och utgiven av universitetsförlaget Museum Tusculanum. Vi bad Pia Lundquist Wanneberg om en recension, som vi dessutom gärna ville kunna publicera under jubileumsåret, och det fick vi, en grundlig genomgång av en imponerande och spännande hundraårig vetenskapshistoria, präglad av såväl dialog som kamp. Vår recensent uppfattar också boken som en utmaning inför GIHs stora jubileum 2013.

This paper examined a form of 19th century globally spread physiotherapy known as Swedish medical gymnastics. The goal of the research was to determine the aim of medical gymnastics, its elements and its performance style. The study also investigated why medical gymnastics had such a large global impact? Applying a qualitative text analysis, the results showed that medical gymnastics, through individually tailored movements, aimed to restore health, which for various reasons had declined. Furthermore, the treatment made particular use of passive movements carried out by someone other than the patient. Even massage was included. However, there were also active movements, under the supervision of or supported by a gymnast. As for the global spread, two factors contributed to this: first, its scientific and philosophical foundations were typical of the period; and second, recent graduates of the Royal Central Gymnastics Institute in Stockholm went abroad to promote Ling gymnastics, the type of gymnastics to which medical gymnastics belonged. Medical gymnastics treatment became an important source of income for both the graduates and the Royal Central Gymnastics Institute. This led, ultimately, to many people coming into contact with this form of gymnastics. Yet another reason was its rootedness, both in the past and in the future, where physical exercise remains of major importance for maintaining or regaining health.

Flitige danske idrottshistorikern Hans Bonde utkom 2020 med ett omfattande verk, dock bara del 1, om en dansk gymnastikentusiast, Sundhedsapostlen J.P. Müller: Bind 1: Det kropsligt moderne gennembrud 1864–1904 (Syddansk Universitetsforlag). Vi bad Pia Lundquist Wanneberg om en recension av boken, och hon tog sig raskt igenom de drygt 500 sidorna. Läsningen var en positiv upplevelse och Müller en spännande ny bekantskap.

(Från Idrottsforum.org)

The problem forming the basis of this study is why Ling gymnastics, a product of the early 19th Century, was constantly practised in Swedish state-run schools during the 1950s despite the fact that, from the beginning of the 20th Century, it had been questioned by scientists and faced stiff competition from sport. The thesis approaches the question in relation to the state and the body. Ling gymnastics was conducted in the state school system and the target was the body. The establishment of elementary schools, in 1842, is seen as the starting-point for the building of a modern Swedish bureaucratic educational state incorporating the whole country. Mass education helped to integrate all the citizens into the state and offered an opportunity to eliminate the differences and conflicts that belonged to the old society. However, it was also possible to establish new ones. Up until 1962, there existed in Swedish compulsory schooling namely two parallel school systems, the elementary school and the secondary school, which targeted different categories of pupils.

The aim of the thesis is to examine the role of physical education when it came to raising citizens in the democratic welfare state established and expanded during the research period, 1919 until 1962, when the socially differentiated school system was replaced by nine years of comprehensive schooling. The main question is, from a class- and gender perspective, what type of citizens were to be raised by the subject “gymnastics with games and sport” (as it was known during that period), both in terms of physique and character, and with which subject-matter was this going to happen – gymnastics or sport?

The study has shown that the reason why Ling gymnastics lasted so long was that it was needed until the introduction of comprehensive schools. The establishment of the democratic welfare state required a new population. However, since it was not intended, at that time, for the population to be uniform, tools were needed, with whose help it was possible to mould citizens with both common and different features. One tool was physical education that comprised two forms of physical training, Ling gymnastics and sport, which, from the educational point of view and for sorting purposes, possessed various qualities. Thus, when comprehensive schools were introduced, interest in Ling gymnastics waned, partially because the subject had become more physiological, but also because the subject’s task was modified. When the bodies Ling gymnastics had helped to develop were no longer a target and a partially new form of character education was desired, Ling gymnastics had served its purpose.

On the other hand, special women’s gymnastics, which was launched at the beginning of the 20th Century, had not had its day. This gymnastics was still needed to raise girls into women, however, in a rhythmical and physiological form. Even the gymnastics the boys were to have contained characteristics from the earlier boys’ gymnastics in the form of apparatus work and weight training. The difference was that it had become more powerful training and had been supplemented by circuit training and fitness testing. However, Ling gymnastics, in the shape of independent, constructed movements carried out to instructions in accordance with planned daily exercises, had disappeared.

Maja Carlquist var gymnastikdirektör och grundare av gymnastikgruppen Sofiaflickorna. Hon har också haft stor betydelse för utvecklingen av den svenska skolans gymnastikundervisning.

Maja Carlquist var gymnastikdirektör och grundare av gymnastikgruppen Sofiaflickorna. Hon har också haft stor betydelse för utvecklingen av den svenska skolans gymnastikundervisning.

Sally Högström var en pionjär inom kvinnogymnastikens område.

De senaste 40 åren har idrottaren genomgått en sexualiseringsprocess i reklam och medier. I dag använder fotograferna även porrens estetik. Processen innefattar båda könen och har aktivt bidragit till att förändra bilden av hur män och kvinnor förväntas vara.

Introduction. The purpose of this article is first to provide a picture of disability sport in general and second to increase knowledge of sport for women with disabilities.

Material and methods. The study method is a qualitative text analysis of organised Swedish disability sport and of media reporting of the Paralympics. The study begins in 1969, the year when the Swedish Sports Organization for the Disabled (SHIF) was formed, and continues until the Summer Paralympics in 2012. The theory is based on three conceptual pairs: integration and inclusion, the medical and social models, and the traditional and progressive models of media coverage.

Results. The results show that SHIF strove principally not for inclusion but for integration. Further, women in SHIF led a hidden existence, except for the period between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, when initiatives were taken to improve their position. In other respects, this was a non-issue. Moreover, the medical model was dominant, and sport was viewed above all as rehabilitating. Finally, mainstream media reporting was traditional, namely Paralympic participants were portrayed first and foremost as people with disabilities and secondarily as sports practitioners.

Conclusion. Swedish disability sport during this period was not included in the sports movement in general and integration work was, for the SHIF board, superordinate to the gender aspect.

Goda vanor och viktiga kunskaper grundläggs tidigt. Alltför ofta klagas det bland universitetslärare på de studerande, att de är dåligt förberedda för högre studier, att gymnasieskolan sviker sina elever och komplicerar tillvaron för dem när de når högre studier. I Danmark har en grupp idrottsforskare, Laila Ottesen, Lone Friis Thing, Reinhard Stelter, Arne Astrup, Jørn Wulff Helge, Eva Wulff Helge, Michael Kjær och Rasmus Damsgaard tagit detta problem till sig, och de har tillsammans skrivit en lärobok för gymnasiet som utmanar många traditionella föreställningar om idrott och behandlar medaljens baksida såväl som dess framsida. Boken heter Sport, sundhed og identitet och är utgiven i förlaget Frydenlunds serie Sport & Sundhed. Pia Lundquist Wanneberg är imponerad över ansatsen, och konstaterar att författarna tar sin målgrupp på stort allvar, men att vissa kapitel kunde erbjudit viss fördjupning.

This study examines ­moral contracts between Swedish society and Swedish sport from 1930 to 1950. The theoretical basis is social contract theory and the methodological basis is a qualitative text analysis. The source material mainly comprises a selection of clippings from contemporary daily newspapers. The results show that during this period, sport actively negotiated a new moral contract. By aligning itself with two pillars of contemporary society, the Church and the adult education movement, sport gained moral gravitas and emerged as a social and popular movement of consequence. This contributed to sport being given the mandate to play a part in the development of the new democratic welfare state that evolved during this period. But one group of people was excluded from the negotiations over what role sport should play in society: women. One explanation is that the requirement that also women should be a part of what sport represented was not a necessary condition to give it legitimacy.

This article examines the media representation of Swedish elite sport from the end of the 1960s until the present day in terms of objectification, sexualization and pornification. During this period, Sweden became one of the world's most gender-equal countries. Applying a critical qualitative textual analysis, the article shows that the media discourse on gender and sport is, however, not equal. Even if the discourse over time has become less condescending and less explicitly sexist, there are still more or less subtle allusions to women as a sex. From the latter half of the 1990s onwards, it is possible to talk of a pornification of sport which is strongly linked to market adjustment and commercialization. Since pornification affects women to a greater extent, the media image of Swedish elite sport becomes a bastion for the reproduction of inequality. 

Over the last hundred years a new ideal body norm has been established. We should be thin, or at least strive to be. Consequently, dieting has become a topical subject. This article aims to examine the history of Swedish dieting from the introduction of William Banting's diet into Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. The article takes tries to answer the following questions: Why did people diet? Was it for aesthetic, social or health reasons? Or was it a physical expression of good morality in the form of self-discipline and control? The theoretical basis of this study is inspired by Michael Foucault's concept of biopower and the study method is a qualitative text analysis done by examining medical books and weekly newspapers. The findings show that a strong argument for dieting was the health risks which corpulence was deemed to be linked to. But there were moral, aesthetic and psychosocial reasons too. All these reasons appeared, to a lesser or greater extent, in both medical books and weeklies during the whole period. Aesthetic reasons, however, featured most prominently in weeklies, whereas medical books devoted most space to health reasons. When discussing the latter, physicians, often, however, strayed onto moral reasons. Highlighted as the psychosocial reason were the derision and insults corpulent people endured, which made their lives miserable because they could not participate in society in the same way as thin people. In this context, dieting was portrayed as little short of a miracle. If only an overweight person became thin, their life would change and they would be happy. There is such an abundance of these dieting stories in weeklies that they constitute their own genre.

Abstract  

The World Gymnaestrada – A Modern Form of Ling Gymnastics?

Meckbach, J., Lundquist Wanneberg, P.The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, StockholmSweden

Introduction

Different forms of kinetic culture were developed in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. One of these was Ling gymnastics (Lundvall & Meckbach, 2003; Lundquist Wanneberg, 2004; Pfister, 2003). Ling gymnastics has been described as one of Sweden’s biggest cultural export products and in 1939 an international gymnastic display, the Lingiad, was held in Stockholm. But Gymnastics festivals are not a select Swedish phenomenon (Pfister 2007). The first World Gymnaestrada (WG) was held in Rotterdam in 1953. The focus in this study is on the conceptual content of Ling gymnastics evident in the type of gymnastics performed, Gymnastics For All (GFA), at the WG.

Methods

Three concept pairs General-Elite, Collectivism-Individualism, and Modesty-Ambition have been used to both capture and analyse the elements of Ling gymnastics evident in the WG. The study is based on 20 group interviews (semi-structured) with a total of 53 gymnasts and 87 observations (semi-structures with an observational list) carried out during 2007 WG.

Results

The results show: i) one similarity between the two forms of gymnastics is amateurism: no one profited financially from their involvement, ii) another similarity is the view of collectivism and general: gymnastics should be done together and should be available for all.

Discussion

The answer to the question whether the WG´s concept of gymnastics, GFA, can be regarded as a modern form of Ling gymnastics is yes, with certain reservations. The study has shown that there also are differences in content; differences that to some extent can be explained by structural changes when it comes to the view of the individual versus the collective. But in terms of the approach to the type of display and an emphasis on diversity, the basic principles are the same. The final question is how a Swedish gymnastics form that is rooted in the early 19th century can live on in an international context today? As been pointed out by the Norwegian sociologist, Augestad (2001) and the German historian, Pfister (2003) the universality of the Ling gymnastics made it compatible with cultures other than Swedish. Obviously so even today – at least part of it.

References

Augestad,P. (2001). Sosiologisk tidskrift 9 (3), 233-253.Kihlmark, O. (1988) Sv Idrottshistoriska föreningens årsskrift, 43-50.Lundvall, S. & Meckbach, J. (2003). Ett ämne i rörelse. Diss. Stockholm.                                        Lundquist Wanneberg, P. (2004) Kroppens medborgarfostran. Diss. Stockholm.

Pfister, G. (2003). Sport in Society 6 (1), 61-91.                                                                                

Pfister, G. (2007), Stadion 33 (1), 49-70.

During the twentieth century, large, non-competitive Gymnastics festivals were held in Europe. An early festival of this kind was the 1939 Lingiad, which was held in Stockholm and based on the principles of Ling gymnastics. A later variation that is still going today is the World Gymnaestrada, which is based on the principle of 'Gymnastics for All'. The aim of this study is to highlight the concept Gymnastics for All and, above all, to examine whether it contains any elements of Ling gymnastics. Three pairs of opposing concepts, general–elite, collectivism–individualism, and modesty–ambition, have been used for this task. The study is based on twenty group interviews and eighty-seven observations. The results show that one similarity between the two forms of gymnastics is their non-competitiveness, and another is the view of collectivism and general, namely that gymnastics should be performed together and the idea behind both gives everyone an opportunity to participate. The major difference between the two can be linked to the increased individualization of society during this period. This is shown, for instance, by the fact that many of the participants, young people under the age of twenty-five, despite their participation in the Gymnaestrada hold individual competitions in higher esteem than group display.