Kurinalaistamisen ja kategorisoinnin keino. Rangaistuskäytänteet seitsemässä suomalaisessa oppikoulussa 1905–1925

Abstract

In this dissertation I analyse the punishment practices of seven Finnish secondary schools between 1905 and 1925. The main aim of this research is to examine the various factors that influenced and determined the implementation of the punishment practices in the everyday of the schools. The results of this study show that punishments offered a tool to discipline and categorise pupils. The main primary sources used in this study are the punishment records and teachers’ and pupils’ registers that originated in the everyday practices of the schools examined. The historical accounts and memoirs of the schools among others further complement these sources. The notes in the punishment records constitute a dataset of 9,667 cases. The data used enable the use of quantitative and qualitative methods and the study adopts a mixed methods approach. I examine firstly the influences of the prevailing educational thinking on the implementation of the punishment practices. The educational tenets determined not only the punishments used but also the way misbehaviour was perceived. The utopia of undisturbed order materialised in none of the schools examined, however. Contrary to the prevailing educational thinking underlining the objective use of punishments, the very possibility of punishments also enabled their more arbitrary use. The society surrounding the schools examined had its own influences on the punishment practices. The Finnish Civil War, fought in 1918, was particularly significant for the practices. The influences of society also highlight the social position of secondary schools as producers of certain values. This position also influenced the everyday practices of the schools examined by determining which pupils were to receive punishments and why. The relationship between the punishment practices implemented and the social categories which the teachers and pupils of the schools represented are thus in particular focus of this study. Pupils’ gender, school class and age exerted a particular influence on the practices. They determined both the pupils’ behaviour and the way in which the teachers contemplated them. The intersections of different social categories also proved significant. By contrast, the categories defining teachers had less influence on the practices. The influences of pupils’ social backgrounds were likewise less decisive.