Songs in school broadcasting 1934-1969

In the autumn of 1934 programmes dedicated to teaching of singing were introduced in the Swedish School Broadcasting. In the following decades, right up to the 1960s, these 'singsongs' were the most popular of the programmes broadcast by this official institution. In 1955, when interest was at its peak, they were followed by approximately 800,000 school children, i.e. 85-90 percent of all Swedish elementary school pupils. This study gives an account of the development of these 'School Broadcasting singsongs' and demonstrates how they both qualitatively and quantitatively reflected the changes simultaneously occuring in Swedish musical and - in a broader perspective - social life. The study is part of the interdisciplinary research project 'Welfare state, media and modernisation', dealing with the history of educational programmes on Swedish radio and television. The project looks into the pedagogical efforts of these media and how they have influenced the development of the Swedish welfare state and the modernisation process. The empirical material, collected from the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation's archives of programmes and documents, demonstrates how the singing programmes were actually designed. It is supplemented with interviews with school radio teachers and producers active in the 1950s and 1960s. Another important source is the printed programmes containing lyrics and music to all the songs taught and broadcast. From a survey of all these programmes, published 1934/35-1968/69, a database was established for the 1,680 songs presented by the Swedish School Broadcasting. For each song information on the composer, the author of the text, the words of the first verse, the broadcasting date and the teacher was collected. Show less..