From a school rebellion to a rebel school – its people and their initial struggles with democracy in education

Abstract

The following text is a translation of two chapters from a Norwegian book, “From a school rebellion to a rebel school” by Mosse Jørgensen (Jørgensen, 1971). She was the first “principal,” i.e., the “school leader” and a teacher in a democratic high school, The Experimental Gymnasium of Oslo [Fosøksgymnaset i Oslo] in Norway. Although this book was translated into eight languages in the 1970s, it never was translated into English. The editors of this Special Issue decided to translate and publish two chapters of the book: Chapter III – The People and Chapter VI – Difficulties with democracy. These chapters represent a valuable addition to the special issue on Dialogic Pedagogy and Democratic Education. They illustrate, complement, and complete four other studies in this Special Issue issue, which also focus on The Experimental Gymnasium of Oslo and its Swedish sister school in Gothenburg (Marjanovic-Shane, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c; Marjanovic-Shane, Kullenberg, & Gradovski, 2023). We are publishing translations of these two chapters in honor of their author Mosse Jørgensen, who is no more.