Imagine All the People: Literature, Society and Education in Britain and Denmark, 1700-1920

FAIN: FEL-262159-19

Cathie Jo Martin
Boston University (Boston, MA 02215-1300)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the influence of literature on British and Danish educational systems between 1700 and 1920.

Literary narratives beginning in 1700 illuminate why poor, rural Denmark developed early, public mass primary education and extensive vocational training programs, whereas industrial Britain lagged behind. British authors sought schooling for individual self-growth, first for middle-class and later for working-class youth. As ardent social reformers, they promoted equal access to education. Yet their celebration of self-motivated protagonists who conquer structural challenges made it easier to blame those who fail, and to forget about marginal workers. Danish writers depicted education as an investment to strengthen society; they viewed the neglect of working-class youth as a waste of resources and a threat to the social fabric. High socioeconomic equality was a felicitous but fortuitous side effect of this mandate to educate all the people. Archival, textual, and machine learning analyses demonstrate strong linkages among writers and policymakers in these stories of education reform.

Media Coverage

Uncovering Nordic Collectivism (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Nicola Anne Witcombe, Cathie Jo Martin
Publication: Nordicsinfo podcast
Date: 4/26/2021
Abstract: tweet about a podcast
URL: https://twitter.com/nordicsinfo/status/1383049808471076869?s=20

SAIL engineers create algorithm to study the development of welfare states through literature (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Gina Mantica
Publication: Boston University Hariri Institute Blog
Date: 6/29/2021
URL: https://www.bu.edu/hic/2021/06/29/sail-engineers-create-algorithm-to-study-the-development-of-welfare-states-through-literature/

Associated Products

"What we talk about when we talk about poverty: Culture and welfare state development in Britain, Denmark and France (Article)
Title: "What we talk about when we talk about poverty: Culture and welfare state development in Britain, Denmark and France
Author: Tom Chevalier
Author: Cathie Jo Martin
Abstract: Why did historical anti-poverty programs in Britain, Denmark and France differ so dramatically in their goals, beneficiaries and agents for addressing poverty? Different cultural views of poverty contributed to how policy makers envisioned anti-poverty reforms. Danish elites articulated social investments in peasants as necessary to economic growth, political stability and societal strength. British elites viewed the lower classes as a challenge to these goals. The French perceived the poor as an opportunity for Christian charity. Fiction writers are overlooked political agents who engage in policy struggles. Collectively, writers contribute to a country’s distinctive ‘cultural constraint’, or symbols and narratives, which appears in the national-level aggregation of literature. To assess cross-national variations in cultural depictions of poverty, this article uses historical case studies and quantitative textual analyses of 562 British, 521 Danish and 498 French fictional works from 1770 to 1920.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-poverty-culture-and-welfare-state-development-in-britain-denmark-and-france/165A3CE5CD3B7B0B6985470798CF7C3B
Primary URL Description: First look for the article
Secondary URL: doi:10.1017/S0007123421000016
Access Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: British Journal of Political Science
Publisher: British Journal of Political Science

CULTURAL IMAGES OF LABOR CONFLICT AND COORDINATION: LITERATURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SYSTEMS (Article)
Title: CULTURAL IMAGES OF LABOR CONFLICT AND COORDINATION: LITERATURE AND THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SYSTEMS
Author: Cathie Jo Martin
Author: Dennie Oude Nijhuis
Author: Erik Olsson
Abstract: Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have different historical patterns of industrialization, but developed similar patterns of industrial coordination and cooperation. Theories accounting for industrial relations systems (economic structure, power resources, and party/electoral systems) have difficulty accounting for the similarities among these cases. Therefore, we explore the historical depictions of labor appearing in literature to evaluate whether cross-national distinctions in cultural conceptions of labor have some correspondence to distinctions between coordinated and liberal industrial relations systems. We hypothesize that historical literary depictions of labor are associated with the evolution of industrial systems, and apply computational text analyses to large corpora of literary texts. We find that countries (Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands) with coordinated, corporatist industrial relations in the 20th century share similar cultural constructions about labor relations dating back to at least 1770. Literary depictions found in modern coordinated/corporatist countries are significantly different from those found in Britain, a country with liberal/pluralist industrial relations.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975621000187
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: European Journal of Sociology
Publisher: European Journal of Sociology

“Fiction Works: Cultural Ideas and the Design of Industrial Relations Systems in Britain and Denmark.” (Article)
Title: “Fiction Works: Cultural Ideas and the Design of Industrial Relations Systems in Britain and Denmark.”
Author: Cathie Jo Martin
Abstract: MARTIN This paper explores how cultural work contributes to differences in coordinated and liberal industrial relations systems. Quantitative text analyses show profound and systematic differences between coordinated Denmark and liberal Britain in depictions of labour, skills, coordination and the role of government in large corpora of fictional works between 1700 and 1920. The analysis expands our notions about how ideas contribute to the employment relationship and to the defense against liberalization in the post-industrial economy.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/irel.12289
Format: Journal
Publisher: Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society

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