Platform

A National Strategy for an Educated Society – Folkbildning as Load-Bearing Social Infrastructure

This document is an English adaptation of a strategy proposal originally written for a Swedish context by Arete — a think tank for folkbildning and pedagogy. It is offered here both as a record of one country’s thinking and as a model that may be useful elsewhere. Because the proposal is built around a distinctively Nordic idea — folkbildning — the foreword includes a short explanation of the concept and its history for readers encountering it for the first time.

A note on terminology

Folkbildning (literally “the education and formation of the people”) has no exact English equivalent. It is usually rendered as popular education, liberal adult education, or non-formal adult education, but none of these fully captures it. Folkbildning rests on the older idea of Bildung — education understood not as training for a task, but as the lifelong formation of a free, thinking, participating human being. Throughout this document we keep the Swedish word folkbildning, and use Bildung where the deeper sense of formation is meant.

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1. Foreword

Arete — a think tank for folkbildning and pedagogy — hereby submits its proposal for a national strategy for an educated society.

Folkbildning is one of Sweden’s most successful social innovations. In an age increasingly marked by unemployment, social injustice, technological upheaval, and growing exclusion and marginalisation, it is needed more than ever.

This document shows how folkbildning can once again be a central part of a country’s strategy for the future — not only for democracy and public health, but for building a society with resilience, security, and meaning in both peacetime and crisis. This has happened before: after the Swedish Commission on Popular Education of 1924, the entire political spectrum united behind folkbildning, which became a powerful force in shaping Swedish democracy. The same movement is needed again. But what, then, is folkbildning?

Folkbildning is a shared, society-wide form of education that gives concrete expression to a basic democratic principle: that a flourishing society is an inclusive society, one in which everyone, according to their own capacities, is invited to take part in building it. The “folk” (the people) in folkbildning is thus an expression of difference and variation rather than uniformity. This is also why folkbildning (in some form or other) lies at the heart of every democratic society.

A brief history of folkbildning

Folkbildning grew out of the great popular movements that transformed Nordic society in the nineteenth century: the free-church movement, the temperance movement, and the labour movement. These movements gathered ordinary people who had been shut out of formal education and gave them the tools to read, debate, organise, and govern themselves.

Its institutional forms took shape in two main strands. The folk high school (folkhögskola) was inspired by the Danish pastor and philosopher N.F.S. Grundtvig, whose vision of a “school for life” led to the first folk high school in Denmark in 1844; the first Swedish folk high schools followed in 1868. Unlike the universities, these schools were open to adults regardless of prior qualifications, and emphasised dialogue, the living word, and personal and civic formation over examinations.

The second strand was the study circle (studiecirkel) — a small, self-organising group of people who learn together as equals, without a teacher set above them. Pioneered within the temperance movement around 1902, the study circle became the everyday form of folkbildning, later carried nationwide by study associations (studieförbund), such as the Workers’ Educational Association founded in 1912. To this day, hundreds of thousands of people take part in study circles every year.

From the early twentieth century the state began to support this work financially while leaving its content to the participants themselves — a balance crystallised in the government inquiries of 1924 and 1944 and in the enduring principle that folkbildning must be “free and voluntary” (see Section 5). Today folkbildning in Sweden rests on its folk high schools and study associations, supported by the state through an arm’s-length body, and remains one of the most widely used cultural and democratic infrastructures in the country.

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2. Background and challenges of our time

Sweden — like many contemporary societies — faces several parallel transitions at once:

• A social transition, in which unemployment, mental ill-health, loneliness, and gang recruitment rise as traditional communities weaken.
• A technological transition, in which artificial intelligence, automation, and machine learning rapidly reshape working life, knowledge, culture, and democratic processes.
• A climate transition grounded in democratic values, in which both individual citizens and the structures that sustain society need ongoing education in sustainable methods and technologies as well as sustainable ways of living.

Beyond these lies a fourth, often underestimated transition: the economic structure itself.

In today’s economic model, a very high rate of employment often brings increased inflationary pressure, which in turn triggers interest-rate rises by the central bank (in Sweden, the Riksbank). As a result, full employment is not always compatible with stability within the current framework. The labour market can therefore no longer carry, on its own, society’s need for participation, meaning, and belonging.

The consequence is permanent exclusion as a systemic effect — not the result of individuals’ lack of ambition. When work can no longer guarantee everyone a place in society, other structures must take responsibility. In an age where automation and digital ecosystems are reshaping both work and thought, questions of meaning, ethics, and context become decisive.

Youth crime is therefore not solely a policing problem, but a problem of Bildung — arising from a lack of language, participation, and dignity. Here folkbildning can serve as a load-bearing social structure: giving young people meaning before crime does, and offering adults and seniors a sense of belonging when the labour market can no longer — or should no longer — be expected to provide it.

3. The role of folkbildning in the transition

Folkbildning is society’s democratic, ethical, and social preparedness. It gives people the means to understand, interpret, and influence their own time — technologically, socially, and morally — even when traditional structures are unable to include everyone.

In an economic system that cannot offer everyone stable paid employment, folkbildning emerges as a third alternative — fundamentally different from both work and labour-market programmes. Where a labour-market programme measures a person against their employability and ultimately aims at a return to work, folkbildning makes no such demands. It fulfils the functions that work has historically provided — belonging, development, the chance to contribute — but does so on its own terms, without subordinating itself to the yardstick of the labour market.

In a time of AI, disinformation, and violent extremism, the slow but clarifying language of Bildung is needed. Folkbildning equips people with critical thinking, digital literacy, ethical judgement, and community. It can be a project for peace, a project for security, and a project for preparedness — and a stabilising force when the labour market can no longer function as the main mechanism of inclusion.

When folkbildning is present throughout the country — through folk high schools, study associations, libraries, and cultural centres — it constitutes an infrastructure for social stability and civil resilience.

In crisis and conflict, these institutions can serve as society’s cognitive and democratic safety net: places where people gather, stay informed, learn, and organise.

4. The vision: an educated society

An educated society, through bildnung, is characterised by:

1. critical and independent thinking;
2. social and cultural participation;
3. digital and ethical competence;
4. interpersonal trust;
5. active ageing and lifelong Bildung;
6. robust institutions of Bildung as part of civil society and civil defence;
7. dignity and participation even outside traditional paid work.

5. Foundational principles

Free and voluntary — the democratic core of folkbildning

The phrase “free and voluntary” is not new. It was already used by the 1924 Commission on folkbildning, whose report was titled The Free and Voluntary Work of folkbildning. But it was in the 1944 Commission that the principle acquired its real weight and its democratic charge. That inquiry was conducted in the middle of the Second World War, just as authoritarian movements were at their strongest across the rest of Europe, and its emphasis on folkbildning’s task as democratic formation was a deliberate answer to totalitarianism. The work of folkbildning, the commission held, is free and voluntary: free in relation to the state and independent of employers, donors, and institutions of a confessional or political nature — and its voluntary character is the sign of the people’s cultural coming-of-age, the fact that the work of Bildung is carried by people themselves. A society that lets people educate themselves freely, on their own terms and without compulsion, builds a different kind of citizen than one that schools its subjects from above.

Freedom here has two sides. One is freedom from — freedom from detailed control by the state, from the control of employers and institutions, from confessional and party-political dictation of content. The other, and deeper, is freedom to — the right to take part in shaping one’s own learning, to seek what one does not yet know, to weigh questions about the good life together with others. Voluntariness is not a concession or an absence of demands. It is the sign of the people’s cultural coming-of-age: that the work of Bildung is carried by people themselves and not by anyone set above them.

This is also what separates folkbildning from “schooling.” A labour-market logic that makes all activity measurable against employability disciplines not primarily through open coercion, but by defining what counts as valuable — and thereby turning the person outside work into someone who must constantly justify their existence. Folkbildning is not a gentler form of such activation. It is a third alternative, fundamentally different from both work and labour-market programmes: here the activity is followed up in the way it has always been followed up, through presence and participation. Those who take part in a study circle or a folk high school course are there; they are part of the shared process, contribute to and are formed by the encounter with others — and nothing more is required. This is no administrative habit, but a direct consequence of the principle of Bildung itself. Bildung cannot be measured against an external goal without ceasing to be Bildung, because its innermost essence is to be open, to seek what one does not yet know, to be owned by the participant. For precisely this reason, presence is the only form of follow-up compatible with voluntariness. A Bildung allowance must follow this principle and no other: the same follow-up that already applies in the study circle and at the folk high school, never a reporting against employability. The value of a person’s striving is not determined by the labour market, but by the person themselves in community with others. To safeguard voluntariness is therefore not to defend a historical relic. It is to hold fast to the only ground on which Bildung can be emancipating rather than conforming — forming and enabling agency rather than merely adapting people to existing demands.

From this follow the strategy’s foundational principles:

1. Bildung as a civic right — everyone must have real access to lifelong Bildung.
2. Bildung as a distinct way of taking part — folkbildning is recognised not as one labour-market measure among others, but as a third, equal way of contributing to and belonging to society, alongside work and without any requirement to return to work.
3. An arm’s-length relationship to politics — the state finances but does not steer the content.
4. Trust before control — collegial quality rather than bureaucratic micromanagement.
5. Equity and accessibility — resources directed to those with the greatest need.
6. Bildung as the capacity to orient oneself amid technology — understanding the role of technology in human life.
7. Bildung as societal preparedness — knowledge and culture as a foundation for security, the will to defend, and community.

6. Main components of the strategy

1. A lifelong Bildung account — every adult is given Bildung time to use flexibly over the course of their life.
2. A Bildung allowance (bildningslön) — a secure income for those who devote themselves to Bildung when work is not possible. The Bildung allowance is an offer, not a condition: no one is forced into Bildung, and it does not replace other social-security systems but stands as an alternative alongside them.
3. Local Bildung hubs — folk high schools, libraries, and cultural centres working together.
4. Socially weighted funding — more resources for the groups with the greatest need.
5. Folkbildning for seniors — countering loneliness and strengthening health and zest for life.
6. Digital and AI-related folkbildning — strengthening understanding of technology, ethics, and social responsibility.
7. Youth and security programmes — Bildung pathways for at-risk young people, mentorship, and community-building in cooperation with civil society and municipalities.
8. Culture and Bildung as civil defence — education for information resilience, critical thinking, and local organisation in times of crisis.

7. Implementation and governance

The strategy is implemented in three phases over ten years; exact numbers will vary for different countries:

• Phase 1 — Pilot (years 1–2): 6 trials of the Bildung allowance, AI-related Bildung, and security-oriented youth programmes.
• Phase 2 — Scaling (years 3–5): national rollout, a digital platform, and regional Bildung hubs with social and security functions.
• Phase 3 — Maturity (years 6–10): a legally established right to Bildung, integrated AI ethics, preparedness training, and folkbildning as civil-society infrastructure.

8. Economic implications

Because the labour market can no longer include everyone, and full employment is not always compatible with economic stability, investment in lifelong Bildung becomes a necessary piece of social infrastructure — not an item of expenditure.

The cost is estimated at 0.3–0.5% of GDP at full implementation. Funding comes from a reallocation of labour-market measures, social supports, and technology-related skills programmes. The investment creates social value through:

• reduced crime and ill-health;
• increased trust and social stability;
• stronger democratic resilience and participation;
• improved crisis preparedness and cultural cohesion.

9. Expected societal effects

1. Reduced gang recruitment through meaningful alternatives, community, and mentorship.
2. Democratic resilience in the age of AI — citizens equipped with source-critical and ethical competence.
3. Social cohesion — more encounters between groups, stronger local communities, and a reduced sense of exclusion at a time when the labour market no longer includes everyone.
4. Better health and quality of life — reduced mental ill-health and loneliness.
5. Active ageing — seniors taking part as mentors and co-creators.
6. Cultural vitality — living art, conversation, and citizenship.
7. Civil preparedness and the will to defend — institutions of Bildung as democratic infrastructure in times of crisis.

10. Recommendations

We propose that government and policymakers:

1. adopt a national strategy for an educated society;
2. introduce a lifelong Bildung account for all adults;
3. establish a Bildung allowance as a secure form of income;
4. build local Bildung hubs in every municipality;
5. give the national folkbildning council an expanded remit for socially weighted funding and ethical digital Bildung;
6. entrust folkbildning with strengthening society’s capacity for technological and ethical orientation in the age of AI;
7. recognise folkbildning as part of the country’s civil preparedness and as a long-term social strategy against crime and violent extremism.

11. Building folkbildning where you are — how to get support

The ideas in this programme did not arise in the abstract. They grew from more than a century and a half of practical experiment — folk high schools, study circles, libraries, and local communities discovering, again and again, what it means to learn together as equals. That tradition is not the property of any one country. The institutions may look different from place to place, but the underlying idea — that a free society depends on the free formation of its people — travels well.

If you are inspired by this strategy and want to explore folkbildning where you are — whether you are starting a study circle, founding a folk high school or its local equivalent, shaping policy, or simply trying to bring people together to learn — Arete would be glad to help. We can offer:

• guidance on the principles and history of folkbildning, and how they might be adapted to your context;
• support in designing study circles, courses, and local Bildung hubs;
• input on policy, funding models, and governance, including the “free and voluntary” principle and the arm’s-length relationship to the state;
• connections to the wider folkbildning tradition and to others working along similar lines.

To get in touch, write to us at info@arete.nu. Tell us a little about where you are and what you hope to build, and we will do our best to point you in the right direction.