The International Association for the Development of Adolescent Schooling (IADAS): a Scandinavian Network for Innovation in the Primary School area

What does it mean to talk about progressive education? The term has become a phrase that is used so widely – both by its friends and foes – that it has almost lost its explanatory meaning. What has been labelled as progressive education, from the last decades of the nineteenth century up until the present time, is arguably a heterogeneous set of ideas and movements (Howlett, 2013). One example of progressive education is the belief in participatory democracy, but also in joint and individual planning of schoolwork as has been the case in several experimental Scandinavian high schools. Another example is the reform of the higher education system in Denmark with the integration of problem-based learning, PBL, at the new Danish universities in the mid-1970 together, while a third example is the international influence, e.g., the influence of German progressive pedagogy on Swedish teaching after 1945 or the IADAS-network, The International Association for the Development of Adolescent chooling,which had schools in a number of Scandinavian countries where pedagogical
experiments took place. Within this myriad of educational ideas and movements, it is possible to detect several connections and networks that share a common belief system regarding their version of progressive education.