Textbooks, Syllabuses and Disciplinary Formation in Sweden

In the history of an academic discipline, it takes a while before a textbook production appears. In Sweden, a body of sociological textbooks began to develop in the 1950s. Sociology had become an independent university discipline in 1947 with a chair, given to Torgny T. Segerstedt, and a department at Uppsala University, followed gradually by the universities in Lund, Stockholm, Gothenburg and, somewhat later, Umeå. The participating authors and the areas covered in the first textbook can be read as an image of the state of Swedish sociology by that time. But textbooks can also serve a purpose in the disciplinary formation process itself. This article discusses the role and use of textbooks, course literature and syllabuses in the defining and boundary-work of the new Swedish university discipline of sociology.