Alva och gunnar myrdal biography

Gunnar Myrdal had at this point just initiated studies of this part of the world and so the Myrdal couple were able to have a shared home for a while. When the Myrdal couple returned to Sweden in the s Alva Myrdal served as a government expert in these matters. She became an advisor to the foreign minister and her understanding of the best way to support disarmament lay the foundation for the direction of Swedish foreign policy.

Whilst serving as a member of parliament — she was elected as such in — Alva Myrdal also served as the Swedish delegate to the disarmament negotiations in Geneva, and a few years later she was appointed cabinet minister with a particular responsibility for matters regarding disarmament. Just as in her previous specialisations of family policy, educational policy, equality issues and inequality between global nations, she strove to see political measures based on scientific grounds.

Sexual equality, an issue which Alva Myrdal had long championed, became reality during the s and she led the working group for equality issues which was set up by the Social Democratic party along with LO the Swedish trade union. Several of the equality reforms of the s stem from proposals made by this group. The demand for a 6-hour working day — an important issue for Alva Myrdal — was never realised.

She was also not able to introduce a separation between church and state even in her role as minister of religious matters. The lecture she gave in conjunction with this award expressed her disappointment that her urgent work for disarmament and peace had produced such poor results, but she nevertheless placed her hopes in the grassroots peace movement.

Alva Myrdal — Government minister, diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Alva Myrdal was a Social Democratic politician, a cabinet minister, and a diplomat. Alva Myrdal died in She is buried at the Norra cemetery in Stockholm. Other Names Maiden name: Reimer. Her father was a socialist and modern liberal. During her childhood the family moved around to different places.

Her academic studies involved psychology and family sociology. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Stockholm in Myrdal further deepened her studies in the fields of psychology, education and sociology whilst in the US. She had the special chance to broaden her knowledge of children's education. Myrdal's observation of the great social and economic disparities in the United States also led to an increased political commitment — "radical" was the term that she and her husband came to use to describe their shared political outlook They then moved to Geneva for further studies, where they started to so study the population decline that worried many Europeans during the interwar period.

Myrdal first came to public attention in the s, and was one of the main driving forces in the creation of the Swedish welfare state. The basic premise of Crisis in the Population Question is to find what social reforms are needed to allow for individual liberty especially for women while also promoting child-bearing, and encouraging Swedes to have alvas och gunnar myrdal biography. The book also detailed the importance of shared responsibility for children's education both between the parents as well as the community by trained child educators.

Myrdal was highly critical of developments in the operation of preschools for children in Sweden. Consequently, she published the book Urban Childrenwhere she presented her ideas for a newly reformed Swedish preschool system. She argued that contemporary child care was flawed. The system was polarized between two extremes — measures of 'poor relief' for the less well-off contrasted with those measures which prepared children from wealthier families for private schools.

She stressed that there were material obstacles in the way of being able to access a good education. Therefore, social and economic reforms were needed. Myrdal wanted to combine and integrate the two extremes. A year later, she was able to put her theory into practice, as she became director of the National Educational Seminar, which she cofounded in She personally worked there as a teacher and pedagogue by training preschool teachers.

Myrdal emphasized the lack of recent educational research in regards to preschool teacher training. Her teaching tried to integrate the new discoveries in child psychology in education. Social studies were also emphasized, as was women's personal development. With architect Sven MarkeliusMyrdal designed Stockholm's cooperative Collective House inwith an eye towards developing more domestic liberty for women.

She was a member of the Committee for Increased Women's Representationfounded in to increase women's political representation. While in the US, Myrdal published the book Nation and Family concerning the Swedish family unit and population policy. A long-time prominent member of the Swedish Social Democratic Partyin the late s she became involved in international issues with the United Nations, appointed to head its section on welfare policy in From she had collaborated with British-based sociologist Viola Klein and in they co-wrote the book Women's Two Roles: Home and Worksupported by the International Federation of University Women "to make an international survey of the needs for social reforms if women are to be put into a position to reconcile family and professional life".

InMyrdal was elected to the Riksdagand in she was sent as the Swedish delegate to the UN disarmament conference in Genevaa role she kept until During the negotiations in Geneva, she played an extremely active role, emerging as the leader of the group of nonaligned nations which endeavored to bring pressure to bear on the two superpowers US and USSR, respectively to show greater concern for concrete disarmament measures.

Inthe Myrdal family left for a two-year stay in the United States, where the Carnegie Corporation had appointed Gunnar to lead an ambitious study of American race relations. In it, she urged other countries to study Sweden's social reforms and to adopt them, in appropriate form, to their own conditions. The book specifically condemned the forms of family policy then prominent in Nazi Germany, and the author insisted that democratic means could be used to produce the necessary reforms.

As Bok has noted, the book's tone was more restrained and its hopes for change more modestly stated than in the Myrdals' preceding publication. A notable theme in the book is the dilemma of modern women; unless they choose to remain isolated at home, they are forced to divide their time between their families and a working world that makes few accommodations to their needs.

In the spring ofthe Myrdals returned to Sweden. Now that World War II had broken out, their longstanding criticisms of Nazi Germany made them well aware their lives would be in danger if Adolf Hitler 's forces invaded their homeland. They had considered remaining in the United States or, at least, leaving their three children with friends there.

After deciding the entire family would go back, they found that the only passage available was on a Finnish freighter carrying a dangerous cargo of dynamite. Once at home in Sweden, they collaborated on a new book entitled Contact with America. In it, they urged Swedes not to abandon democracy. The book was inspired in part by the Myrdals' concern over such policies of the Swedish government as censoring anti-Nazi statements in the nation's newspapers.

In these early years of the war, which were filled with Nazi military victories, the government felt itself forced to make such concessions to German sensibilities. Inafter Gunnar had returned to the United States to continue work on his study of race relations, Alva Myrdal reluctantly joined him. She was tormented by the need to leave her children with relatives in Sweden, but she was also aware that her husband needed her help and companionship in America.

The two were able to return only in lateand she resumed her work at the training school while writing columns for a Stockholm newspaper. She also worked to aid wartime refugees in Sweden. Their daughter Sissela recalled her father's isolation from the family as Gunnar immersed himself even more than usual in his work. As Bok later wrote, "Gunnar forgot birthdays altogether and social life was determined by his official needs.

But Alva Myrdal soon found herself receiving invitations to take up a post with the United Nations. The position made her the most powerful woman in any branch of the United Nations, and it permitted her to address issues that had long interested her, such as educational and population questions, on a global scale. Accepting the post meant leaving both her husband and her children behind in Geneva.

Now, at 47, notes Bok, "Alva felt that her real career had at last begun. She also continued to turn her formidable energies to her writing. It addressed the fact that women in advanced industrialized countries now had a life expectancy of sufficient length that they could both alva och gunnar myrdal biography a family and subsequently play an active role in the working world.

The book appeared inby which time Alva Myrdal had been appointed Sweden's ambassador to India. Alva's relationship with her husband remained a difficult one. The two had lived apart for several years, and Gunnar had engaged in at least one extramarital affair. He had also been severely injured in an automobile accident inan event that sapped much of his energy and confidence and pushed him into prolonged depressions.

He wanted to resume living with Alva, but she was uncertain; renewing the marriage might limit her new-found independence. Alva Myrdal represented Sweden with distinction over a five-year period that ended in April She formed a cordial relationship with Jawaharlal NehruIndia's prime ministerwhom she considered one of the world's great diplomats.

Believing that Sweden's transition from economic backwardness to prosperity earlier in the century held some lessons for India, she interested herself in the problem of bringing some relief from poverty to the Asian country's masses. Her sense of personal well-being grew since she was free of immediate family obligations with children now grown and independent.

Gunnar had embarked on an ambitious study of Asian economics, a project in which she assisted him while fulfilling her duties as diplomat, and she saw him on his extended visits to India. They settled in the capital where Gunnar had just taken a position at the University of Stockholm. She continued to perform tasks for the Swedish foreign ministry, and one of these, a report on possible disarmament proposals the foreign minister planned to present the United Nations, turned her interests in a new direction.

Although Myrdal had never before been especially concerned with nuclear disarmamentit now became her passion: "Once I had begun, I was never able to stop the search for the why's and how's of something so senseless as the arms race. Now traveling throughout Sweden to publicize the cause of disarmament, Myrdal resumed the role she had begun in the s as an prominent public speaker.

She became disappointed at the lack of solid information available about the arms race, and she promoted a plan for a Swedish research institute that could fill the gap. She had led the planning group that conceived of the organization. Myrdal herself served as SIPRI's first chair, resigning only upon becoming minister for disarmament in the Swedish government in Myrdal retired from her Cabinet post and her role as official arms negotiator in due to poor health.

Alva och gunnar myrdal biography

Her years as a Cabinet minister had helped bring on a bitter split in the Myrdal family. Her son Jan, a longtime political radical, had been arrested by the Swedish police in December as a result of a demonstration against the Vietnam war. As minister in charge of disarmament aftershe also chaired the U. When she retired a year later, many of her colleagues expressed their appreciation for her many years of tireless service in public tributes.

Following her retirement, Myrdal devoted her time to publishing work in the area of disarmament. In her work The Game of Disarmament: How the United States and Russia Run the Arms Race she accuses the two world superpowers of fueling the arms race because of self-interest rather than world safety, and strongly criticizes their unwillingness to disarm.

Retiring from diplomatic service at the age of 70, Myrdal returned to the field of education, and taught sociology at a number of U. In her writings she went beyond national aggressions to focus on the roots of social violence. Her belief in science as a source of understanding led to her promotion of social science and psychological research in this area prompted her to help in the establishment of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

She also supported the work of the Myrdal Foundation in its additional efforts in this area. An active, energetic woman, Myrdal enjoyed many hobbies during her eventful life, among them traveling, walking, and bicycling. She also enjoyed cooking and often attending the theatre with her husband. Throughout her life she read extensively in international affairs as well as enjoying fiction and poetry, which she read in the original English, French, German, and Spanish.

Myrdal died in Stockholm in February of ; her husband died the following year. Carlson, Allan C. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

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