ABSTRACT
Each year between one and two million Swedes take part in evening classes organised by adult educational associations. Every weekday evening in autumn and spring, people go out to spend three hours learning something, along with five to ten others, in groups known as study circles. This important feature of Swedish culture is easily ignored when Sweden is viewed from outside or from above (compared with university education, for example). Yet, when one sees Sweden from inside and from below, the culture of study circles forms a finely meshed net covering the whole country.
