#Lundsbergs Skola

[raincitygirl76]

For anyone getting excited over Hillerska being shut down by the school inspectorate, hold your glee. Lundsberg Skola is the Swedish boarding school Hillerska seems to based on. After years and years of warnings and fines re bullying and hazing, Lundsbergs was shut down by the school inspectorate on August 28, 2013.

It was supposed to stay shut down for a minimum of 6 months. Instead the school hired expensive lawyers, appealed, and were allowed to reopen on September 6, 2013. So it only took 9 days before they found a loophole. One can assume Hillerska will do likewise and everybody (except the third years) will be back in class in the second half of August when the new school year starts.

At Lundsbergs, the headmaster was fired and the entire board of governors resigned after the shut down. But they soon regrouped, hired a new headmaster, appointed new alumni and parents to the board, and debuted a shiny new anti-bullying policy. Whether it actually worked is unlikely. But the parents are mostly alumni themselves. They would’ve gone through the same brutal hazings and wouldn’t think they’d be such a big deal.

Here’s the Wikipedia page, scroll down to the Controversy section for the details on the abuse and bullying that the school was turning a blind eye to. The final investigation, the one that triggered the (temporary) shutdown, was when the younger boys were burned with hot irons by older boys at an initiation. One boy was burned so badly he needed to be hospitalized. The hospital called the local police, who called the school inspectorate. Note: that boy’s parents were not the ones to notify either the police or the school inspectorate.

Also scroll down to the Alumni section for a look at all the rich, influential and famous people (including multiple Swedish royals across many generations) who went there.

[youweremyversaillesatnight]

i’d like to talk a little about felice’s hair in both season one and season two (yes, including the comment from the housemistress).

we’ve talked this one to death but i’ve gone through every episode and there’s a lot. (i also may have gotten carried away and lost the plot a little)

for starters, in season one, no one says anything regarding hair or a dress code and i looked into lundsberg skola (people have said this is roughly the real life equivalent? i think?) and i couldn’t find a dress code on their website but in all of their photos, the girls have their hair down. i would assume this applies to non-white students as well, although i couldn’t find any pictures.

(taken from lundsberg skola website, skogshult dorm)

and in season one, the hillerska girls do too! maddie is the one who most often wears her hair up, and stella does half-up/half-down styles, but fredrika and sara typically wear their hair down, as do many of the other girls in the background.

even on parent’s day, arguably the most important school event in season one, felice’s hair is down, albeit pulled back.

during the formal dinner at the manor house, too, all the girls have their hair down except for maddie.

and, of course, everyone’s hair is down for lucia.

it’s interesting to me that when we see all of these influential parents, the majority of them wear their hair up, and yet the girls don’t follow suit. i don’t know if it’s a cultural thing, maybe a work dress code, or just different standards as girls/women age, but it does seem a little odd. hillerska is meant to prepare students for their futures as rich and influential individuals, so obviously there’s a higher standard for keeping appearance.

for felice, part of keeping appearance is straightening her hair, at least in season one. considering how her style changes in season two, i wonder if part of having her hair down all the time is showing off how much like everyone else she is (even if it isn’t true). she’s trying so hard to fit in and do what is expected of her in season one, and she’s almost hiding behind her hair a little bit. it might not be physically in her face, but straightening her hair is putting on armor that doesn’t quite fit.

in all of season one, the only time felice has her hair up is during riding, when all the girls have their hair up to keep it out of their faces and under their helmets. there is not a single moment outside of riding or coming back from riding that felice has her hair up. and the only difference between season one and season two is that felice is embracing her natural hair.

i do agree that it would have been nice to get more of felice’s individual storyline in season two, but i’m still holding out hope for season three. in any case, the very first time we see felice in season two, she’s at a salon (with other black women - i saw someone say black-owned as well, which would make sense) getting her hair done.

in season two, though, felice actually wears her hair up far more than in season one. in fact, her hair is up almost all the time. i’m not sure whether this is her choice or not. now that she isn’t hiding behind her hair, there’s no reason to keep it down all the time, but the change still makes me wonder if maybe she's been called out for it more than just the one time we see, since her hair is down for the choir performance/first day of class-

-and not much after that-

-until episode four (and the fact that she wears her natural hair for the ball? so much to say about that that i just don’t have the words for).

and then in episodes five and six-

-her hair is mostly down again. with all the drama in the last two episodes with sara, i wouldn’t be surprised if she’s hiding a little bit and (even if she isn’t straightening her hair) going back to old coping mechanisms by trying to treat her hair like she did before. of course, it could also just be that having her hair up is more comfortable now, or that it gets in her face more if it’s down. there might not be some big explanation. anyway, i can’t imagine that the staff are being more lenient about rules, with the jubilee coming up, so maybe there isn’t a rule at all? we’ll come back to that.

the exception, of course, is breakfast in 205, when the housemistress reminds felice to put her hair up.

i originally assumed that stella put her hair up as well even though she didn't get in trouble because she was, as established by fredrika, still drunk from the night before and also not entirely paying attention. however, considering everyone else has their hair up as well (except for maddie? why? idk) i'm pretty sure i assumed wrong.

now (backing up a bit), interestingly, in the formal dining scene in 202 (and all the other meals in season two), all the girls have their hair up, including felice. this is a direct contrast to season one, where they all have their hair down, as mentioned above. granted, this dinner looks less like a performance than the dinner in season one, but sara is still wearing her gifted dress, so i assume it’s more formal than a standard meal.

with all those things put together, i would almost wonder if hillerska changed their dress code. i can't imagine they would do that halfway through the year (and the fact that many girls still have their hair down in various situations, like the choir performances and during classes makes it seem unlikely), but they might have. lending credence to this is both sara and fredrika putting their hair up at breakfast, and then felice and stella later, but i'm still not entirely sure.

and, of course, whatever restrictions hillerska may or may not have regarding the girls’ hair, it clearly doesn’t include dye, considering stella’s purple bangs (and an extra in season one, i think?)

it definitely seems like there’s a double standard or changing expectation here, especially from season one to season two. if hillerska (or just the manor house) changed their dress code, especially in the middle of the year, there would have to be a reason. and as much as i hate to say it, felice is the only one who gets in trouble and the only one whose hair changes drastically. and given the way felice and alexander are treated in the show, it wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility that they would change the dress code because they don’t like her hair. i hope it isn’t that, but again, i don’t know. i would love more information on all of this in season three, but even if felice’s storyline gets more time, i don’t know that this specific bit will.

if there is a requirement for the girls' hair at all, changed or not, my best guess would be that it is specific to the manor house and most likely is only in effect during meals/house gatherings and that different activities and the school as a whole have their own uniforms and preferences that are not necessarily the same.

[tomashej]

Här är den - filmen om Lundsbergs skola!

[raincitygirl76]

I’m still on the YR subreddit from time to time, and I think someone there may have found the real life inspiration that led Lisa Ambjorn to create the series. They posted some very interesting info about a real-life elite Swedish boarding school called Lundsberg Skola that got shut down (temporarily, alas) in 2013 for severe physical abuse.

The Swedish Schools Inspectorate had repeatedly investigated Lundsberg Skola before over similar claims, but its incredibly influential alumni network had managed to keep it from being shut down until 2013, when the Schools Inspectorate declared that students were not safe there, and must all be removed. It’s educated multiple Swedish royals.

Lundsberg was allowed to reopen after firing their headmaster and instituting new anti-bullying policies. They’re still open, still charging insane tuition fees, and the Swedish elite are still sending their kids there despite well-documented abuses and decades upon decades of rumours about brutal bullying to which the staff turn a blind eye until a victim has to be hospitalized, the hospital notifies the police, and the media find out.

I’m a little skeptical that a new headmaster and a shiny new policy will actually make a dent in a culture of violence that goes back to 1896. Call me a cynic. And it’s insane that people are actually still paying to send their kids to this place that, in the Guardian article, an anonymous student described as “Lord of the Flies”. You’d think a simple Google search would have parents running for the hills.

Here’s the article from 2013 announcing the shutdown. Interestingly, the shutdown happened because of anonymous complaints from existing students about abuse the staff ignore. The article suggests the children of nouveau riche parents might be less loyal to the Lundsberg system than the children of old money families, where multiple generations have attended, and everyone considers the brutality and the culture of silence normal.

Here’s the Wikipedia page in English. Check out the list of alumni, which includes a bunch of Swedish royalty:

And here’s the link to the original Reddit post. The Reddit post also includes a link to a Spotify podcast about Lundsberg. I didn’t link to that because I haven’t listened to it. The Guardian article and Wikipedia were bad enough.

Here’s also a link to the school’s official website, but it’s all in Swedish. I clicked through a few promotional pictures of shiny students and shiny buildings. Every teenager I saw looked happy, like they weren’t in Lord of the Flies. And every single teenager in the photos I saw was white. I didn’t do an exhaustive search, though.