Can dese tings be, an we lookin right squarr at 'ern?"' Some of the original broadsides and playbills used by American "Negro" minstrels often made outrageous claims. Among the more dubious exaggerations is the playbill for the British premier performance of the then new Virginia Minstrels on which figures of black men were contorted to the various shapes of capital letters to spell "ETHIOPIAN CONCERT" as the main words. Of course most American blacks in 1843 were natives of descendants of west coast Africans, and thus "Ethiopian" was a gross misnomer-as it was for any group advertising its "Ethiopian delineation."Z The cover of T h e Celebrated Negro Melodies asSung by the Virginia Minstrels shows four white men in burnt-cork.3 Many of the enclosed "Negro Melodies" were written by one of the men depicted, Dan Emmett.4 Since theatric hyperbole costumed the truth for many such groups, it is perhaps no wonder that some scholars have doubted that performers who were predominantly white men and who acted the part of black persons actually presented authentic black culture, language and rhetoric.Before many of the major studieson Negro minstrelsy were published, Richard Moody claimed "the burnt-cork Negro was largely a romantic inuention of Northern whites. The minstrel performer was primarily attempting to contriue a lucratiue f o r m of entertainment, irrespective of any archeological (sic) authenticity."5 Though Moody's scholarship early documents numerous and significant features of minstrelsy, he fails to provide evidence to support his contention that it lacked "authenticity." Sixty years earlier in the introduction to Uncle R e m u s , Joel Chandler Harris claimed that the minstrel dialect was not genuine. With reference to his own dialect, he said "the dialect, it will be observed, is wholly different from that of the Hon. Pompey Smash and his literary descendants, and different also from the intolerable misrepresentations of the minstrel stage.'I6 Gary D. Engle claims "there is no real evidence to support the popular notion that the minstrel dialect was a reflection of black speech 27
This study aims to comparatively explore the role of the state (federal policy) in distanceeducation initiatives in the higher education communities of Sweden and the United States. In a globalized context, education institutes now have the capabilities to provide education and educational resources more efficiently and to a wide-ranging and diverse audience. Within the education sector and distance education, the role of the state and federal policy becomes increasingly important, in terms of how distance-education platforms are developed and implemented in institutions of higher education. The first section of this article provides an overview of the United States and Sweden's current higher education and distance-education landscapes, focusing on the role of the state and federal policy with respect to the funding and overall aims of distance education. The development of distance education in Sweden is highly related to political goals and policies, the top down/domestic/'inside' approach. The governing body dictates the funding and policy for distance education, and implementation is left to the university body. In the United States, the landscape differs in that no one federal institution provides direct funding or unified guidelines for developing distance education, but universities are left to their own devices and capabilities for implementation. In Sweden, high ambitions and goals are set at the national level, but the educational organizations are changing only slowly. The pressures on the education organizations are high because of steadily decreasing funding and fewer and fewer staff in relation to students. In the United States, education functions primarily as a state and local responsibility. In conclusion, the article aims to exploit the differences between the two countries' role of the state (federal policy) in distance-education policy, and present a middle ground which would be most balanced for distance education, entailing some federal supervision with the allowance for a certain level of autonomy in regards to development, implementation, funding and longevity. Part 1. Overview of Education Systems Education in SwedenDuring the last few decades expectations concerning the systems for adult education have been extremely high from the policymakers. Through flexibility they will meet needs of people with short educational histories and compensate them for what they missed during their early years. By co-operating with the work sector they will adapt the human capital to close the gap between needs and supply in the labour market. Being a companion throughout life, the education systems will be present during an individual's life cycle; providing sources of fast-increasing knowledge, furnishing the individual with new tools and explaining the changing conditions in society, creating the possibility of lifelong learning.
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