Folk high schools are part of popular, or liberal adult education in Sweden. By participating in the general course at a folk high school, students who have failed to meet the requirements necessary for continued study at university level have a second chance to fulfil such requirements. This paper describes different approaches of Swedish folk high schools with regard to preparing their participants for university studies. The paper also discusses how these different ways of working affect how participants perceive university studies and how these perceptions affect their choices of whether or not to continue on to university after completion of their folk high school education. Based on empirical data collected through free associations, interviews with then-current and former folk high school participants, articles from a leading folk high school teacher magazine, and material found on the folk high schools’ homepages, the results show that throughout the history of the Swedish folk high school, this institution has remained true to two basic ideas: the idea of differentiation and the idea of adaptation.
The results also show that folk high schools work in different ways with regard to widening participation, depending on which of these two ideas they tend to focus on most. The prevalence of these two fundamental ideas explains why different social identities and different representations exist among the participants. The idea of folk high school as something different and special leads to representations of folk high school as an alternative to other forms of education and to representations of university as something difficult and different than folk high school. The second idea – that folk high school must adapt to the surrounding community – leads to representations of folk high school as a second chance and of university as a goal.