| 1. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
-
Evaluation of Swedish eldercare : a local perspective
- 2016
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many countries institutionalize evaluation systems at different levels of governance to enhance quality in eldercare. In Sweden, which is the focus of this paper, the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) (www.iwo.se) is responsible for improving quality in eldercare through state supervision, and the National Board of Health and Welfare (www.socialstyrelsen.se) and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) run a national indicator-based benchmarking evaluation system for improving eldercare. In addition, local evaluation systems are set up to monitor and evaluate eldercare. Although evaluation systems are built to support public policy and governance in different ways (Hanberger, 2011; Hood, 1991; Pollitt and Boukaert, 2011; Kusek and Rist, 2004; Radin, 2006; Van Dooren et al, 2010), ultimately they are aimed to improve quality of care but the ways to achieve this differ.Researchers are concerned about the growing accountability pressure that professionals are subjected to (Ubels, 2015), and if external supervision is doing more harm than good (Beddoe, 2012; Furness, 2009). Disputes concern the value of hard evaluation systems (e.g. state supervision) and soft forms (e.g. benchmarking systems), for improving quality in eldercare, and that performance measures do not reflect care provided to concrete persons in concrete situations (Jerak-Zuiderent 2015). Braithwaite et al (2007) demonstrate that external inspection of nursing homes often fails because of “a variety of kinds of regulatory ritualism” (p.11). Inspections tend to prioritize paper-work, to fill in forms on outputs and other required information instead of 'pick important problems and fix them'.While policy makers generally convey high expectations to external evaluation professionals convey lower expectations or even resistance. This reflects a tension between political (hierarchical) accountability (Behn, 2001), which implies that performance of social services is monitored against politically and administratively predefined standards, and professional accountability, where good performance is based on trust in the professional agent being qualified to make situated judgment and improve practice (Evans, 2011; Evetts, 2009). While evaluation for political accountability conveys an inbuilt distrust in professionals, it relies on professionals to improve the performance of services (Van Dooren et al, 2010). Although evaluation systems are key components in eldercare governance (Clarkson & Challis, 2006; Johansson et al, 2015; Munro, 2004; Szebehely and Trydegård 2012) they have been scarcely researched, particularly how different systems operate in practice. If and how national and local evaluation systems, one by one and together, contribute to improve quality in eldercare is here further explored.This paper scrutinizes how two national evaluation systems and one local system operate in a Swedish municipality. National evaluation systems are the same for all communities whereas local evaluation systems vary (Lindgren, 2015). The three evaluation systems are all intended to support and maintain quality in eldercare. The focus is on the accountability and quality improvement functions, and the evaluation systems’ consequences for key-actors. A close look at one case, a Swedish municipality, allows for analyzing and comparing how the accountability and quality improvement function of three radically different evaluation system evolve and interplay at different local levels.
|
|
| 2. |
- Abma, Tineke, et al.
(författare)
-
Enriching evaluation practice through care ethics
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Evaluation. - : Sage Publications. - 1356-3890 .- 1461-7153. ; 26:2, s. 131-146
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, several authors have called for a critical assessment of the normative dimensions of evaluation practice. This article responds to this call by demonstrating how evaluation practice can be enriched through deliberate engagement with care ethics. Care ethics has a relational and practice view of morality and places caring relationships and responsibilities at the forefront of our being in the world. We will demonstrate how care ethics, in particular Joan Tronto’s moral-political theory of democratic caring, can help evaluators to reshape our way of working by placing caring and relationality at the centre of our evaluative work. Care ethics as a normative orientation for evaluation stretches beyond professional codes of conduct, and rule- or principled-based behaviour. It is part of everything we do or not do, how we interact with others, and what kinds of relationships we forge in our practice. This is illustrated with two examples: a democratic evaluation of a programme for refugee children in Sweden; and a responsive evaluation of a programme for neighbours of people with an intellectual disability in The Netherlands. Both examples show that a caring ethos offers a promising pathway to address the larger political, public issues of our times through the interrogation of un-caring practices. We conclude a caring ethos can help evaluators to strengthen a caring society that builds on people’s deeply felt need to care, to relate, and to connect within and across communities.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-
(författare)
-
Democratic caring evaluation for refugee children in Sweden
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Evaluation for a caring society. - Charlotte, NC : Information Age Publishing. - 9781641131636 - 9781641131643 - 9781641131650 ; , s. 105-124
-
Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What is a democratic caring (DC) evaluator and what does it mean to be one, especially in terms of practicing responsibility for the stakeholders one works with in evaluation contexts? This chapter discusses the challenging issue of the responsibilities of evaluators, citing an evaluation of the reception of unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) in Umeå, a northern-Swedish community of over 100,000 residents. DC evaluation does not refer to a new evaluation approach. The notions of DC evaluation and the DC evaluator are used here in discussing what it means to be an evaluator who develops evaluation within a democratic and caring society. The discussion builds on both democratic evaluation and care theory. It is suggested that an enlightened DC evaluator is informed both by democratic evaluation and by research into good care, applying this knowledge reflectively during the evaluation process. This chapter discusses what is involved in developing a DC evaluation with a special focus on the evaluator's respon-sibilities and good care.The chapter continues with a brief presentation of the case: a democratic evaluation of care for a group of refugee children in Sweden. Subsequently, the theoretical underpinnings of democratic evaluation are presented. The next section discusses what DC awareness means and the responsibilities of a DC evaluator, illustrating this with examples from the case. The chapter concludes by considering what DC evaluation implies for the good care of refugee children.
|
|
| 6. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-
(författare)
-
Dialogue as Nuclear Waste Management Policy : Can a Swedish Transparency Programme Legitimise a Final Decision on Spent Nuclear Fuel?
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1943-815X .- 1943-8168. ; 9:3, s. 181-196
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this article is to discuss Swedish nuclear waste management policy and assess whether a transparency programme has affected the policy discourse and contributed to legitimatising the forthcoming government decision on a final solution for spent nuclear fuel. The transparency programme implemented by the National Council for Nuclear Waste (NW Council) consisted of two main activities: dialogue meetings and public hearings for deliberating on different aspects of the waste issue. Lessons are drawn from an evaluation of the programme. The article concludes that the NW Council has implemented the government's legitimatisation policy by its existence and through the transparency programme, but achieving long lasting legitimacy is a complicated matter. Dialogue meetings and public hearings are reasonable measures; whether these measures are sufficient to legitimatise the final decision also depends on how the appropriate state agencies and the government justify their assessments and decisions regarding the long-term safety, security and sustainability of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company's proposed final repository. The dialogue policy and transparency programme, however, has failed to influence the key decisions which remain in the control of the powerful interests, most notable Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) and the government.
|
|
| 7. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-
(författare)
-
Evaluation of local sustainable development : approaches and use
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Evaluation for participation and sustainability in planning. - London and New York : Routledge. - 9780415669443 - 9780415669450 - 9780203813485 ; , s. 268-287
-
Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interest in the evaluation of sustainable development has increased due to a growth in environmental policies and programmes. Another reason is that we live in a time when evaluation is common practice, something that rational actors and organisations should do. The EU undertakes evaluations of policies and programmes for sustainable development for the purpose of policy improvement and accountability, for example. Policy-makers at different levels of government also initiate evaluations in this field for different purposes, including learning and knowledge generation. At present there are many approaches to the evaluation of (local) sustainable development reported in the literature. There is a need to discuss the different approaches and highlight the advantages and disadvantages for local development practice. We know that many evaluations are not used and there is also a need to learn more about this. The concept sustainable development is ambiguous and when it comes to evaluation there is a need to recognise and take into account different understandings and perspectives of sustainable development (Eckerberg, 2007; Baker and Eckerberg, 2008; Baker, 1997; Fischer and Hajer, 1999). A presumption in the discourse on sustainable development is that today's society is unsustainable. Whether or not a current situation is unstable is also an empirical question. There is no consensus as to what can be interpreted as steps towards a sustainable future. Hence, we need to find ways to inter-subjectively describe the current situation and then examine how the situation has changed during the course of a policy or programme. How prevailing approaches to sustainable development evaluation capture the notion of sustainable development is not only an academic question. If the approaches are not considered relevant and useful by practitioners in the first place, one should not expect that the evaluation will be used in practice. Because more and more evaluations are initiated there is a need to discuss the different approaches' validity and usefulness together with the question of use in local practice. The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of and discuss different approaches to evaluate policy and programmes for (local) sustainable development and to look into their usefulness for practice. Special attention is paid to how socio-economic and environmental indicators can be used in evaluation and how to assess environmental and socio-economic conditions and change. Lately, a number of sustainable development indicator systems have been developed to assist planning and evaluation for sustainable development. But how useful are such indicator systems and what can we learn from using indicators to describe local conditions and evaluate the impact of programmes? An evaluation should be sensitive to local conditions and, as illustrated in this chapter, official statistics can be used for describing local conditions and problems. There is also a need to discuss environmental and socio-economic indicators per se. Indicators can be used in many ways, e.g. to identify problems, set goals, monitor programme implementation and as one tool in evaluation. Whether a set of indicators is relevant and useful depends on "for whom" and "for what" they are developed and if they have face validity. This chapter pays special attention to indicators that are open, free and easy to access, and that make sense to different stakeholders, including decisionmakers, practitioners and engaged citizens, and to the question of local use of indicators. These issues will be discussed with examples borrowed from an evaluation of a project for sustainable development in a small municipality in the North of Sweden. A lot is written about indicators and monitoring systems on a "design level", but not much about the practical problems involved in using indicators and evaluation. This case is used to illustrate and discuss how to account for and interpret change over time, and to assess programme effects. Based on one external and one internal evaluation of the project, the problems of choosing and using evaluation are also discussed. Evaluations are sometimes initiated and used for strategic, symbolic or legitimisation purposes (Power, 1997; Chelimsky, 2006; Hanberger and Gisselberg, 2008; Vedung, 1997) and one must always be aware of the political nature of evaluation (Chelimsky, 2006; Weiss, 1998). I will discuss my own experience of how the evaluation tool was managed and used in this case. First, the chapter presents a brief overview of prevailing approaches to the evaluation of sustainable development followed by a discussion about sustainable development indicators developed at the local level in Sweden. Then, challenges involved in evaluating sustainable evaluation in practice will be discussed in relation to the project Sustainable Robertsfors.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
-
Metodologiska utgångspunkter för forskningsprogrammet ”Säkerhetsarbetets relevans och effekter”
- 2010
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Rapporten har utvecklat och sammanfattat programmets metodologiska utgångspunkter. Centrala begrepp har definierats och motiverats. Principiella frågor kring utvärdering av relevans och effekter av säkerhetsarbeten och säkerhetsprogram har också diskuterats. De överväganden som diskuteras och de ställningstaganden som gjorts i rapporten kommer att vägleda arbetet och konkretiseras i forskningsprocessen. Utgångspunkterna kommer att vid behov anpassas till de utmaningar som forskarna ställs inför. I slutrapporten kommer programmets metodologiska lärdomar att redovisas och diskuteras.
|
|
| 10. |
- Hanberger, Anders, 1953-
(författare)
-
Power in and of evaluation - A framework of analysis
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Evaluation. - : Sage Publications. - 1356-3890 .- 1461-7153. ; 28:3, s. 265-283
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article develops a framework for enhancing understanding and exploring both how power manifests in the evaluation process, and the power of evaluation in relation to public policy and democratic governance. Power is conceived as a multifaceted and dynamic phenomenon that manifests, permeates, and affects evaluation in many ways. The article demonstrates how the framework can be applied to an evaluation of a Swedish teacher-training program. The tentative analysis shows how the commissioner’s power-over the evaluators becomes evident when it cannot induce the evaluators to do what it wants them to do and manifests itself as constitutive power when, for example, helping shape the notion of what valid knowledge is. The power of the evaluation manifests itself as supporting key policy and governance functions.
|
|
