| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Almgren, Ellen, 1970-
(author)
-
Att fostra demokrater : Om skolan i demokratin och demokratin i skolan
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A central task for the Swedish school is to foster democratic citizens. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate some aspects of the fostering of democrats in Swedish schools, focusing on the political knowledge of young people. For more than a decade the Swedish educational policy has considered a democratic school environment to be a fundamental right for the students. Furthermore, the school democracy is assumed to have a positive effect on the students' development of democratic competence. This assumption of a causal relationship between school democracy and political knowledge, inspired by integrative theories of democracy, is tested in this study. Another important goal for the Swedish educational policy is the equivalence of education for all students. This can be interpreted in more or less ambitious terms regarding the equality of the students' education. School segregation, however, poses a threat to any form of equivalent education. The effects of school segregation on the students' political knowledge is therefore also tested in this thesis.Using multi-level analysis on a sample of over 6000 Swedish students between 14 and 15 years of age, this study shows that a deliberative open classroom-climate has a positive effect on the students' political knowledge while the direct student influence, surprisingly, has a negative effect. Both ethnic and socioeconomic segregation have negative effects on the students political knowledge. Even more troubling, though, is the fact that the different dimensions of school democracy are related to the segregational factors. The favourable open classroom-climate is more frequent in schools where the students' parents have higher education. The counter-productive direct student influence is, on the other hand, more frequent in schools with a high number of immigrants and in schools where the students' parents have lower education. It is therefore argued that even though student influence is construed as a fundamental right, the Swedish government needs to appreciate the conflict between the goals of the educational policy: Student influence and the fostering of democrats. This conflict is especially serious since student influence in fact has a negative effect not only on the fostering of democrats but also on the equality of citizenship education.
|
|
| 3. |
- Adman, Per, 1970-
(author)
-
Arbetslöshet, arbetsplatsdemokrati och politiskt deltagande
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to test two hypotheses about how work affects political participation. The first concerns unemployment, and states that unemployment has strong and negative effects on political activity. The second hypothesis is found in theories of participatory democracy, and claims that more democratic workplaces lead to more political participation. Existing empirical evidence on both of the hypotheses is not conclusive. Furthermore, studies have mainly been carried out using data collected in the United States. Here empirical tests of the hypotheses are undertaken using a Swedish survey.The results confirm the first hypothesis; unemployment has negative effects on political participation. The reasons for these negative effects are that the unemployed become less active in organisational life, fall outside of the recruitment networks where people are being asked to participate in politics, and experience a decrease in income. The second hypothesis is not supported. Workplace participation does not affect political participation, according to the analyses. The results are surprising for both hypotheses, and contradict previous empirical findings. The differences in results are likely due to differences in research design and differences in approaches to analysing political participation. Previous studies are inadequate in these perspectives, it is maintained.The thesis ends with a discussion of the results from the perspective of normative democratic theory. It is argued that the lack of political equality is particularly acute when the low participation among the unemployed is considered.
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Barrling Hermansson, Katarina, 1969-
(author)
-
Partikulturer : Kollektiva självbilder och normer i Sveriges riksdag
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation addresses party-culture in political parties represented in the Swedish parliament. Party-culture is investigated by studying collective self-images and norms in Swedish parliamentary party-groups (PPG). The aim of this investigation is to contribute to understanding of the conditions under which parliamentary work is carried out. In order to expand our understanding of these conditions this dissertation looks beyond the formal processes by which party-groups deliver their political message and make decisions, and instead highlights the cultural aspects of these party organizations in the parliament.The method of analysis is qualitative and the material for the study consists of 53 interviews with members of parliament from all represented parties. The parties studied are thus the Social Democratic, Moderate, Liberal, Christian Democrats, Left, Centre, and Green. In addition, some participant observation for the 1998-2002 mandate period in used.The empirical investigation shows that party-culture is revealed via four basic themes: political ability, feelings of political responsibility, the importance social fellowship, and the party’s strength in relation to individual party members.The party’s culture based on the four themes noted above provides a theoretical structure for interpretation that combines an Aristotelian idea about basic knowledge types, sophia and phronesis, with cultural theorists Mary Douglas’ grid-group-analysis. Based on this interpretation method it is shown that party-cultures distinguish themselves from each other in a way that diverges from the left-right spectrum that dominates Swedish politics. At the same time as the parties demonstrate differences in party-culture, there are also some similarities between the parties, and these similarities suggest that the parties have adjusted themselves to a more general culture within the parliament, most visibly the focus on factual knowledge and a certain requirement for modesty from party members.
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Bäck, Hanna, et al.
(author)
-
Explaining Modes of Participation : A Dynamic Test of Alternative Rational Choice Models
- 2011
-
In: Scandinavian Political Studies. - : Wiley. - 0080-6757 .- 1467-9477. ; 34:1, s. 74-97
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Rational choice accounts of political participation identify two major solutions to “the paradox of participation” — collective incentives and selective incentives. Prior findings regarding the viability of these solutions are seemingly inconclusive and contradictory. In our view, one important reason for this is that the applicability of these solutions varies across participatory modes. In this paper, we make a first attempt to develop a theoretical answer to the question of why this may be the case. We then test our predictions across four different modes of participation, using longitudinal data that eliminate or reduce the biases inherent in cross-sectional designs. Our results show different types of incentives to strike with distinctly variable force across different modes of participation. Most importantly, we find that whereas electoral modes of participation (voting and party activity) are affected by selective incentives only, the non-electoral modes (contacting and manifestations) are the consequence of both collective and selective incentives.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Ekstam, David, 1988-
(author)
-
The Socialization of Intergroup Attitudes : The Problem of Generations
- 2021
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This doctoral thesis regards long-term aggregate trends in intergroup attitudes and the individual-level mechanisms that underlie change and continuity on the aggregate-level. The thesis focusses primarily on attitudes toward homosexuality in the North American context and attitudes toward immigration in the European context. I approach these subjects from a political socialization perspective, which emphasizes the importance of early-life experiences for the development of political orientations. From this perspective, the expectation is that aggregate-level value change is principally driven by generational replacement.The thesis is comprised of three separate research papers. In the first paper, I address the conflicting findings of prior age-period-cohort studies of long-term change in American attitudes toward homosexuality. The paper demonstrates that the conflicting findings of previous research essentially are a product of different studies using different analytical constraints in order to ensure model identification in the face of the identification problem that exists in age-period-cohort analysis. While this identification problem impedes clear-cut inference with regard to linear cohort effects, I nevertheless propose that generational replacement has been an important factor behind the liberal shift in American public opinion on homosexuality over the past few decades. In the second paper, I examine the lifespan developmental trajectory of attitudes toward homosexuality by the means of American panel data. The paper demonstrates that attitudes toward homosexuality are highly stable on the individual-level but also that attitude stability increases across the human lifespan, which suggest that this kind of attitudes are primarily formed early in life. In the third paper, I look at generational differences in the relationship between education and anti-immigrant sentiment. The paper demonstrates that this relationship has increased in strength across cohorts born over the 20th century in most Western European countries. Importantly, this cross-generational trend has been driven mainly by the highly educated strata of the population. This suggests that the capacity of educational institutions to reduce negative outgroup attitudes through socialization increases as a democratic regime consolidates over time.
|
|
| 10. |
- Esaiasson, Peter, 1957, et al.
(author)
-
Deltagandets mekanismer
- 2006
-
In: Deltagandets mekanismer. - : Liber, Malmö. - 9789147075584 ; , s. 8-28
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
|
|
