| 1. |
- Johansson, Tomas, 1970-
(author)
-
Samarbete mellan gymnasieskolan och näringslivet : en studie av lokala partnerskap i fyra kommuner
- 2004
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The national curriculum and the School Act emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships between schools and local businesses. The formation of partnerships was expected to be facilitated by the decentralization reforms that took place in the beginning of the 1990’s. These reforms gave schools and municipalities greater scope for adjusting education to meet local circumstances. However, central government has not made financial resources available for stimulating the establishment of school-business partnerships, nor does it penalize municipalities that do not set up such partnerships. The questions in focus in this study are: why do partnerships arise, how are they organised and what factors are important in achieving a partnership which can function in practice? Urban regime theory is applied to explain why collaborations occur and policy network theory is used to analyse how they are organised. A further aim of the study is to examine whether the partnerships can be defined as urban regimes. The study was based on case studies of four upper secondary schools in Sweden, each in a different municipality. These municipalities are all industrialized, but the structure of their industrial base varies. Two are dominated by one or a few major companies whereas the others are characterized by the predominance of many small businesses. The study focuses on how three vocational study programmes – industry, electricity and building - collaborate with local businesses. The study shows that the main explanation of why a partnership arises is that both partners believe that they can gain something by collaborating. For schools, the main reason for establishing a partnership with business is a belief that this will make the vocational education programmes more attractive for pupils. Through partnerships, schools can get access not only to practical experience for their pupils, but also help from business with developing the content of courses and some financial contributions. However, the economic benefits are of limited importance compared with the perceived gains in terms of the development of the educational content of the courses. This goes against results from studies in other countries. For business, it is particularly important to be able to influence decisions about the content of local education. By doing so, they hope to ensure that the pupils, after having completed their education, will enter the local labour market with more relevant qualifications. My research shows that several requirements have to be present for a successful partnership to be established. First, there must be a commitment and firm intentions from both partners. Second, size of the businesses involved in the partnerships is important for how they are organized. Larger businesses tend to see the partnership from a more long term perspective. However, it is also possible to organize collaborations with smaller businesses if they can be united under a common organisation. Third, specific actors make a difference in the partnerships. Devoted and interested key actors who are closely associated with the partnership are very important for the continuity of the partnership The study suggests that urban regime theory and policy network theory are useful for understanding why and how partnerships between schools and businesses are established and retained. However, it can not be concluded that these collaborations in themselves are urban regimes at a more local level. This would require that their focus was much more long-term.
|
|
| 2. |
- Johansson, Sara, 1984-
(author)
-
Mellan orten och kalifatet : En studie om utresandefenomenet
- 2022
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Starting 2011, many travelled from other countries to support different parties of the Syrian revolution. Many came from Sweden, and many joined the Islamic State. Swedish “Syria travellers” often came from areas labelled as [especially] vulnerable. The purpose of the thesis is to examine and analyse different understandings of the phenomenon of individuals travelling from Sweden to the conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, based on narratives collected from actors with local anchoring. The empirical material consists of 54 interviews with public and local actors, and Syria travellers. The results show a territorial stigmatization and a moral differentiation where the residents of the [especially] vulnerable area is understood as “failed” or "tolerated" citizens, something that informants link to the study object. There is a gap between those who seek background explanations in religion and those who seek them in social structures. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are several possible representations of Syria travellers, ranging from terrorists and nihilists to moralists. The work against “radicalization” is described as poorly anchored among practitioners and an extended supply of knowledge is requested. The interviewed Syria travellers describe them-selves as moral actors, and often highly religiously motivated. The thesis also show how guilt by association is a lived reality for Muslims in a time where negative representations of Islam dominate. The thesis should be regarded as a contribution to the expansion of the important field of research on professionals' social representations of why some individuals make violent interpretations of Islam and are attracted to movements such as the Islamic State. The thesis is also a call to further explore Syria travellers' own representations and arguments. Both local actors and Syria travellers represent groups that professionals may en-counter in their work. Knowledge of such social groups, and about the representations articulated within them, is valuable for the practice of Social Work, but also for other professions such as teachers, leisure workers, police, and decision makers at different levels in society.
|
|
| 3. |
- Widding, Göran, 1951-
(author)
-
"Det ska funka" : Om genus betydelse i relationen hem och skola
- 2013
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This compilation thesis examines parents' and teachers' approaches to curriculum objectives that involve shared responsibility between home and school regarding the children's upbringing and education. On the basis of four articles, the meanings of good teachers, good parents, and a good cooperation practice along with the meaning of gender in home-school relationships were examined. Questions were asked from both a teacher and a parent perspective about concrete practices and constructs with respect to this cooperation. The overall aim was to conduct an exploratory study on the importance of gender in the home-school relationship. The first article explores the use of gender and diversity in research on home and school relationships. In the second article, access to the research field of “home and school relationships” was problematized. Article 3 analyzes teachers´ and parents´ experiences regarding parents’ being resources in the primary school setting. The article focuses on what teachers expect from "ideal" mothers and fathers as well as what parents expect from "ideal" teachers. Article 4 analyzes the experiences that teachers and parents have with regard to the practical consequences of home and school cooperation. The theoretical starting point includes feminist poststructuralist theories and discourse analysis. Inductive qualitative interviews were executed in a mainstream district in Sweden with an increasing immigrant population; the interviewees included 25 parents and the eight teachers who taught their children. In order to interpret and to understand the meanings of the interviews, two context analyses were conducted. One involved the mapping of the local context and preconditions that surrounded the study's informants with respect to the socio-economic context, local school plans, action plans, and management of the educational activities. The second involved analyzing the rhetoric of governance and policy in the longer term, regarding the importance of gender in the home-school relationship with respect to the former Swedish elementary school and the current nine-year compulsory school. The thesis’ main results show that gender has great importance in homeschool relationships: Women/mothers bear the overall responsibility for engaging in cooperation, while this responsibility is largely made invisible in the research. In concrete home and school practices, the responsibility is also mostly not problematized. The study analyzes the construction of a cooperation practice that operates in two versions and affects performative practices at both home and school. Through a “mother responsibility” discourse in regard to home and school practices, mothers are expected to become teachers´ servants based on teachers´demands. The result indicates that both parents and teachers express attitudes that may raise questions regarding whether they, despite the curriculum mission to counteract traditional gender patterns, are truly dependent and reliant on a cooperation practice in which mothers are made particularly responsible and thus contribute to asymmetric gender patterns. The study’s results are surprising, given all government interventions in the Swedish compulsory school, which, since the 1960s, have focused on gender equality through education, training, and research. Both parents and teachers viewed the cooperation practice as a practical aid in their efforts to manage their own professional roles. The conditions for cooperation are based on the fact that the dominant discourse that emphasizes female care and responsibility is never challenged. Instead, the cooperation practice focuses on supporting those processes in which women are key leaders and where male teachers and fathers have only a limited responsibility for specific activities. In order to change this gendered situation, both the structural factors on the outside as well as the gender-blind approaches on the inside must be challenged in parallel so that sufficient strength can be mobilized to counter a normalization process that is reinforced by intersecting effects.
|
|
| 4. |
- Johansson, Hans-Erik, 1960-
(author)
-
The Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Obesity related Metabolic Traits with Specific Emphasis on Glucose, Insulin and Proinsulin
- 2010
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Hyperproinsulinemia is associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and obesity and is a predictor for future coronary heart disease. This thesis examines the effect of bariatric surgery on glucometabolic status including insulin and proinsulin responses after meal. Further we explored longitudinally the effects of bariatric surgery on glucose, insulin and proinsulin secretion as well as lipids, liver enzymes and magnesium concentrations. We explored by a standardised meal test the postprandial dynamics of proinsulin and insulin and effects on glucose and lipids in patients treated with gastric bypass (RYGBP) surgery and in patients treated with bileopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch surgery (BPD-DS). Comparisons were made to morbidly obese patients and normal weight controls (NW). RYGBP surgery markedly lowers fasting and postprandial proinsulin concentrations although BMI was higher compared to NW-controls. BPD-DS surgery induces a large weight loss and normalises postprandial responses of glucose, proinsulin and insulin and markedly lowers triglycerides. We evaluated non-diabetic morbidly obese patients who underwent bariatric surgery followed-up for up to four years after surgery. Long-term follow-up showed that RYGBP surgery is not only characterized by markedly and sustained lowered BMI but also lowered concentrations of proinsulin, insulin, ALT and increased HDL-C possibly via reduced hepatic insulin resistance. We also examined how magnesium status is affected by bariatric surgery as magnesium has been shown to be inversely related to glucose and to insulin resistance. The serum magnesium concentrations increased by 6% after RYGBP and 10% after BPD-DS. In summary, RYGBP and BPD-DS surgery results in marked weight loss, alterations in insulin and proinsulin dynamics, lowered fasting and postprandial proinsulin concentrations and improved glucometabolic and magnesium status.
|
|
| 5. |
- Johansson Niemelä, Birgitta, 1948-
(author)
-
Mental Health in Children Undergoing Reconstructive Surgery : Studies on Self-Esteem and Social Interaction
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- While the functional and anatomical aspects of reconstructive surgery in children with leg length inequality (LLI), prominent ears (PE) and cleft lip and palate (CLP) have been studied in detail, the psychological aspects of surgery have been less explored. The benefit of a changed appearance and function on self-esteem and ability to social interaction are other areas where information is lacking. The aim of this thesis is to examine, during the process of reconstructive surgery, the mental health, self-esteem and social interaction of children with defects in appearance and function.Children, aged 6-16 years, with LLI (n=27) and PE (n=31) were invited to participate in interviews and psychological assessments by filling in a battery of questionnaires and tests (depression; anxiety; self-esteem; cognitive ability; and behaviour) before Ilizarov and otoplasty surgery and one year after. Parents filled in a child symptom check list and a state and trait anxiety questionnaire. Another six adolescents with CLP and their parents participated in interactive interviews with the aim of identifying relevant psychological issues for individuals with this condition. These issues were subsequently used to create new questionnaires. Being different, the development of self-esteem and social interaction were the central themes of the questionnaires designed after the interview study. The new questionnaires were explored in a retrospective study on other adolescents (n=26) with CL/P and their parents. Beck’s Youth Inventories (BYI) was used as comparative data.The LLI group had significantly lower mental health and self-esteem scores than the control group before surgery. The leisure activity level in both patient groups was low according to parents’ report before surgery. The mental health scores of both patient groups (LLI and PE) were improved after reconstructive surgery, but self-esteem was not affected. The questionnaires for CL/P patients proved to be useful in the exploration of self-esteem from a developmental perspective and in the search for strengthening factors of social interaction. Self-esteem was average or high on group level for adolescents with CL/P compared to BYI measure. Parents rated their adolescents to have higher self-esteem than the adolescents themselves. Females had a less positive development of self-esteem, there was an interaction effect between the female and male patients’ evaluation of self-esteem by higher age. Even a minor appearance defect like PE may affect mental health negatively. There were no adverse psychological effects one year after surgery in LLI and PE patients, rather, there were signs of improved mental health. Adolescents with CL/P have an anticipated risk of more mental health problems and especially those individuals who have been bullied. Cleft teams and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics should be attentive and offer psychological support to those individuals most affected by their conditions.
|
|
| 6. |
- Olsson, Stefan
(author)
-
Building renovation processes towards low greenhouse gas emissions and energy use
- 2016
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Buildings from the record year era are now 40 – 55 years old and in many cases in need of extensive renovation measures. This need for renovation could be seen as an opportunity to achieve overarching sustainability target levels and to perform renovation with a holistic approach. This thesis aims at creating support for the formulation and achievement of adequate environmental targets that relate to overarching Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives. The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to an understanding of the current situation of environmental management in renovation processes. The scope of this thesis is limited to the aspects energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy use and material production. This thesis contributes to this aim with a stepwise procedure for evaluation of measures together with a proposal for target levels for three environmental aspects. The first paper appended to this thesis investigates how six Swedish property owners performed renovation projects. From this paper it can be concluded that the main barrier (except economic ones) are characterized by lack of knowledge about overarching objectives and what aspects define a sustainable built environment. The second paper assesses embodied GHG emissions due to material production for the totality of measures needed to reduce operational energy demand per unit heated floor area by 50% compared with 1995. On a national level, embodied GHG emissions are estimated to be 12% of the reduction of GHG emissions achieved by operational energy demand reduction. The final paper appended to this thesis uses a case study building to illustrate a working procedure to identify project-specific target levels for three environmental aspects. In addition, it identifies indicative improvements necessary for the achievement of long-term targets for those aspects, which could be focused and further investigated in later project stages with the help of a long-term plan of action.
|
|
| 7. |
- Porsfelt, Dan, 1966-
(author)
-
Management trainee - möten med förhinder
- 2001
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Abstract Porsfelt, Dan (2001) Management trainee – Möten med förhinder. Written in Swedish with an English summary. ISSN: 1402 – 1544, ISRN: LTU - DT - - 01/24 - - SE, Institutionen för Arbetsveten-skap, Luleå Tekniska Universitet 2001:24. This doctoral thesis in Human Work Science is a study of the participants in a management trainee program, carried out in a large Swedish company in 1997-1998. The aim of the thesis is to formulate theory around the complexity of a secondary socialisation process where organ-isational culture is externalised and internalised and individual self-identities of leaders-to-be in organisations are developed. The thesis is based on an ethnographic description of the entry of six newly graduated economists into an organisation, called ‘Distro’, and their encounters with existing organisational cultures. The data material has mainly been gathered through par-ticipant observation in the everyday life in the organisation, but also in events outside the or-ganisational frame. An official pan-organisational culture with its related stories, cultures of the shop-floor and a managerial culture in the regional organisation are described, as well as the development of the self-identities of the management trainees in relation to these cultures. The partiality of the internalisation of the different organisational cultures and the conscious acting in contrast to aspects of the internalised managerial culture is emphasised and the great complexity of the transition- and socialisation processes in the specific case is pointed at. This complexity is most likely to exist also in similar cases. The complexity is understood as a room of differences or room of relations. A number of circumstances, demands, structures, possi-bilities, values and practices in relation to one another constructs a sort of zone for reflection and as a consequence also development, movement and action. This zone is labelled interspace. Interspace is thus, a theme that, in different forms, can be found in the previous descriptive chapters of the thesis. The interspace simultaneously makes learning and development of both individual and, in the end, the organisation, possible as it may hinder the individual objective career or that of a group. It is, as a consequence, important for individual or groups finding themselves in the interspace to try to manage the impression that the interspace does not exist. Management trainee programs as a social phenomenon is, finally, seen as an aspect of a pro-fessionalisation process on the work place level, and as a modern institution colliding with post-modern values in the elite groups normally recruited to such programs. Keywords: socialisation, internalisation, organisational culture, micro culture, subculture, leadership, management, trainee, management training, management learning, transition, self-identity, pro-fessionalisation Dan Porsfelt, School of Social Sciences, Växjö University, SE-351 95 VÄXJÖ, Sweden. E-mail: Dan.Porsfelt@svi.vxu.se
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
|
|
| 10. |
- Billinger, Kajsa, 1949-
(author)
-
Få dem att vilja : motivationsarbete inom tvångsvården av vuxna missbrukare
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The coercive care of adult substance abusers is aimed at motivating them to seek voluntary treatment. The purpose of the present study is to throw light on how motivational work is perceived and articulated by care providers working in coercive care.To select the LVM institutions for the study, an initial survey was made of the motivational work being carried out in the entire area of substance abuser care, both coercive and voluntary care. From this survey four institutions were strategically selected on the basis of their therapeutic points of departure. The focus group method was used for the data collection.The care providers at the four LVM institutions gave different pictures of coercive care, although they worked under the same paragraph of the law. The differences could be attributed to their different therapeutic points of departure. It was impossible to discern an explicit description of motivational work at any of the LVM institutions. The care providers did not present any methods or techniques that clearly differed from what we call diagnosis, education or upbringing. In their view, everything they did aimed at increasing their clients’ motivation. There were three main tools the care providers used to accomplish their central task of transforming unmotivated clients into persons who choose not to be substance abusers: assessment, treatment and the establishing of a relationship with the client and working within its framework. The clients’ needs were described in a corresponding way. They were to be led, taught or compensated. Only one of the four LVM institutions specifically treated the clients’ substance abuse problems. At the other three institutions, substance abuse was considered either secondary to the clients’ other problems, a symptom of underlying problems, or a topic to be avoided in order to focus on future solutions. The clients’ resistance and negative attitudes to coercive care were obstacles that care providers tried to overcome by various means. They encouraged clients to regard coercion as a privilege or tried to make them feel at home, or else the care providers worked as if the coercion did not exist. All in all, the picture that emerges is that because of the coercive element the care provided was without contours, the clients did not have a range of options from which to choose. The only thing the care providers could do was to get the clients to stay at the institution, or bring them back if they ran away. The goal of getting clients to take the next step into voluntary treatment had to give way to the less tangible goal of exerting a positive influence on them - of “sowing the seeds of change”.
|
|
