| 1. |
- Ahlgren, Inger
(author)
-
Utbildningsplaner och reformimplementering : Sjuksköterskeutbildningen i fokus
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study describes the course of events within the area of health care with regard to two educational reforms in Sweden: the 1982 reform of certain middle length health care education called the Health Care 77 reform and the 1993 University and College reform. As a result of the first of these reforms, the nursing education was transformed from an education on the secondary school level to a university college level.The present study which has its underpinnings within the implementation process has twoaims: first to clarify the governmental intentions and to illustrate how these intentions wereinterpreted and formulated by those in charge of executing the reforms and secondly toinvestigate to what degree other factors than those directly connected to the actual reformshave influenced the content and form of the operative activities.The frame of reference describes the problems of political governing of education as twofold: the process of making political decisions and the process of executing those decisions.The reality where the goals are formulated and reality where goals are realized are governedby different contingencies, which may be difficult to bridge between. In the present study, thepolitical governing of a reform is seen in a curriculum theoretical perspective and theexecution of the reform is seen in an organization theoretical perspective.The empirical material in this study entails primarily government and local documentssupplemented by interview studies along with studies of correspondence studies with thoseinvolved in the units of interest.There are two main results of this study. The first result was that the formal politicalgoverning of an education has a certain impact but that the informal execution of a reformwill be dependent upon the values and culture of those in the local organization. The secondresult showed that the implementation process entails two phases: a transformation phasewhere government directives are reformulated into local documents and an implementationphase where the local documents are executed in an activity. Commonly, researchers includethe transformation phase within the implementation process but the results of this studysuggest that it may be of greater value to view the transformation phase as phenomena, whichcan be both defined and studied on its own.
|
|
| 2. |
- Ekman, Annalill, 1944-
(author)
-
Lärande organisationer i teori och praktik : Apoteket lär
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is partly to increase the understanding of the phenomena learning organization, and partly to analyze how a large organization works to realize its intentions about developing as a learning organization.The study consists of three parts. Part I is a discussing literature review, which points out the origins of creating the concept learning organization as the later part of the 1980s. A computer- based search shows that researchers have had an interest in the phenomena during the entire 1990s, and that the interest has not declined during the first years of the 21st century. Different disciplines discuss and define learning organizations from different perspectives and there is no uniform definition. This also applies to the Swedish concept of learning, a concept that is formu¬lated as a problem in the thesis. The academic literature within the area of learning organizations is primarily normative. A problem is also that only about 10 percent of the research is based on new empirical studies performed by the researchers themselves. Part II of the paper is a study of a large organization, the Swedish pharmacy chain Apoteket AB, with 12,800 employees, which in its business plan states that they want to develop a learning organization. The study analyzes events over a period of five years and consists of recurring interviews with the company's MD and with those responsible for competence development, interviews with the most senior managers in the company as well as interviews with a selection of district managers. In total, 35 interviews have been conducted. Several internal documents have been analyzed, among other things, to give information about how the employees view compe¬tence development. The MD defines learning organization as learning to act proactively for the purpose of generating change so that the organization better meets a changing world's demands and the value shifts shown by 21st century people in Sweden. The pharmacy Apoteket's change work can be regarded as radical. The last part of the study contains reflections and conclusions. Speaking in terms of learning organization is one of several attempts to distance oneself from the Taylorism, which has pre¬vailed in companies since the beginning of the 1900s, and has sometimes attained a position that replaces Taylorism's concept of planning. However, the learning organization has also become a bit unclear and wide, for example, such as the word democracy. Therefore, a summary conclusion is that the development of the Swedish concept learning and the concept combination learning organization need to be studied over a longer period, since use of the concepts often lead to developing discussions and questioning of organizations .
|
|
| 3. |
- Ericsson, Kent, 1943-
(author)
-
From institutional life to community participation : Ideas and realities concerning support to persons with intellectual disability
- 2002
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The right for everyone with an intellectual disability in Sweden to participate in community life has led to the closure of residential institutions. To understand this issue three questions were formulated: 1) why did this occur, 2) which services provide the alternatives and 3) has this transition led to community participation? The origin of this transition was found in the normalization principle of 1946. A new socio-political idea marked the beginning of a gradual shift from institutionally to community based services. To realize the closure of residential institutions, services which offered extensive staffing and personal support had to be developed. The character of the welfare society has been the context for this transition. Empirical studies provide information about the ongoing development. One group of studies had the concept of community participation as basis for analysis. The ambition of the other group was to gain an understanding through the experiences of those concerned, primarily the persons, their families and staff. These studies show that participation in community life had been achieved for the persons but there were limitations as one did not fully avail of the new forms of support which had been created. The possibilities to achieve participation in community life is discussed as a matter of realizing a shift between two traditions of support.
|
|
| 4. |
- Forsberg, Eva
(author)
-
Elevinflytandets många ansikten
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- With this dissertation, I wish to make a contribution to the public debate on education and democracy, with an emphasis on student influence and impact. Based on eight empirical investigations made during the 1990s, pictures of student impact, primarily on the teaching process, are presented. Expressions of both relatively widespread and more limited student impact emerge. Conditions for this impact cannot easily be ascribed to changes in work organization and work environment or to various groups' attitudes to student influence. However, these factors gain importance in relation to actors' conceptions of how new conditions can be utilized and to their preparedness to make use of them, seen from the perspective of how the reform work of increasing student influence is initiated and carried out.Based on data that could not be explained satisfactorily within the interpretative framework used in the eight investigations, two questions are lifted forward for further discussion. The research approach is set in relation to the abductive logic developed by Peirce. The first question deals with the relation between formal government regulation and student influence and the wider context in which this can be understood. It is found that student impact cannot always be taken for granted as good, and that various motivations for student influence need to be discussed in relation to each other and in relation to the other tasks of the school, as well as from historical and socio-economic perspectives. The second question is connected to the need to develop an alternative and wider understanding of student impact, instead of the one that has dominated studies of student influence and impact up to now. Using the concept of power and the theory that impact can manifest itself as both dominance and unity, the dissertation puts forth that students always have an impact and that the crucial question is whether or not this impact is in line with student interests. To find an answer, the use of a formative authentic interest concept is recommended as superior to the concepts of subjective and objective interests. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of understanding student impact in this way.
|
|
| 5. |
- Gustafsson, Jonas
(author)
-
Så ska det låta : Studier av det musikpedagogiska fältets framväxt i Sverige 1900-1965
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The subject of this dissertation is the evolution of the music education field in Sweden. The study has three levels. The first discusses different music educational issues. The second is about the individuals and institutions that have dominated the field, and the third level is about the structure of the emerging field.Important themes in the discussions are analysed by using a variety of sources - letters, diaries, books, school books, speeches, curriculum texts, journals and reviews. The symbolic assets of dominant individuals and institutions are identified. Hence, different strategies and positions in the field are clarified.One conclusion is that the present field of music education emerged from an apparatus dominated by the Royal Academy of Music. During its development, the field had two important poles. One was related to the compulsory school system, and the other was related to the sphere of professional musicians and the music institutions. Furthermore, two other poles are identified as forward- and backward-oriented.Different successful strategies were found in the field, illustrating the most important positions. These positions are identified as servant of the church, local celebrity, innovator of art and culture, liberator of the child, showman and micro-politician.Important themes in music education are discussed in this study, like the relationship between Method and the Master, the relationship between Music and the Child, and the disciplination of the body.
|
|
| 6. |
- Hellblom-Thibblin, Christina, 1949-
(author)
-
Kategorisering av barns "problem" i skolans värld : En undersökning av skolhälsovårdsrapporter läsåren 1944/45-1988/89
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to investigate and analyze the categorization of children’s “problems” in comprehensive schools and the context in which the categorization is performed and used. A central question is: How are the children’s “problems” defined and formulated in the annual reports of the school health services for the school years 1944/45 to 1988/89? “Problems” in this context are illnesses, functional disabilities and other characteristics associated with what is perceived as the physical, psychical and social ill-health of a child.Based upon Ian Hacking’s philosophical theory of the principles of categorization and the ecological metaphor the relevant data is analyzed. In the study the main analytical tools are concept use, curriculum, documentation routine, expert and supporting measure of education. The different tools cast light on the context to which the categorization can be related. The large number of problem definitions used in the school health services documents relate to behavioral expression, child denomination, habit, individual state, interaction, ”physical and mental condition”, school experience, ”teaching and learning” and exceeding the rules. The results are also presented in relation to a series of four different periods. During these periods the use of concepts often follows different themes. A development can be seen during the first period of the emphasis on intellectual problems and functional disorders to the emphasis during the concluding period on preventive health measures and integration.The study shows that social, cultural, medical and psychological influences contributed to what were identified, observed and documented as children’s “problems” in school from the school health service point of view. Problem definitions particularly noted were universal, human problems. Documentation routines, curricula, experts and educational supporting measures have in various ways affected the use of concepts by school health services during the different periods.
|
|
| 7. |
- Hellsten, Jan-Olof
(author)
-
Skolan som barnarbete och utvecklingsprojekt : En studie av hur grundskoleelevers arbetsmiljö skapas-förändras-förblir som den är
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study is about the working environment of school children in the lower secondaryschool. The aim is to study the course of events in which it develops. The empiricalfieldwork was inspired by ethnographic methods. Data was gathered by means of interviews,participating observation and document studies (especially records of meetings). The datawas treated using a narrative analysis that aimed at finding a `story' by which the databecame comprehensible. A model for data selection was developed for the study. It is called`narrative selection' which means that the researcher chooses those observations that seemmeaningful from within the participating situation. In this way the collected data is interwoven into the analysis. Different elements of the students' working conditions were studied.Of these, homework was given a great deal of attention as the most important aspect of theworkload.The analysis showed that the courses of action could be related in the form of twonarratives that could be classified according to the classical poetry categories of tragedy andromance. The material conditions of the students' work are developed according to thetragedy. Homework can be seen as a result of the confrontation between the two narratives.Those narratives can be understood as the context to which the actors at school try to adapt.The central aspect of those narratives is that they have a rationality of their own and thecourses of action develop according to the logic of each narrative. The findings were testedin attempts to make some features of the Swedish school comprehensible, for instance theweakness of students' influence on their work environment.
|
|
| 8. |
- Henningsson-Yousif, Anna
(author)
-
Skolperspektiv : Utveckling av verktyg för analys av politikers, lärares och elevers resonemang om skolan
- 2003
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The major objective has been to create tools for analyzing the reasoning regarding the school the different actors involved - pupils, teachers, school and politicians show. A subordinate aim was to explore relevance in this connection of eight studies carried out by the author 1979 – 1999 concerning three basic areas: the pedagogical processes at the school level, at the teacher education level and at the level of school change. I conclude that a recurring question is that of the relevance and the sense of meaningfulness experienced by those involved in different educational processes. In one of the eight empirical studies, termed the compulsory-school teacher study (1997), an approach to analyzing what teacher trainees find relevant in their work in schools is presented, involving two basic concepts, those of the event space and the relational space. In considering these concepts in terms of Alfred Schutz' theory of the lifeworld, I rename the relational space the space of contemporaries. A new study is also reported in this thesis – Teachers and schoolpoliticians in the pedagogical process of school change, the LoP-study. In considering the earlier eight studies in conjunction with the LoP-study, I find the studies to have dealt with personal processes and societal processes as well as pedagogical processes in how the parties involved reason in talking about the school. Three different aspects of the processes are distinguished: meta-aspects, connected with the aims a given process has; core aspects, connected with what one concretely does; and approach aspects, pertaining to how the persons involved relate to each other and to the process. In analyzing the LoP- interviews carried out with use of the tools developed – enabling different processes and aspects of these to be analyzed – I find marked individual differences in the patterns of different aspects of the processes involved. The width of the event space and of the space of contemporaries on the part both of the teachers and of the politicians were found to vary considerably. A conclusion drawn is that further development of the tools created would be worthwhile. It also seems possible to apply these tools to other areas, such as those of the scientific community with its research processes and of the political community with its steering processes.
|
|
| 9. |
- Hjälmeskog, Karin
(author)
-
"Democracy begins at home" : Utbildning om och för hemmet som medborgarfostran
- 2000
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is intended as a contribution to a discussion about education, especially when related to democracy and gender equality, in other words citizenship education. A strategy for the inquiries is developed, termed a feminist pragmatist attitude. The focus is on thqualitative content of education i.e. three theoretically demarcated relationships: feminine/masculine, home/society and home/school. When studying educational policy documents in order to identify different views on these relationships, I draw on a tradition of curriculum theory/curriculum history/didactics and the inquiries are influencedy a post-structuralist view of meaning. In agreement with Arendt, history is used to understand the present times and to propose alternatives for the future. Three discourses on home economics, ie. different ways of understanding home economics, are constructed. Home economics as: (1) Vocational education for women, (2) An education for women's mission in life and (3) Women's education for efficiency. Further, an alternativdiscourse for the future is proposed: (4) Home economics as citizenship education. This alternative discourse is constructed from "the forgotten potentials of the past", i.e. ideas from three phases or debates during the 20th century. The three phases are: thdiscussion of the relevance of home economics for the education of boys; the national curriculum from 1969, Lgr 69; and the parliamentary debate during the 1990s. The discourse is further underpinned by a discussion of feminist critique of traditional views of rationality, reason and ethics and by feminist alternatives such as ethics of care. Within the alternative discourse the norm of masculinity in education is criticised and the possibilities of breaking the dominance of thinorm is examined. The potentids of education about and for the home, e.g. education in home economics, as contributing to citizenship education of boys as well as girls are discussed.
|
|
| 10. |
- Ivarsson, Pia-Maria, 1957-
(author)
-
Barns gemenskap i förskolan
- 2003
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study is about children’s communities. It is also about children’s everyday interaction in a pre-school setting and how they utilise interactional and institutional resources to construct peer communities and to group themselves within them. The peer communities discussed in this study are embedded in an institutional context, namely the pre-school setting.To capture this phenomenon an ethnographic approach was used. Included in the benefits of choosing this approach are the opportunities to study everyday practices and children’s activities in a pre-school setting. Participant observations, child interviews and video recordings were used when the data were subsequently constructed and analysed.One feature underlying the pre-school setting as a social context is the organisation of time and space. Time and space structure children’s activities and their material and immaterial resources and social relations. This is shown in an example related to a little boy’s (Mattias) story of everyday practices in pre-school. Another illustrative example of how time and space form the structure for routines and social relations is when the children play a game called ‘the ting-a-ling train’. Still another example of an interesting finding was discovered when the children swung together in the pre-school playground.The preschool conditions allow children to construct their own strategies to gain access to the interactive space, where their negotiations and the organisation of time and space are of vital importance. Another important finding is that activity and talk about activity are functions that are inter-related and that children use as interactional resources.When the children become members of a pre-school group they are at the same time constructed as pre-schoolers. They are ‘doing-being’ pre-schoolers and at a same time constructing the everyday practice called pre-school. Interaction and social context are entwined, which means that a study of children’s peer communities in a pre-school setting offers valuable knowledge about the world of children and about the pre-school as a social context.
|
|
