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Public involvement in the planning process is a prerequisite for democratic outcomes. Environmental issues regarding impacts of sound tend to be limited to mere exercises in noise estimation and guideline values. Such information is difficult for the layman to understand, and such a lack of understanding produces shortcomings in the democratic process. In addition to decibel calculations interpretable by experts, the sonic environment also can be described in more accessible ways. This article reports on a concrete planning case, the widening of the railway through Åkarp in southern Sweden, where the usual calculations of equivalent noise and maximum noise are undergoing critical analysis. In order to complement the noise description, a new measurement has been devised, "high noise time," which is equal to the total time per 24 hours in which trains pass through a place without stopping. The frequency and duration of the passing of trains may be a better measure of disturbance than the maximum noise peak per passage or the equivalent (average) noise level distributed over 24 hours. Film technology also has been developed as a method for recording the frequency and duration of train passage.

This dissertation is about leader development. It focuses on similarities and differences between contents in different in-house leader development programs, and on how these programs are organized. The purpose is to contribute knowledge about leader development in Swedish working life, by describing and analyzing different organizations' ways of doing leader development from a context-actor perspective. Very little research has been undertaken about leader development from a comparative perspective, although leader development is a question of current interest, and can be viewed as a fashion now in the beginning of the 21st century. The context-actor perspective that I use as theoretical point of departure is influenced partly by Bhaskar's transformational model of social activity, partly by institutional theory and the notion of isomorphic processes, containing powers in the context of the organization in combination with local actors. An educational culture is seen as a single organization's specific way to manage leader development. The dissertation is chiefly based on a case study of six organizations' leader development. I have interviewed 13 persons that had the responsibility for creating, carrying out and developing leader development efforts in these organizations. I also studied different documents from these organizations, and observed when actors from one of the organizations met their colleagues from similar organizations for discussions concerning leader development. The analysis of the data has had a distinct feature of abduction, and I used eight constructed aspects and 131 variables when comparing the organizations. My results suggest that the organizations' educational cultures had both overarching similarities and considerable differences. The deeper I probed into the ways in which the organizations did leader development, the more specific details I found. Most of the dissimilarities that appeared in the comparison turned out to be exclusive to specific organizations rather then to groups of organizations. The organizational level appeared as the most important context for shaping the specific characteristic of the different leader development programs. Likewise, the branch level and national level seem to play a central role, but the sector level turned out to be the context with the least importance for the organizations' ways of doing leader development. For the national level it is possible to argue that the similarities the organizations showed may constitute an example of the spirit of the times and everyday talk about leader development that can be found in Swedishworking life. The actors turned out to be part of the organizations' human resources, and they were not seldom human resource managers and women. It was above all these actors that had the responsibility for and organized the leader development. The interplay between the actors and the context can be described in terms of the actors as creators of culture and bearers of culture respectively. There is consequently a potential for both transformation and reproduction as a result of the interplay between the powers that contexts and actors constitute. From the actors' statements it is obvious that they saw themselves as active actors. Overall, the research indicates that it is reasonable to describe an organization's educational culture as a result of how the actors have interacted with different contexts. The existence of certain leader development ideals in Swedish working life is not necessarily a determining factor for how a single actor chooses to work with the leader development in a certain organization, though it depends on the latter.

Assessment tends to be associated with students and learners; however, the term assessment encompasses both teachers and students. To understand the purpose of language assessment instruments, it is key to look for the designers and their preferences. This research aims to characterize 209 assessment instruments created by English teachers. This is a non-experimental and descriptive study that analyzes the types of instruments, the educational level, the language systems and skills, and the type and number of items. Two of the most important findings are related to the preferences Chilean English teachers have towards traditional assessment and the tendency to assess vocabulary and grammar; besides, the participants' preference for tests and fill-in-the gap items.

Academic cheating is an action individuals take to achieve success in ways that are not right. Academic cheating is often done, ranging from basic educational institutions to universities or students. Educators must have morals to reduce the actions of Academic Cheating that often occurs at the education level. Guilt and Shame Proneness determines unethical behavior, such as whether academic cheating will occur. This study aims to determine the effect of Guilt and Shame Proneness on Academic Cheating in students of primary school teacher education study programs. The current study assessed academic dishonesty among college students in primary school teacher education programs. Two hundred and eight participants self-reported cheating behavior and completed the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale. The regression test results for the influence of Guilt and Shame Proneness on Academic Cheating obtained a probability value of sig. (p) = 0.000 (p<0.05) so that the hypothesis is accepted: Guilt and Shame Proneness significantly influence Academic Cheating. R-square value = 0, 075 means that Academic Cheating effectively contributes 7.5% to guilt. The importance of moral inculcation in student-teacher candidates must be considered to prevent unethical behavior.

During the 19th-century many lakes in Sweden were lowered because the need of agriculture land was high. The population was increasing so the government decided to lend money to farmers that wanted to expand their land. Today we are experiencing the environmental results of these actions. Hydrological effects like changed flowing directions and the damping effects of the lakes have been taken away. The management of the forest is also affecting the water system. In the catchment of Gråskaån several lakes has been lowered and a lot of land has been drained. The result is a quick outflow of water to the sea, when it's raining or when the snow is melting. Measurements in the field and also simulations with the HBV light model shows a quick decrease in flow when it's receiving water, during the summer months anyway. Computer simulations shows that during the 1980's the flow was higher, that is probably because of larger amount of precipitation during the 80's. The winters were also colder and that gives a larger amount of snow accumulation and more melting water in the spring. The low water flows are also affecting the fishes. The county administrative board of Stockholm wants to have a stock with salmon trout in Gråskaån. Therefore there have been projects going on, since the year of 1976, with putting out salmon trout in the river. In May 2003 were the last time for that, and test fishing in October the same year showed that there was no trout left in the river which is probably because of the low water flow during the summer months. The fish are responding to low water flows with heading downstream, and in this case, the fish probably swims out to Edeboviken. During the flow measurement the stream velocity varied between 37 cm/s and 1 cm/s. The salmon trout needs at least 15 cm/s to survive. So the big variation in water flow causes big problems. The salmon trout was reproducing in the stream during the 1980 but not anymore and that is probably because of the larger amount of precipitation during that time compared to now. So in order to keep the salmon trout in the river some counter measures has to be made. Countermeasures like damming of lakes to ensure a water flow during summer when the stream sometimes is completely dry, is one of the things that can be done. Also countermeasures like the removal of plants and construction of god playing grounds for the salmon trout has to be done in order to keep the fish in the stream.

In 1999, the Swedish Parliament decided to launch an experiment to test the idea of replacing, at the compulsory educational level, the national time schedule with localized control of schedules. This was in keeping with strategies of deregulation, decentralisation and increased local autonomy that had dominated Swedish education policy, particularly since the 1990s. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the initiation, decision, implementation and consequences of this experiment The analytical framework combines several different approaches and theories from the literature on public policy and policy analysis. The framework encompasses four dimensions, which cover the experiment's origins, local application in the classroom setting and consequences. On the empirical level, findings are based on interviews with 32 municipal school directors, and head teachers, teachers and pupils in three schools participating in the experiment, as well as written sources from schools, municipalities, and the national level. The thesis shows that the policy problem the experiment was intended to resolve was represented in an inconsistent manner: On the one hand, the experiment was perceived as a driving force for change; on the other hand, it was seen as legitimising a change that had already taken place. Furthermore, the experiment was formulated in vague terms, which accorded far-reaching discretionary space to the schools. The program's causal theory expressed by the policy makers was complex, containing a multifaceted chain of presumptions on a range of activities and processes through which the experiment ultimately would lead to improved opportunities for pupils to reach the educational objectives. Empirically, this prediction proved to be invalid as student achievement did not increase. The degree of implementation at the local level varied according to the comprehension, capability and willingness of those involved to carry out the experiment. The courses of action taken by the schools frequently could have been undertaken within the existing legislative framework, as they mostly concerned new ways of working and organising staff and pupils. An assessment of the objectives attained showed that, even if elements of developmental work corresponding to the direction stated in the policy documents were observed, the experiment did not emerge as the primary explanatory factor for this result Thus, the net impact of the experiment can be questioned. If judged against the criterion of adaptiveness, the results are more successful than if the experiment is assessed according to goal-attainment and the validity of the program theory. The experiment was found to integrate, alter and accommodate itself readily to local needs. The thesis illustrates the complexity of formulating and implementing policy in a decentralised context and points to important aspects in the historical background of the programme, which often tend to be overlooked when policy is analysed and discussed. At the same time, the study sheds light on the significant role played by street-level implementation actors in the educational context.

Introduces the nomination process for the Swedish Political Science Association's Essay Prize and the winning essay for 2008 by Mikael Persson titled 'Did the egalitarian reforms of the Swedish educational system equalize levels of democratic citizenship?' The essay studied the effects of the educational reform done in the mid 1990's and was proclaimed to be well written and methodologically advanced by the awarding committee. L. Pitkaniemi

It is widely known that effective readers are those who have appropriately developed reading skills. If those skills are not developed, the readers will not achieve the levels of perception needed to solve problems or pass academic tests, neither in their mother tongue nor in a foreign language. For this reason, it is imperative to find the right strategies to enhance reading comprehension in English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. One of those strategies is the use of graphic organizers, and this study aimed to measure the extent to which it influences the development of reading comprehension of Unidad Educativa Joaquin Lalama students, in Ambato-Ecuador. 40 students in the control group and 35 students in the experimental group constituted the sample. The data was collected through the observation technique and the comparison of results from a reading comprehension pre-test and post-test. Finally, this study found the use of graphic organizers to be effective for developing reading comprehension in the subjects observed.

Studien redovisar den tredje mätningen som följer upp förändringar av trafikanternas hastighetsval och hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala huvudvägnätet i tätort. Resultaten visar att de genomsnittliga reshastigheterna ligger under gällande hastighetsgräns, men att bristande hastighetsefterlevnad fortfarande är ett problem. År 2009 fattades ett riksdagsbeslut som innebar ett mål att antalet dödade i vägtrafiken skulle halveras mellan åren 2007 och 2020. En av indikatorerna för att följa utvecklingen är "hastighetsefterlevnad på det kommunala vägnätet". Ett delmål är att minst 80 procent av trafikarbetet ska ske inom gällande hastighetsgräns. År 2012 var startår för mätserien och under 2015 genomfördes den tredje uppföljande mätningen. ; In 2009 the Swedish Parliament passed a resolution stating that by 2020 the number of fatalities from road traffic crashes should be reduced to half the level in 2007. This corresponds to a maximum of 220 deaths in 2020. In order to monitor progress toward this goal, yearly national follow-up studies are conducted to examine trends in the numbers of people killed and severely injured, along with a number of indicators. One of these indicators is speed limit compliance on the municipality streets; the milestone here is to have at least 80 per cent of all traffic travelling within the speed limit. The aim of the present study is to report the changes between the years 2014 and 2015 concerning driver speed levels and speed limit compliance on the main municipality streets. The annual measurement series started in year 2012 and with the measurement series from 2015, this third follow-up was performed.

In recent years knowledge has been brought forward as an important political issue both in the EU and in Sweden. It is said to be of the uttermost importance not just for education but for society as a whole. As a result of increased globalization and a European striving for economic growth, knowledge has come to be associated with both individual and national competitiveness, and education and learning in schools and workplaces have become a political priority. In this global competition the EU has become an important policy actor in the educational field trying to create a common European education policy field. Despite this development, only a limited number of reports relating the European arena to Swedish educational reforms have been published. Against this background the aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the knowledge discourses which struggle for legitimacy in Swedish and European education policy and how these discourses relate to each other and change over time. The empirical material consists of a number of fundamental official policy texts produced by the EU and the Swedish state. The study takes its theoretical point of departure in critical discourse analysis using an analytical grid where production, content and communication are seen as three aspects constituting every knowledge discourse. The result shows a process of silent Europeanization in Swedish school reform where European knowledge discourse is being re-contextualised and in many cases re-interpreted without any declaration in terms of explicit references. It also confirms the general trend towards increased focus on learning outcomes and demands for measurability. Furthermore, the result shows how competition rhetoric dominating the EU contributes to an increased sense of crisis in both European and Swedish educational reforms. As a result of this crisis rhetoric the study shows how the proactive reform-perspective is being replaced by a retrospective where solving already existing problems replaces the planning of an ...

In a world of permanent change, traditional language teaching methods do not solve the communicative needs in foreign languages ​​that favor knowledge and adaptation to changing educational contexts. The CLIL method is widely used to develop skills both in the learning language and in other areas of knowledge, it allows for the strengthening of teaching capacities to assume the teaching of contents of the different subjects in a foreign language. The objective of this bibliographic review is to collect significant and existing information on the CLIL method and contribution of this method in the educational field. The documentary descriptive approach of recent research related to the subject of study is used, based on the theoretical foundations of bilingual education. The literature review shows that by teaching the foreign language as a vehicle to instruct content from other subjects, students understand the need to learn the language to seize the knowledge of the subject and allows teachers to explore their own teaching context, reflect and identify factors that can improve their teaching practice, especially in the inclusion of writing activities in English.

The Reparliamentarization of Sweden? The Use and Relevance of Parliamentary Resolutions to the Government In contrast to the theory of deparliamentarization amongst parliamentary democracies, this article points to the Riksdag's use of so-called resolutions (tillkännagivanden) to the Government as a sign of growing reparliamentarization. Resolutions in the Swedish context are constitutionally non-binding but politically coercing. From this first study of a hitherto uncharted parliamentary instrument some preliminary conclusions materialise: Resolutions are more complex nowadays than 15–20 years ago requiring more effort from the Government. Parliament's use of resolutions has, broadly pictured, evolved from unanimous or bipartisan demands on often technical issues to an increasingly politicized tool of reiningin minority governments. In some exceptional cases even issuing a few so-called negative resolutions which essentially seek to infringe the Government's executive powers. Resolutions may offer a complementary measurement of a government's parliamentary strength and provide additional insights into the workings of Swedish (and potentially other countries) parliamentarism given additional research.

Public catering can have a considerable environmental and educational impact. A scenario of more legume and less meat consumption in Sweden was in the present study used as a tool to explore the possibilities of Swedish public school meals to become more sustainable. Strong structuration theory provided a focus on organisational structure and stakeholder influence, enabling a holistic view of the issue at hand. A literature review, on the topics of successful implementation of sustainability projects within public catering and individual agency within school meals, provided a knowledge base from which an online survey and a guide for complementary interviews were built. The survey was aimed at municipal dietary managers and assessed their experiences of working with sustainable school meals and their attitudes towards the dietary scenario. Furthermore, the survey tried out a way of measuring how much legumes and meat are served in school canteens. The complementary interviews focused on individual actors' perceived agency to act for sustainable change. The results suggest that the study participants in general have both the knowledge and interest to make school meals more sustainable. They also saw the more legumes dietary scenario as desirable. Complicating factors are that the priorities of catering organisations and schools are often not well aligned, and resources are lacking to work on collaborations to improve this. It is also often unclear who has the responsibility to make sure teaching on sustainability is carried over from the classroom to the canteen. Individual agents with a high motivation to make positive change can be important drivers of sustainability projects, but for a change such as significantly greener school meals to take place, a whole food culture needs to change. Educational efforts and finding ways of engaging multiple stakeholders in the decisions are needed to this end. Unambiguous political goals, with adequate action plans, would give structure to the work on more sustainable school meals. Finding ways of quantifying and comparing sustainability efforts between municipalities would draw attention to the importance of the matter. The approach that was tried out in the present study however proved to be too impractical to use.

This report is based on the results obtained from two questionnaire studies carried out during 1999 and 2007. The aim of the studies is to increase our knowledge about the attitudes and approach of the police to traffic safety work and how these attitudes have changed with time. In the first study 729 randomly chosen police officers completed the questionnaire and in the second 1,022. The results show that the basic attitude among the police towards traffic surveillance has become more positive. The attitudes towards the directives from the governing bodies and their ability to participate in decision making have improved slightly from the first measurement to the second measurement. However, it is characteristic that a fairly large proportion still is dissatisfied with the same. The attitude of the police towards their own reporting of accidents has not changed appreciably at all. On the other hand, the understanding that a certain amount of statistics shall be reported is slightly greater in 2007 than in 1999. The attitudes towards automatic surveillance have strongly improved although a well-visible policeman is still advocated. The need to reinforce the surveillance of professional traffic is considered to be greater in 2007 than in 1999. According to the police, the attitude amongst the public towards speeding offences has become more negative than it was before. Nevertheless, a relatively high proportion still believes that it is a relatively minor offence. In 2006, the tolerance level for speeding offences was lowered at the same time as the fines for traffic offences were raised markedly. The results of the questionnaire show that the police are neutral towards whether or not these measures will influence the public's acceptance of the traffic safety work, which could indicate that they have not yet defined their attitude regarding the question. More than half of all police officers in 2007 do not believe that the public are aware of the possibility of having a time for consideration with respect to the acceptance of a fine for a breach of regulations. Finally the results show that in 2007, more controls were carried out than before. The most important conclusions that can be drawn from these results are that the police have developed a more positive attitude towards the traffic safety work and that, at the same time, more traffic controls are being carried out. But there are also many who still do not feel that they are able to influence their work. Furthermore, many are dissatisfied with the governing body's directives regarding traffic safety work. Such a dissatisfaction can influence the psycho-social work environment and the motivation for carrying out good work, but concretely the results show that such a dissatisfaction influences, both directly and indirectly, how many traffic controls one carries out.