Non-challenging education and teacher control as factors for marginalization of students in diverse settings

This article discusses teachers’ attitudes towards immigrant students in poor settings and the effect these attitudes have on organization of education on classroom level. It draws on results from two ethnographic studies where some primary school classes in Sweden were followed with participant observation and interviews as main research methods. The article focuses on classroom activities and teachers’ attitudes towards immigrant students and students with low socio-economic status. In the article is argued for the importance of presenting students in poor settings with demanding tasks and challenging education. In these cases, intellectually undemanding tasks in combination with little room for students’ own initiatives resulted in low enthusiasm among students regarding schoolwork and accordingly low learning, while classroom work that demanded active involvement by students in combination with high level of students’ influence on what took place in classrooms resulted in high level of students’ engagement and high outcome.

Kangaroo Mother Care in a Mozambican perinatal ward : a clinical case study

Kangaroo mother care (KMC) was first introduced in Mozambique in 1984. The aim of this study was to describe Mozambican mothers’ experiences of going through admission, passing from an intensive care ward to a nursery ward with their premature baby, undergoing KMC training before early discharge. A clinical case study was conducted, involving naturalistic observations and a face-to-face interview with 41 mothers participating to complete a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and manifest content analysis were used in this study. The results show that the mothers were of low socio-economic standing and felt that they did not have enough information on KMC. The hierarchical organization within the hospital setting as well as communalistic behaviours influenced the mothers’ support of KMC, including information, communication, relationships and actions. The conclusion is that there is an important challenge for trained neonatal nurses to improve the guidelines for KMC and to empower mothers and their families to adopt KMC.

The Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) scale : self-reported competence among nursing students on the point of graduation

BACKGROUND: International organisations, e.g. WHO, stress the importance of competent registered nurses (RN) for the safety and quality of healthcare systems. Low competence among RNs has been shown to increase the morbidity and mortality of inpatients. OBJECTIVES: To investigate self-reported competence among nursing students on the point of graduation (NSPGs), using the Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale, and to relate the findings to background factors. METHODS AND PARTICIPANTS: The NPC Scale consists of 88 items within eight competence areas (CAs) and two overarching themes. Questions about socio-economic background and perceived overall quality of the degree programme were added. In total, 1086 NSPGs (mean age, 28.1 [20-56]years, 87.3% women) from 11 universities/university colleges participated. RESULTS: NSPGs reported significantly higher scores for Theme I "Patient-Related Nursing" than for Theme II "Organisation and Development of Nursing Care". Younger NSPGs (20-27years) reported significantly higher scores for the CAs "Medical and Technical Care" and "Documentation and Information Technology". Female NSPGs scored significantly higher for "Value-Based Nursing". Those who had taken the nursing care programme at upper secondary school before the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programme scored significantly higher on "Nursing Care", "Medical and Technical Care", "Teaching/Learning and Support", "Legislation in Nursing and Safety Planning" and on Theme I. Working extra paid hours in healthcare alongside the BSN programme contributed to significantly higher self-reported scores for four CAs and both themes. Clinical courses within the BSN programme contributed to perceived competence to a significantly higher degree than theoretical courses (93.2% vs 87.5% of NSPGs). SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: Mean scores reported by NSPGs were highest for the four CAs connected with patient-related nursing and lowest for CAs relating to organisation and development of nursing care. We conclude that the NPC Scale can be used to identify and measure aspects of self-reported competence among NSPGs.

Road Design for Future Maintenance : Life-cycle Cost Analyses for Road Barriers

The cost of a road construction over its service life is a function of design, quality of construction as well as maintenance strategies and operations. An optimal life-cycle cost for a road requires evaluations of the above mentioned components. Unfortunately, road designers often neglect a very important aspect, namely, the possibility to perform future maintenance activities. Focus is mainly directed towards other aspects such as investment costs, traffic safety, aesthetic appearance, regional development and environmental effects. This doctoral thesis presents the results of a research project aimed to increase consideration of road maintenance aspects in the planning and design process. The following subgoals were established: Identify the obstacles that prevent adequate consideration of future maintenance during the road planning and design process; and Examine optimisation of life-cycle costs as an approach towards increased efficiency during the road planning and design process. The research project started with a literature review aimed at evaluating the extent to which maintenance aspects are considered during road planning and design as an improvement potential for maintenance efficiency. Efforts made by road authorities to increase efficiency, especially maintenance efficiency, were evaluated. The results indicated that all the evaluated efforts had one thing in common, namely ignorance of the interrelationship between geometrical road design and maintenance as an effective tool to increase maintenance efficiency. Focus has mainly been on improving operating practises and maintenance procedures. This fact might also explain why some efforts to increase maintenance efficiency have been less successful. An investigation was conducted to identify the problems and difficulties, which obstruct due consideration of maintainability during the road planning and design process. A method called “Change Analysis” was used to analyse data collected during interviews with experts in road design and maintenance. The study indicated a complex combination of problems which result in inadequate consideration of maintenance aspects when planning and designing roads. The identified problems were classified into six categories: insufficient consulting, insufficient knowledge, regulations and specifications without consideration of maintenance aspects, insufficient planning and design activities, inadequate organisation and demands from other authorities. Several urgent needs for changes to eliminate these problems were identified. One of the problems identified in the above mentioned study as an obstacle for due consideration of maintenance aspects during road design was the absence of a model for calculating life-cycle costs for roads. Because of this lack of knowledge, the research project focused on implementing a new approach for calculating and analysing life-cycle costs for roads with emphasis on the relationship between road design and road maintainability. Road barriers were chosen as an example. The ambition is to develop this approach to cover other road components at a later stage. A study was conducted to quantify repair rates for barriers and associated repair costs as one of the major maintenance costs for road barriers. A method called “Case Study Research Method” was used to analyse the effect of several factors on barrier repairs costs, such as barrier type, road type, posted speed and seasonal effect. The analyses were based on documented data associated with 1625 repairs conducted in four different geographical regions in Sweden during 2006. A model for calculation of average repair costs per vehicle kilometres was created. Significant differences in the barrier repair costs were found between the studied barrier types. In another study, the injuries associated with road barrier collisions and the corresponding influencing factors were analysed. The analyses in this study were based on documented data from actual barrier collisions between 2005 and 2008 in Sweden. The result was used to calculate the cost for injuries associated with barrier collisions as a part of the socio-economic cost for road barriers. The results showed significant differences in the number of injuries associated with collisions with different barrier types. To calculate and analyse life-cycle costs for road barriers a new approach was developed based on a method called “Activity-based Life-cycle Costing”. By modelling uncertainties, the presented approach gives a possibility to identify and analyse factors crucial for optimising life-cycle costs. The study showed a great potential to increase road maintenance efficiency through road design. It also showed that road components with low investment costs might not be the best choice when including maintenance and socio-economic aspects. The difficulties and problems faced during the collection of data for calculating life-cycle costs for road barriers indicated a great need for improving current data collecting and archiving procedures. The research focused on Swedish road planning and design. However, the conclusions can be applied to other Nordic countries, where weather conditions and road design practices are similar. The general methodological approaches used in this research project may be applied also to other studies.

Bortom skolframgång : En analys av PISA 2006 ur ett intersektionellt perspektiv

Beyond school performance An analysis of PISA 2006 from an intersectional perspective One of the central questions in recent discussions about Swedish schools is which factors that influence school performance. Socio-economic background, gender, ethnicity, country of birth are some aspects that are mentioned in many international and national studies. Sweden is one of the participants in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the results of PISA since 2000 show deteriorated results for Sweden in reading performance, mathematics and science among 15-year-old students. In order to set school performance in a broader context we analyzed data for the Swedish part of PISA 2006, in which 57 countries participated (of which 30 OECD-countries), with multivariate methods from an intersectional perspective. Our analysis of PISA 2006 shows a complexity of different social, economic and cultural factors behind students’ school performance. This intersectional result is also strengthened by the results from PISA 2009, not analysed here. Further, our results show that students’ school performance vary with immigration status but that this variation increases by the factor of social inequality in the Swedish society.

Actitudes lingüísticas hacia el español andino en La Paz, Bolivia : Un estudio comparativo entre tres universidades en la ciudad de La Paz y la ciudad de El Alto.

En este estudio se analizan las actitudes lingüísticas hacia el español andino en universitarios con diferentes contextos sociolingüísticos y socioeconómicos de tres universidades en La Paz, Bolivia, en relación con el español andino. Se utiliza una encuesta que incluye dos técnicas: pares falsos donde los informantes opinan sobre cuatro voces, dos del español andino y dos del español estándar y se mide el índice de solidaridad y de estatus; y un cuestionario de diferenciación semántica que mide las actitudes hacia las diferentes clases de transferencia del aymara al español andino. El análisis de los resultados indica que la actitud hacia los hablantes del español estándar es más positiva que la actitud hacia los hablantes del español andino, hay más solidaridad y más que todo se le asigna más estatus. Son los mismos hablantes del español andino que muestran las actitudes menos positivas.

Juridik eller socialpedagogik? : Skolors strategier för att hantera kränkningar

Legal perspectives or Social Pedagogy? Schools strategies of handling harassments The present study explores how Swedish schools define and categorize situations when students have been exposed to different forms of abusive acts and violence at school. The empirical study is designed as case studie of two urban secondary schools situated in areas with different socioeconomic conditions. One of the schools is located in a suburb in one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in a greater city area. The other school is located in a small town municipality, where the students are relatively privileged in respect to their socio-economic backgrounds. The results indicate that different socio-economic conditions influence how professional’s describe and categorize violence and harassment and the types of strategies chosen. In the suburban school professionals talk and collaborate with the police, reporting cases of violence and harassment. In the small town school the professionals talk about the importance of collaborating with parents.