En kommunal korttidspool i mellansverige : - en utvärdering ur tre perspektiv, år 2002

Arbetets syfte är att utvärdera en korttidspools organisation och verksamhet, utifrån tre olika intressenters perspektiv, nämligen de anställda, arbetsgivaren samt den fackliga organisationen, SKAF. Utvärderingen sker från tre olika tidsaspekter; starten, nuet och framtiden. Undersökning har avgränsats till att studera; en korttidspool i en mellansvensk kommun, de anställda i korttidspoolen, dess berörda arbetsgivarrepresentanter och den fackliga organisationen. Detta medför att de anställda ute på de arbetsplatser som använder sig av poolen, berörda politiker uteslutits i undersökningen. Även de vårdtagare som nyttjar korttidspoolen har utelämnats då denna utvärdering inte syftar till att mäta vårdkvaliteten. Undersökningen inleddes med att ett brevutskick (i form av ett öppet svarsbrev) ut till samtliga berörda parter, därefter genomfördes intervjuer, med ett urval informanter. Till grund för undersökningen har en egen komponerad utvärderingsmodell använts. De variabler som modellen innefattar är; Mål och avtal, Arbetsmiljö, Ledarskap och Ekonomi. Undersökningen påvisar att korttidspoolen föranletts av flertalet brister, bland annat gällande förberedelsetid/planeringsarbete med resultat att viktiga detaljer förbisågs; upprättande av mål och avtal. Korttidspoolen är (i nuläget) inte ekonomiskt bärande, vilket tillviss del beror på att arbetsplatserna (som nyttjar poolen) inte förvaltar bokningen på ett adekvat sätt, vilket i förlängningen undergräver korttidspoolens fortsatta verksamhet.

Processes of feelings in a society with a violent past : A qualitative study of the communication for Societal healing in the Truth Commissions in East Timor, Sri Lanka and Ghana between 2002-2011

The research investigates in what extent and how communication for meeting feelings is provided in Truth Commission work. It examines if and in what way feelings are addressed in the communication officially published by the Truth Commissions in East Timor, Ghana and Sri Lanka, occurring between 2002-2011. The research is also looking at the healing processes in a time perspective to find out if there is a communication for Societal healing to be continued in a longer term. My conclusion is that two cases of three in my research, the TRCs in Ghana and East Timor, have communication clearly directed to meet feelings caused by the war. One of the three cases (East Timor) has a communication with a clear ambition to heal over a longer period, to continue after the existence of the Truth Commission. The research suggests that communication with a clear ambition to reach out widely in the society, a communication directed to meet and process feelings over a longer period, can make Societal healing more effective. It also concludes that, in the future, Societal healing, as a field in conflict resolution, will be more based on representational media than today, provided through web communication.

Are schools able to bring sense into pupils' lives? - an experiment to use Antonovsky's concept sense of coherence from a school perspective. : Paper presented at the ENIRDEM conference in Kilkenny, Ireland 26th-29th September, 2002

Young people now spend a longer and longer period of their lives at school then ever before. Not always because that they want to, but because society has nothing else to offer. The situation in many schools may also, in different aspects, be seen as highly problematic. Andersson (2001) has, for example, found in a large longitudinal study - The Life Project – that schools seem to be adapted to the needs of only a minority of the students - around 30%. On the other hand school is badly adjusted to the requirements of another 30 %. This group of students often find school meaningless, uninteresting and boring. For these students school is mostly a waste of time. In such circumstances, it seems natural that society has a responsibility to offer young people a meaningful time at school, both here and now and to prepare them for a future live as adults, not only as a part of the work force.As a part of departure I briefly describe the model that Antonovsky has developed and try to use it in a school context instead. I have here, of course, no possibility to make a deeper analysis of a complex problem such as this.In Antonovsky’s spirit, using a salutogenic perspective, instead of asking ourselves why do pupils fail or perhaps also not like being at school we have to ask, instead: What it is that makes pupils successful? From this background the purpose of this paper is to discuss some aspects of how pupils may use different strategies to handle their school situation in a proper way.

Decomposing Consumer Wealth Effects: Evidence on the Role of Real Estate Assets Following the Wealth Cycle of 1990-2002

During the period of 1990-2002 US households experienced a dramatic wealth cycle, induced by a 369% appreciation in the value of real per capita liquid stock market assets followed by a 55% decline. However, consumer spending in real terms continued to rise throughout this period. Using data from 1990-2005, traditional life-cycle approaches to estimating macroeconomic wealth effects confront two puzzles: (i) econometric evidence of a stable cointegrating relationship among consumption, income, and wealth is weak at best; and (ii) life-cycle models that rely on aggregate measures of wealth cannot explain why consumption did not collapse when the value of stock market assets declined so dramatically. We address both puzzles by decomposing wealth according to the liquidity of household assets. We find that the significant appreciation in the value of real estate assets that occurred after the peak of the wealth cycle helped sustain consumer spending from 2001 to 2005.