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This cross-sectional study investigates the shifts in anxiety levels among Swedish employees throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with data gathered in 2016, 2018, and 2020. Work-related anxiety was assessed through two metrics: General Work Anxiety (WA) and Work Performance Anxiety (WPA). Overall, there was a decline in both average WA and WPA over the five-year period. However, this trend did not apply uniformly across all social groups. Specifically, WA saw a significant decrease among older men, while it showed an increase among younger women. Additionally, the reduction in WPA was more pronounced among managers than employees during the pandemic. High-income individuals and those with advanced education levels also experienced a greater decrease in WPA. These findings underscore the role of employment conditions in shaping the impact that the pandemic might have had on workers’ mental health.

Abstract Nordic and international research recognises the vulnerabilities and often poor outcomes for care leavers. However, their interrelationship with housing or homelessness as a specific outcome of concern is not well established in Norwegian or Nordic research. Conversely, housing for care leavers has been on the political agenda in Australia for several decades, with an increasing body of research highlighting both structural challenges related to, for example housing affordability and income security, as well as individual vulnerabilities related to individual agency, independent living skills, and supports. In this article we provide an overview of Norwegian and Australian studies to highlight the emerging research in this area and applicability to the Nordic context. Collectively, care leavers are less likely to be able to draw on their biological families for housing or financial support. This lack of a safety net constitutes an innate vulnerability. While support structures, including aftercare support for care leavers, may mitigate some of these vulnerabilities, it is also important to recognise and redress individual challenges related to independent living skills and personal agency. We argue for a more targeted support structure for care leavers, with housing and independent living skills as outcomes of explicit concern.

The current study provides an in-depth investigation of critical factors of successful inter- organisational collaboration involving upper secondary schools, vocational communities situated at department levels, and labour market partners in the school’s local environment. The research question that has guided the study is: What are the organisational characteristics of schools and subject departments which are well-performing in terms of a high degree of student completion in vocational education and training? The concept of ‘organisational characteristic’ refers to structures, roles and institutionalised patterns of collaboration involving school teachers, school leaders and labour market partners. The study is designed as a single case study encompassing two units of analysis, embracing school and department levels in their interactions with partners in the labour market. The findings of the study highlight the importance of collaborative learning through the creation and development of specific organisational routines directed towards the core practices of vocational didactics. Moreover, the findings underscore the process of local adaptation activated at the subject- department level and directed towards corresponding businesses and relevant parts of the public sector. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.

Politiarbeid styres av lover og regler, prosedyrer og i noen grad «tiltakskort» for enkelte situasjoner. Likevel befinner politibetjenter seg relativt ofte i situasjoner som er moralsk sett krevende og der veiledningen er sparsommelig. Norsk politi har nokså vid adgang til å utøve skjønn, og det eksisterer et uttalt ønske om å styrke den moralske refleksjonen og beredskapen systematisk. I denne artikkelen undersøkes styrker og svakheter ved å benytte kasuistisk metode for å håndtere moralske konflikter i politipraksis, basert på sentrale bidrag fra forskningslitteraturen omkring dette temaet. I beskrivelsen av kasuistisk metodikk beskrives den praktiske og teoretiske kompetansen som kreves for bruken og dannelsen av såkalte paradigmer. Selv om dannelsen av paradigmer i noen grad kan sies å begrense betjentenes rom for skjønnsutøvelse, konkluderer artikkelen med at dette oppveies ved at metoden gir en høyere grad av profesjonalitet, forutsigbarhet og yrkesetisk kompetanse i politietaten. Selve det kasuistiske arbeidet bidrar dessuten til å gi tjenestepersonene et bredere syn på moralsk krevende situasjoner.

“Co-creation” in Norwegian public sector – Changes, Opportunism or Symbolism? The Norwegian word for co-creation, “samskaping”, is a new-constructed word that during the last 5 years has become a key concept in the public sector. How to understand this conceptual change? By leaning on theories about organizational diffusion and translation, the article explores to what extent we are witnessing a real versus more symbolic change. The article analyses the spread of co-creation based in web-searches in Norwegian public websites. The analysis shows that while “samskaping” at the national level mostly relates to welfare services (elderly care), the local level displays a more mixed picture where “samskaping” also relates to regional and local development. Relating to translation theory, this preliminary analysis indicates that the drive towards co-creation is propelled by a mixture of different motivations, spanning from more interaction with citizens, opportunistic use of co-creation, and more symbolic functions.

Sammendrag I denne artikkelen tar vi for oss en viktig funksjon i den norske Nærpolitireformen, nemlig «etterretning». Vi forklarer her hva etterretningsstyrt politiarbeid er, og hvordan det er tenkt operasjonalisert i Norge gjennom Etterretningsdoktrinen. Denne doktrinen medfører, slik vi ser det, vesentlige endringer i politirollen. Vi identifiserer i artikkelen noen av disse endringene og diskuterer hva som kreves av politigeneralisten for å leve opp til denne nye rollen.

This case study was designed to explore the strategies and actions that high performing schools with sustainable results employ at the district level in a rural part of Norway. The district subjected to the study is characterised by small municipalities and a scattered population, with a few small school administrative units, which might be a challenging context for sustainability and improvement. In response, the districts developed collaborative structures to increase collective learning capacity. The research design involved a collective case study, and it draws on data from interviews with school leaders at the municipal level and local school policy documents. The findings suggest that Norwegian school district actors can facilitate school improvement by shaping collaborating cultures, inter-organisational learning processes and educational infrastructures. Furthermore, the findings highlight the schools’ ability to recognise and value new knowledge from external sources, such as academic institutions and partner schools, assimilate novelties across boundaries and, eventually, utilise these for strategic or operational ends to enhance an organisation’s absorptive capacity. Finally, the findings indicate that superintendents can play important roles through boundary-spanning and gatekeeping activities.

Artikkelen beskriver erfaringene til ansatte i to kommuner som deltok i Det nasjonale velferdsteknologiprogrammet (DNV) med et felles prosjekt. Formålet er å undersøke erfaringene til de ansatte i et prosjekt der tjenesteinnovasjon, gevinstrealisering og prosessveiledning var sentralt. Artikkelen bygger på datamateriale fra fokusgruppeintervjuer med ansatte på ulike nivå. Skriftlige dokumenter som prosjektplan og møtereferater har vært brukt som bakgrunnsmateriale. I prosjektperioden ble nye systemer og rutiner innført. Man utviklet kunnskap, rutiner og verktøy for kartlegging og tildeling av tjenester der en tok utgangspunkt i brukers behov. Men nye systemer, rutiner og metodikk ble ikke etablert i alle ledd i organisasjonene. De praktiske erfaringene vil bli diskutert med utgangspunkt i en modell fra organisasjonsteori og begrepet «motstand». En helhetlig tilnærming er nyttig ved innføring av velferdsteknologi for å planlegge og dimensjonere ressurser slik at en når målene for et prosjekt. Begrepet motstand kan være et utgangspunkt for å forstå og reflektere over negativitet hos ansatte, og for å kunne håndtere denne.

Hensikten med studien var å undersøke hvilke erfaringer utprøving av velferdsteknologi kan gi hjemmeboende brukere av omsorgstjenester. Studien ble gjennomført i to kommuner i Oppland som deltok i Det nasjonale velferdsteknologiprogrammet (DNV) med fellesprosjektet «Trygg Hjemme». Kommunene har prøvd ut ulike velferdsteknologiske løsninger for eldre og mennesker med funksjonsnedsettelse som bor hjemme. Semi-strukturerte intervjuer med brukere er gjennomført, og resultatene viser at de fleste deltakerne var fornøyde med teknologien, fikk økt mobilitet, følte seg tryggere og mer selvstendige. Nøkkelord Velferdsteknologi, kommune, eldre, psykisk utviklingshemming, omsorgstjeneste

We explored students’ experiences of learning in a part-time, two-year counseling course (60 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System [ECTS] credits). We wanted to know if there were any systematic variations among individual experiences — if so, what kinds of patterns characterized the variations and how to understand the patterns. We applied the Q method, in which 22 out of 23 participants shared their experiences. Our key findings emerged in three factors. We interpreted and named them F1: building effective counseling relationships is fundamental, F2: the entirety of the course, and F3: self-development. We discuss the factors from theory of counselors’ professional development. The knowledge may support students and teachers in their awareness of what is the important aspects of counselor development. From a subject-didactic perspective, the study informs readers on how to implement a curriculum for a part-time counseling course.

The case study subjected in this paper was designed to illuminate how school leadership strategies and interventions mediate external demands, in the form of the academic press, for raised outcomes, imposed from the policy environment on a school with a heterogeneous pupil population. The Norwegian research site is situated in a demographic environment of low pupil socioeconomic status, a group of factors that in other systems predicts 60%—70% of academic achievement. More specifically, the intake environment in which the school is situated is characterized by high ethnic heterogeneity and, for some parts, low scores on parents’ social welfare indicators. Data was collected from a school characterized as low performing, defined by pupil achievement on national tests, yet these outcomes had been progressing over time. Find-ings are based on observations as well as interviews with school leaders, teachers, the superintendent in the municipality, and pupils, together with a pupil survey. The paper analyzes various leadership strategies and interventions as mediating functions between the external academic press from the school district level and the internal cultural context of the school. Specifically, the findings suggest that building a core culture of inclusive ethos for all pupils, paired with pedagogical collaboration, and democratic and servant leadership, are important devices for mastering this form of diversity. The leadership practices and collaborative focus were furthermore anchored in a systemic and more integrative school organization that purposefully com-bined hierarchical structure with horizontal elements in a matrix-like design.

This special issue discusses governance, leadership and education in the light of Nordic ideas about general education and citizenship of the world. Particular focus is placed on the battle between two very different discourses in contemporary educational policy and practice: an outcomes/standard-based discourse, and a general education-based discourse of citizenship of the world. Our point of departure is that we need to analyse the close relations between the core and purpose of schooling (the democratic Bildung of students) and the leadership of schools and relations to the outer world. On the one hand, society produces a discourse based on outcomes, with a focus on the marketplace, governance, bureaucracies, account-ability and technocratic homogenisation. On the other hand, society focuses on culture in the arts, language, history, relations and communication, producing a discourse based on democratic Bildung and citizenship of the world.

Core values inherent in the Finnish comprehensive education system can in many respects be interpreted to cluster and cohere around a Bildung discourse, which is paradoxically seen against the backdrop of the system’s stable high rank in PISA, the hallmark of an outcome discourse. Yet the point is that within the frames of a Bildung discourse, the themes in focus for curricula go beyond basic skills with a similarly strong focus on societal values and culture. At the process level, Finland is more deeply and strongly infused with a policy culture that is more compatible with the Bildung tradition than the Anglo-Saxon outcome discourse—with its core values of organizing and leading for relations and teaching. As noted by Finnish scholars, such cultural traits of the Finnish system are viable and can be interpreted as associated with institutional path dependency, anchored in longstanding agrarian and social-democratic values. The current paper interprets these cultural traits also as manifest at the local level around a school strategy model close to the one characterized as a professional commitment strategy in the early 1990s by the American scholars Susan Rosenholtz and Brian Rowan. The purpose of the paper, however, is to advance this theoretical understanding a step further towards a conceptual model of commitment-based school strategy. This paper is, thus, a pure conceptual piece. To elaborate the early insights from the 1990s further, a case drawn from Helsinki primary school is used as an empirical illustration.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of nurses and managers of a clinical circle as a method of competence development, and the way working conditions and contextual factors in the municipality affected the process of learning and cooperation between nurses and managers.Focus group interviews were conducted with five nurses and five managers. The interviews that were analyzed using qualitative content analysis resulted in three maincategories: cooperation across different units, shared clinical theme, and contextual factors. The findings indicate that participating in a clinical circle provide nurses with opportunities to develop their clinical competence through sharing knowledge and experiences, and by searching, assessing and implementing research findings into practice. In order to establish and sustain a clinical circle, the findings indicate that it may be useful to prearrange contextual factors, such as leadership expectancy, and timereserved for clinical circle work.

In Baheb el Cima - The fight of representation in an Egyptian context, Lise Paulsen Galal analyses the global and the local tales which are activated within and around the movie Baheb el Cima in relation to its release in Egypt. Galal illustrates how the global and the local tales apparently converge in the movie, but do not converge outside the movie. The focus in the article is on the tale of freedom, and how this tale is encountered by tales of the nation, the minority and religion.

This paper analyses productive patterns through which school superintendents and subordinated principals collaborate at the local levels of implementation in the Nordic countries. The underlying theoretical premise is that the school governance systems in the Nordic countries, as a function of strengthened state steering and a variety of local political conditions, entail a series of loose couplings—described by the broken chain metaphor. The analysis is based on a review of findings from a comparative Nordic research project. The review reveals that school superintendents and principals to a large extent activate professional learning forums as integration mechanism—to make collective sense of ambiguous national reforms. Important learning conditions that emerge from the country reports, on which the reviewed research is based, seem to cluster and cohere around learning climate, interpersonal trust, leadership support and a shared knowledge base between the school leaders and the municipal apparatus. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

In this article, we expound a distinction between a “small” and a “large” notion of utility. We do this by linking the concept of utility to the concept of freedom. Our suggestions derive from two readings related to the Chinese history of philosophy. First, we develop the distinction in a reading of early classical Chinese philosophy, through a discussion of Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism. Secondly, we explore the relationship between utility and freedom in the meeting between Chinese thinking and modern western philosophy. We discuss Yan Fu’s translations of Western philosophy, particularly Mill. Through this discussion, we end up with situating the discussion of utility in the domain of human freedom. Finally, drawing on Schiller, we consider how utility and freedom should be cultivated giving rise to a kind of balance between “harmony” and “conflict” in contemporary global society.

Artikkelen har vært trykket i boka Naturfagdidaktikk – perspektiver, forskning, utvikling (Red. D. Jorde & B. Bungum, ISBN 82-05-31477-2), utgitt på Gyldendal Akademisk i 2003. Kapitlet gjengis i NorDiNa etter avtale med forlaget og forfatteren.

Introduction Child abuse imaging differs from general musculoskeletal imaging in that there is exceptional necessity for high quality images. The images are directly involved in legal processes and the child and the family faces major consequences if imaging is sub-optimal. The consequences of misdiagnosis are serious. Should head trauma or fractures be overlooked, or if the radiological diagnosis is uncertain, abused children may be sent home with violent parents or caregivers. Conversely, where no abuse has taken place, but the certainty of the diagnosis is questionable, the unnecessary hospitalization of an innocent family may result. In Southern Denmark approximately 15-20 children per year are examined. The examinations are performed in four different radiology departments throughout the region. Until the autumn of 2012, a variety of imaging protocols and techniques were used in pediatric skeletal surveys. This led to difficulties, because some cases are subject to second opinion report. In many cases, supplemental images or a complete reexamination of the child was required in order to facilitate a second opinion, resulting in unnecessary exposure. Methods An initial consensus meeting with 20 participants was arranged in 2012. Pediatric radiologists, managers and radiographers with special competencies in pediatric radiology attended. Research evidence, cases and clinical experience was discussed. A follow-up meeting was arranged in 2013 with similar participants. This second meeting focused mainly on follow-up skeletal surveys in children

Background: Congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is a rare, hereditary disorder. Clinically it presents as episodic microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia and thrombocytopenia with varying degrees of damage to internal organs. The condition may present in neonates, but can also present for the first time in adulthood. The prevalence of congenital TTP is particularly high in Norway, and it is therefore important for Norwegian doctors to be aware of the condition. In this article we review the main characteristics of the disease, including its diagnosis and management, and introduce potential new treatments for the future., Method: The article is based on a literature search in PubMed as well as the authors’ own research and clinical experience., Results: There was great variation in the severity of congenital TTP: from neonatal mortality to disease-free intervals of several years. Episodes are generally precipitated by a trigger. Acute episodes are treated with plasma infusions, and approximately half of all patients experience frequent episodes and require prophylactic infusions to avoid organ damage. The risk of episodes is greatest in neonates, during pregnancy and in association with infections., Interpretation: There is little research-based evidence regarding long-term prognosis in congenital TTP. There is also a need for guidelines to help identify candidates for prophylactic treatment. An international patient registry would provide useful information and form the basis for better guidelines on the monitoring and treatment of these patients.