Swedish Context Research Articles

The Pitfalls of a Popular Concept: Co-Production in Times of Individualization, Marketization, and De-Politicization

Co-production between public administrators and citizens has attracted renewed interest in recent years. Co-production is predominantly perceived as something desirable and is claimed to improve service efficiency and outcome and user satisfaction, at the same time as addressing democratic ideals. Drawing from interviews with public administrators and patients in a Swedish healthcare context, this paper seeks to nuance the often overly positive notion of co-production by understanding these micro-level practices as being embedded in a macro-level societal context. Theorizing the empirical material based on three features of contemporary society – individualization, marketization, and de-politicization – we argue that co-production risks placing a burden and responsibility on individual users and creating a (welfare)market in which better-off people are recruited and benefitted. In this sense, co-production may consolidate or reinforce inequalities. Through de-politicization, political issues may appear as value-free; however, as long as market-logics prevail, the welfare system and practices of co-production will, in some respects, be impotent to address crucial societal issues. Co-production as a collective practice targeting democratic standards is called for, rather than an efficiency focus, preferably by taking the recruitment of those in the greatest need seriously – scaffolded by a revitalized public service ethos of public administrators and their organizations.

The Case of Vanishing Borders: Theorizing diversity management as internal border control

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the theorizing of diversity management, studied from a postcolonial perspective. This paper draws on an empirical study of a Swedish municipal school for adults in order to theorize how construction of privileged and disadvantaged ethnic identities is an integral diversity management practice, situated in the Swedish context. Further, the paper looks not only at limiting identity construction effects, but also at the traces of ongoing resistance. The contribution of the postcolonial lens in the study of workplace diversity lies in the conceptual space it provides for rendering visible, and legitimizing, non-traditional forms of resistance to hierarchical differentiation of cultural identities.

Psychopathic Traits in a Swedish Court-Ordered Forensic Sample: Preferential Associations of Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition.

The construct validity of the triarchic psychopathy model has yet to be evaluated in the Swedish forensic psychiatric context. We examined associations between the three phenotypic constructs of the triarchic model of psychopathy (i.e., boldness, meanness, disinhibition), self-assessed empathy and anxiety, and clinical variables in 91 individuals undergoing pretrial forensic psychiatric evaluation in Sweden. Participants completed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) and self-report measures of empathy and anxiety. Clinical variables, including psychiatric diagnoses and criminal behavior, were collected from the forensic psychiatric evaluations (FPE). All three subscales of the TriPM displayed significant and predominantly anticipated correlations with empathy and trait anxiety measures. TriPM Disinhibition was the only subscale with significant associations with the clinical variables collected from the FPEs. The results provide evidence for the reliability and construct validity of the Swedish translation of the TriPM in a pretrial forensic setting.

A Free Art Calls for a Free Society: On the Freedom of Art and Autonomy as Project

In recent years, the far right “culture war” has to an increasing extent been allowed to set the terms for cultural policy debates, in Sweden and internationally. In the Swedish context, empty accusations against public cultural institutions of “wokeist” bias and “cancel culture” have found support in a public report from the governmental Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis, which claims that national public funding bodies are imposing politically correct demands on their applicants, with a “detrimental influence” on the freedom of art. This article shows that the ACPA lacks grounds for these claims. Taking its cue from the ACPA’s report, it instead focuses on the fundamental and contested concept of the freedom or the autonomy of art. It seeks to outline what would need to characterise a critical concept of the autonomy of art today, and asks what the political implications would be of a rigorous understanding of such a concept. It argues that cultural policy should be understood as a project of cultural democratization, which should in turn be understood as a project of autonomy.

The Swedish version of the STarT MSK Tool: cross-cultural adaption, test–retest reliability, and aspects of validity

BackgroundMusculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a common reason for seeking primary health care. The STarT Musculoskeletal (MSK) tool is designed to stratify patients suffering from MSDs to risk groups, based on prognostic factors.AimThe aim was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the STarT MSK tool in a Swedish primary health care context through testing of reliability and construct validity.MethodsWe included consecutive patients with MSDs seeking primary care (n = 99). The STarT MSK was translated using international recommendations. Construct validity was investigated by correlation analysis (Spearmans Rho) with the following reference instruments: the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire (ÖMPQ), the EuroQol 5-dimension (EQ-5D) and the Musculoskeletal Health Questionnaire (MSKHQ). Reliability was tested using test–retest (Intra Class Correlation, ICC2.1) (n = 31). Known-groups validity was calculated with a difference of 10% between risk groups based on how the participants had answered.ResultsThe STarT MSK was successfully translated into Swedish. The participants were grouped into low risk (n = 28), medium risk (n = 60) and high risk (n = 11). The construct validity showed a moderate to high correlation with the ÖMPQ (r = .61), EQ-5D (r = .59) and MSK-HQ (r = .56). All separate items except item 2 and 9 correlated according to predefined hypotheses. Test–retest demonstrated an excellent reliability for the total score (ICC2.1 0.85) (n = 31). The STarT MSK tool was able to differentiate by 10% between the risk groups, based on how the participants had answered.ConclusionThe STarT MSK has been successfully translated and adapted into Swedish and shows acceptable measurement properties regarding test–retest reliability and aspects of validity and seems to be able to discriminate between the proposed risk groups. The tool can therefore be useful in a Swedish primary health care context. A future study needs to determine the tools predictive validity and to investigate if stratification to risk groups leads to a faster recovery and to lower health care costs.

Validation of the Occupational Depression Inventory in Sweden

BackgroundThe Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) was recently devised to assess depressive symptoms that individuals specifically attribute to their work. One purpose of the ODI is to overcome limitations in current assessments of job-related distress. This study aimed to validate the Swedish version of the ODI.MethodsThe study involved 365 individuals employed in Sweden. In addition to the ODI, the study included the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire, the Demand-Control-Support Questionnaire, the GAD-2, and the PHQ-9. We inquired into the factorial validity, dimensionality, scalability, test-score reliability, criterion validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and measurement invariance of the ODI.ResultsExploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis indicated that the ODI’s Swedish version meets the requirements for essential unidimensionality (e.g., explained common variance = 0.872). Measurement invariance held across sexes, age groups, and occupational categories. The instrument exhibited strong scalability (e.g., H = 0.662). The observed total scores thus accurately ranked respondents on the latent continuum underlying the scale. The ODI’s total-score reliability was high (e.g., McDonald’s ω = 0.929). Speaking to the instrument’s criterion validity, we found occupational depression to correlate, in the expected direction, with various work (e.g., job support) and nonwork (e.g., general anxiety) variables. Occupational depression showed large correlations with effort-reward imbalance (r = 0.613) and demand-control imbalance (r = 0.566) at work. Multiple regression analyses supported these associations further. As expected, we observed both a degree of convergent validity and a degree of discriminant validity when examining the ODI against the PHQ-9, an attribution-free measure of depression.DiscussionThis study indicates that the ODI performs well within the Swedish context, consistent with the findings obtained in other linguistic and geographic contexts. The ODI promises to help researchers, practitioners, and public health decision-makers address job-related distress more effectively.

Trends in Distance Between Non-resident Parents and Minor Children Following Separation: Analysis of the Belgian Case, 1992–2018

Geographic distance between a child and their non-resident parent is a key aspect of the reorganization of the family following parental separation. The increasingly equal involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children is expected to translate into increasing geographic proximity between children and non-resident parents. So far, there has been no evidence about the time trends in geographical distances between minor children and non-resident parents outside of the Swedish context. In this study, we investigate these trends across Belgian separation cohorts from 1992 to 2018 and the extent to which they differ according to parental socioeconomic status and child’s age at separation. Overall, we observed a very small decrease in distance between children and their non-resident fathers and a somewhat larger decrease for non-resident mothers. The distance increased for very young children (0–2 years) and children with low-educated fathers. These findings point to inequalities in certain parent–child dyads.

A qualitative study of a recovery capital assessment tool in alcohol and drug treatment facilities: Perspectives from social work professionals.

The ambition to translate the concept of recovery capital (RC) from research to practice has entailed operationalisations of RC to measure progress and outcomes of alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatments.At the same time, the role played by standardisation in social work organisations is known to be a complex matter, and research suggests that the implementation of standardisation should be carried out with caution. By examining the need for a RC assessment tool in a Swedish AOD treatment context, this paper contributes to the discussion on the use of assessment tools for measuring treatment progress and outcome in AOD treatments, as well as interrelations between standardisation aims and social work professionals. Four group interviews with employees at AOD treatment facilities were conducted in Stockholm, Sweden. The interviewees were presented with an example of an RC-based assessment tool and asked to review the applicability of the tool in their daily work. The findings provide insights on the applicability of specific assessment list items, as well as general observations on the complex relationship between standardisation and discretion in social work. The findings suggest that professionals will ultimately rely on their knowledge and experience, and act accordingly to support the service user, regardless of any manual or standardisation that regulates their work.

“The Loved Home” and Other Exclusionary Care Discourses

Based on a conceptualization of heteroactivism as a transnational phenomenon manifesting in local contexts to spread and express resistance to gender and sexual rights, this article aims to illuminate new dimensions of heteroactivism beyond a sole focus on gender and sexuality by bringing its specificities in the Swedish context to the fore. Drawing on digital ethnography with members of the neo-conservative, far-right thinktank Oikos and the ethnonationalist political party the Sweden Democrats (SD), the article shows how heteroactivist forms of resistance seek to reshape the state and the nation through the gender–sexuality nexus and how these resistances enter into negotiation with spatiohistorically established notions of gender equality and sexual rights. Through a multiscalar transnational approach, the article brings forth how heteroactivism connects several levels horizontally—from the local to the national and the transnational—and vertically and establishes linkages among gender, sexuality, the state and the nation. The analysis reveals how care, love and gratitude for the shared home are core elements used in heteroactivist negotiations, with contextually established notions of gender equality and sexual rights as national values. It also demonstrates how the home, which these actors seek to cherish and protect, takes shape as an exclusive and exclusionary space.

Anticipations of practice-near school research in Sweden

ABSTRACT Practice-near research has been on the agenda in education policy during the last few years in Sweden. The research is supposed to make the academy and school collaborate and the expectations are high. This article aims to give an account of different kinds of expectations of practice-near research, and the underlying perceived problems it is supposed to solve, in the Swedish educational context. Drawing from theories from the research field sociology of expectations and Carol Bacchi’s discourse analytic WPR approach (What’s the problem represented to be?), different kinds of documents on practice-near research were analysed. Five anticipatory narratives about practice-near research were identified: practice-near research for ensuring a school based on ‘scientific knowledge and proven experience’, as a cure of educational research of little relevance, for increasing teaching efficiency, for making teacher education research-based, and for increasing attractiveness of the teaching profession. The article concludes with a discussion of the anticipatory narratives related to discourses of change and education crisis.

Fuelling the future: Assessing multifuel filling stations for hydrogen and other renewable fuels through life cycle analysis

AbstractHydrogen could play an important role in reducing the climate impact of the transport sector. This study explores the possibility of using existing biomethane infrastructure to enable the accelerated roll‐out of hydrogen as a transport fuel in a Swedish context. The concept of multifuel filling stations for hydrogen and biomethane are examined based on four cases, where the hydrogen is produced either via electrolysis or biomethane reforming, at a smaller or larger scale, and through either centralised or decentralised production. The cases are compared using established life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to establish their respective impact from a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation potential. The LCA results show generally good GHG performance for all production paths being studied with a range from −7 g CO2 eq./MJ hydrogen for hydrogen production based on biomethane via steam reformation (SMR) compared to +19 g CO2 eq. for production based on Swedish National Grid Mix via electrolyser. The SMR is the more efficient technology in mitigating GHG emissions, especially if system expansion is applied. In addition, sensitivity analyses also show that electrolyses production based on renewable wind power will decrease the impact significantly and vice versa that a European Average Electricity Grid Mix (EU – 28) would increase the impact significantly. The findings of this study underline the potential of the gradual introduction of hydrogen as a fuel for transport without the need for large investments in a dedicated fuel‐specific distribution system. The concept could contribute to overcoming the current chicken‐and‐egg catch of achieving both scalable and profitable supply of hydrogen for transport as well as the vehicles using it as fuel.

Assessing the color status and daylight chromaticity of road signs through machine learning approaches

The color of road signs is a critical aspect of road safety, as it helps drivers quickly and accurately identify and respond to these signs. Properly colored road signs improve visibility during the day and make it easier for drivers to make informed decisions while driving. In order to ensure the safety and efficiency of road traffic, it is essential to maintain the appropriate color level of road signs.The objective of this study was to analyze the color status and daylight chromaticity of in-use road signs using supervised machine learning models, and to explore the correlation between road sign's age and daylight chromaticity. Three algorithms were employed: Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The data used in this study was collected from road signs that were in-use on roads in Sweden.The study employed classification models to assess the color status (accepted or rejected) of the road signs based on minimum acceptable color levels according to standards, and regression models to predict the daylight chromaticity values. The correlation between road sign's age and daylight chromaticity was explored through regression analysis. Daylight chromaticity describes the color quality of road signs in daylight, that is expressed in terms of X and Y chromaticity coordinates.The study revealed a linear relationship between the road sign's age and daylight chromaticity for blue, green, red, and white sheeting, but not for yellow. The lifespan of red signs was estimated to be around 12 years, much shorter than the estimated lifespans of yellow, green, blue, and white sheeting, which are 35, 42, 45, and 75 years, respectively.The supervised machine learning models successfully assessed the color status of the road signs and predicted the daylight chromaticity values using the three algorithms. The results of this study showed that the ANN classification and ANN regression models achieved high accuracy of 81% and R2 of 97%, respectively. The RF and SVM models also performed well, with accuracy values of 74% and 79% and R2 ranging from 59% to 92%. The findings demonstrate the potential of machine learning to effectively predict the status and daylight chromaticity of road signs and their impact on road safety in the Swedish context.

Productivity divergence and the role of digitalisation

Productivity development in general has been extensively studied. Behind the aggregates, there are a variety of firms which potentially show substantial productivity differences. The productivity distribution is, to a large extent, unexploited in a Swedish context. This paper investigates productivity development in different parts of the productivity distribution, trends in the rate of mobility of the least productive firms to the upper productivity ladder, and whether differences can be observed depending on the digital intensity and the intangible asset intensity of the sector. We find increases in productivity differences over time, with greater increases in digital-intensive sectors and sectors characterised by a large share of intangible assets. Although there is a positive catch-up rate of laggard firms, the catch-up effect in the above sectors is found to decline over time, which is a sign of increasing barriers to the adoption and diffusion of new technology and knowledge over time. Moreover, the catch-up is stronger for young firms and firms with higher levels of managerial quality. Policies designed to promote the absorptive capabilities, firm dynamics and knowledge diffusion can be effective tools to promote strong catch-up of laggard firms as well as productivity growth in general.

The cost-effectiveness of a virtual intervention to prevent eating disorders in young women in Sweden.

To determine the cost-effectiveness of a virtual version of the Body Project (vBP), a cognitive dissonance-based program, to prevent eating disorders (ED) among young women with a subjective sense of body dissatisfaction in the Swedish context. A decision tree combined with a Markov model was developed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of the vBP in a clinical trial population of 149 young women (mean age 17 years) with body image concerns. Treatment effect was modeled using data from a trial investigating the effects of vBP compared to expressive writing (EW) and a do-nothing alternative. Population characteristics and intervention costs were sourced from the trial. Other parameters, including utilities, treatment costs for ED, and mortality were sourced from the literature. The model predicted the costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) related to the prevention of incidence of ED in the modeled population until they reached 25 years of age. The study used both a cost-utility and return on investment (ROI) framework. In total, vBP yielded lower costs and larger QALYs than the alternatives. The ROI analysis denoted a return of US $152 for every USD invested in vBP over 8 years against the do-nothing alternative and US $105 against EW. vBP is likely to be cost-effective compared to both EW and a do-nothing alternative. The ROI from vBP is substantial and could be attractive information for decision makers for implementation of this intervention for young females at risk of developing ED. This study estimates that the vBP is cost-effective for the prevention of eating disorders among young women in the Swedish setting, and thus is a good investment of public resources.

Screens, teens and their brains. Discourses about digital media, learning and cognitive development in popular science neuroeducation

ABSTRACT Contemporary education in Sweden is characterized by two parallel processes: the implementation of digital tools in the classroom, on the one hand, and an increased emphasis on brain-based learning, on the other. Proponents of the latter strand of ‘neuroeducation’ claim that digital media might have harmful effects on learning and cognitive development. How do they then deal with school digitalization? By examining popular science books by influential neuroscience actors in the Swedish educational context, this study identifies two diverging discourses where digital technologies are discussed both as distractions in the classroom and as promising tools for personalized and self-optimizing learning. This ambiguity reflects a cautious criticism against school digitalization as overhastly, a critique that is also emphasized in recent policy changes in the Swedish school system. The article concludes that the impact of brain-based perspectives on educational digitalization policy have positioned neuroscience actors as a new kind of digital experts.

Responses to Sensory Events in Daily Life in Children with Cerebral Palsy from a Parent Reported Perspective and in a Swedish Context.

The motor disorders of cerebral palsy (CP) are often accompanied by sensory disturbances, but knowledge of their relationship to motor functioning is sparse. This study explored responses to sensory events in relation to spastic subtype and motor functioning in children with CP. Parents of 60 children with CP (unilateral: 18, bilateral: 42) with GMFCS levels I:29, II:13, III:15 and IV:3 of mean age 12.3 years (3.7 SD) participated. The parents (n = 55) rated their children´s responses with the norm-referenced questionnaire Child Sensory Profile-2© (CSP-2©), Swedish version, incorporating nine sections and four sensory processing patterns/quadrants, and replied (n = 57) to two additional questions. On the CSP-2©, thirty (55%) of the children were reported to have responses "much more than others" (>2 SD) in one or more of the sections and/or quadrants and 22 (40%) in the section of Body Position, overrepresented by the children with bilateral CP. The additional questions revealed that a greater proportion of children at GMFCS levels III-IV compared to level I frequently were requested to sit/stand up straight (14/17 versus 6/26, p < 0.001) and were sound sensitive at a younger age (14/17 versus 10/26, p = 0.005). The findings of this study highlight the sensory aspects of motor functioning in children with spastic CP.

Inclusion and Participation in a Support Programme for Bereaved Adolescents - Relational Perspectives From an Ethnographic Field Study in a Swedish Context.

The death of a parent is a life-changing event, and different programmes are developed to support children. This study explored how parental bereaved adolescents were included and (inter)acted in a Swedish support programme. The conducted ethnographic field study included six adolescents, their parents, and eight volunteers. The empirical material was thematically analysed through a theoretical lens inspired by Bourdieu. Three themes emerged: 'Different strategies for adolescents' inclusion in the programme,' 'Medico-psychological understanding of grief and suffering,' and 'Reproduction of the logic of the school.' Adolescents were included in the programme through different strategies, where adults functioned as gatekeepers. The programme reproduced the school logic and was based on a medico-psychological grief/bereavement understanding. Volunteers had pedagogic authority and concomitant symbolic power, ruling adolescents to do what they must do in the meetings, silently socialising them into the medical logic. The adolescents only interacted and communicated with each other during breaks.

Tracing Sexual Otherness in Sweden

Using Gayle Rubin’s (1984) classic distinction between “good sex” and “bad sex” as a springboard, this article explores ideas of sexual normalcy and sexual otherness in a Swedish context through the lens of a multi-method case study of the kink platform darkside.se (established 2003). The article focuses on how sexual norms on and beyond Darkside have shifted through time, and in particular on how the platform takes shape in an ambivalent borderland between new forms of public kink visibility and lingering sexual stigma. Within histories of sexuality and feminism in Sweden, kink and BDSM have quite consistently been relegated to a domain of sexual illegitimacy (or bad sex). At the same time, waves of queer sexual politics, as well as a cultural mainstreaming of kink, simultaneously point in other directions. To understand (digital) formations of kink in Sweden, I thus develop a less binary conceptual framework, one which holds ambiguity and contradiction. To this end, and by building on discussions of “opacity” in queer and postcolonial theorizing, I discuss tactical uses of Darkside in terms of “kink opacity”. Opacity provides a way of thinking through the tensions on the platform, between revealing and concealing, openness and secrecy, offering resistance to the idea of public visibility as that which legitimizes sexual otherness. Uses of Darkside here challenge the idea of normalizing sexual otherness by public exposure, and instead open up for new modes of obscure sexual expression.

What is a Swedish Ethnology in Finland?

In his article Five ethnologies – the rise of Finnish ethnology from a Finland-Swedish point of view, prof. Nils Storå has characterised the development of Ethnology in Finnish and in Swedish not as dichotomised striving for two unique kinds of ethnology based only on two languages in Finland but as five paths that together make the history more diverse and sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. The article looks for the roots in different spheres: antiquarian interests, languages, regionalism, an interest in cultural history and in anthropology. Prof. Storå takes us up to the 1960s. The starting point is of course language based disciplines where the need for this emphasis was felt very strongly. In Finland almost 5.9% of the population has Swedish as their mother tongue; in the beginning of the 20th century the percentage was 12,9. A result of the fact that the Swedish speaking also under the Russian rule until the late 19th century held important civilian and political posts, was that Finland after the independence 1917 was declared a bilingual state (1919). This meant and means that the Swedish speaking have a strong guarantee when it comes to their linguistic rights. Also strong institutional support make a Swedish or bilingual life especially in the Swedish coastal regions and towns possible. My intention is to look to what has happened in ethnology since 1960 in this Swedish context and what actors where and are working and also in which scientific context one can look at the ethnology that is carried out at the Åbo Akademi University in Åbo (Turku), that is the Swedish university in Finland. But I will also consider the ethnological work at the Folk Culture Archives in Helsinki, since a similar documentation and research work has been made there. A third actor is the Scientific section of the Brage Society also situated in Helsinki.

Rationales for transitioning to electric buses in Swedish public transport

Public transport systems in different parts of the world are currently undergoing a change characterised by the introduction of battery-powered electric buses in everyday operations. The introduction of electric buses brings new challenges such as high investment costs and technology concerns, as well as new forms of collaboration between both established and new actors. The aim of this paper is to disentangle different actors’ rationale for the transition, identifying underlying interests in and expectations of the electric bus system. With a focus on the Swedish context, we found that whilst common rationales exist, these are influenced by collective expectations and different underlying interests for the actor groups. We found that the interests of the actors are grounded in expectations of future developments, but also relate to the experience that the transition is occurring faster than previously anticipated. The results show a high degree of consensus regarding the transition to electric buses, although the actors have varying resources and action spaces with which to influence the transition, which is largely determined by the institutional and local context.