The recent decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007) has forced school districts to begin thinking of new ways to integrate their schools without relying on race as the single factor in their assignment plans. While some school districts already have begun to implement race-neutral student assignments, others are just beginning the process and are looking to plans that have been able to maintain diversity despite the new limitations being placed on them. In order to learn more about what factors are most critical in shaping racial and socioeconomic diversity in school districts, I examined the interaction between the design and implementation of 3 different integration plans that rely on voluntary choice and socioeconomic status (SES). I wanted to determine whether these factors had any effect on the way such integration plans are employed and ultimately on school-level diversity outcomes. I was also interested in learning how the local sociopolitical context influenced outcomes. I used qualitative case methodology, which allowed me to focus on the processes and meanings behind the plans. I conducted a historical analysis of desegregation on each of the school districts and used data collected from documents and interviews to analyze how design interacted with context to produce particular outcomes. I situated my analysis in the education policy implementation literature as it tells us that people and places play integral roles in how a policy is designed, adopted, and implemented. The ultimate success of a policy is heavily influenced by the actors involved in the creation of the policy as well as the context in which the policy is implemented. I found that the success of these plans depends heavily on their context. Urban school districts that have high poverty levels and few White students have a difficult time maintaining diversity, whereas school districts that incorporate the city and surrounding suburbs are more likely to maintain diversity because White, middle-class families do not have the same opportunity to flee the district. Furthermore, school districts that use geographic zoning and regulated choice are able to maintain higher levels of diversity. Support from the community and local policymakers also can play a role in the success of integration plans. The findings suggest that geographic and political contexts matter in the shaping and adoption of integration plans based on voluntary choice and SES. I offer suggestions to maintain integration given the local sociopolitical context of the school districts. / text

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Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka huruvida fastställd employer branding-strategi i enstor koncern kan vara framgångsrik för att attrahera och behålla generation Y oberoendeplaceringsort i Sverige. Studien har genomförts i en svensk koncern med cirka 16 000 anställdafördelat i 50 länder varav 7 000 är anställda i Sverige och placerade i hela landet. Vidare avsiktmed denna studie var att bidra med kunskap om betydelsen av chefers medvetenhet avbegreppet employer brand och förståelse för hur medvetenheten påverkar implementeringen avstrategin. Utifrån studiens syfte valdes en kvalitativ metod där insamling av empiri gjordes medsemistrukturerade intervjuer. För studiens resultat har en HR-person intervjuats, med insyn ioch kunskap om koncernens employer brand samt åtta chefer med inflytande i sinaverksamheters rekryteringsprocesser. Resultatet visar att det generellt inte skiljer sig mycketmellan landsbygdsorter och storstäder vad generation Y anser är en attraktiv arbetsgivare. Mendet som skiljer sig kan antagas vara tillräckligt för att anpassa employer branding-strateginberoende på geografisk kontext. Dock visar resultatet att koncernens employer brandingstrategiinte blir väl implementerad när chefer inte är medvetna om vad begreppet employerbrand innebär. Det kan leda till att det blir svårt att konkurrera om medarbetare och på siktbidrar det till att koncernen går miste om konkurrensfördelar. Utifrån resultatet blev det tydligtatt arbetet med employer branding-strategin bör vara en kontinuerlig process i det dagligaarbetet där HR har en viktig del i att stötta cheferna. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the established employer branding strategyin a large company is successful in attracting and retaining generation Y independent oflocations in Sweden. The study was conducted in a Swedish company with approximately16,000 employees in 50 countries, of which 7,000 are employed in Sweden and locatedthroughout the country. A further intention of this study was to contribute with knowledge aboutthe importance of managers' awareness of the concept of employer brand and understanding ofhow awareness affects the implementation of the strategy. Based on the purpose of the study, aqualitative method was chosen where the collection of empirical data was done with semistructuredinterviews. For the results of the study, an HR person with insight into andknowledge about the companies employer brand, was interviewed. Also, eight managers wereinterviewed whom all of them have the ability to influence the recruitment process where theywork. The results show that in general there’s not much difference between rural areas and largecities concerning what generation Y considers to be an attractive employer. But what differscan be assumed to be sufficient enough to adapt the employer branding strategy depending onthe geographic context and target group. However, if managers are not aware of what the termemployer brand means the result shows that the companies employer branding strategy will notbe well implemented. This can lead to that it becomes difficult to compete for employees andtherefore the company will lose competitive advantages in the long run. It also becomes clearthat the work with the employer branding strategy should be a continuous process in the dailywork where HR has an important part in supporting the managers.

<p>This research is concerned with theoretical and methodological aspects of geographic information transformation between different user contexts. In this dissertation I present theories and methodological approaches that enable a context sensititve use and reuse of geographic data in geographic information systems.</p><p>A primary motive for the reported research is that the patrons interested in answering environmental questions have increased in number and been diversified during the last 10-15 years. The interest from international, national and regional authorities together with multinational and national corporations embrace a range of spatial and temporal scales from global to local, and from many-year/-decade perspectives to real time applications. These differences in spatial and temporal detail will be expressed as rather different questions towards existing data. It is expected that geographic information systems will be able to integrate a large number of diverse data to answer current and future geographic questions and support spatial decision processes. However, there are still important deficiencies in contemporary theories and methods for geographic information integration</p><p>Literature studies and preliminary experiments suggested that any transformation between different users’ contexts would change either the thematic, spatial or temporal detail, and the result would include some amount of semantic uncertainty. Consequently, the reported experiments are separated into studies of change in either spatial or thematic detail. The scope concerned with thematic detatil searched for approaches to represent indiscernibility between categories, and the scope concerned with spatial detail studied semantic effects caused by changing spatial granularity.</p><p>The findings make several contributions to the current knowledge about transforming geographic information between users’ contexts. When changing the categorical resolution of a geographic dataset, it is possible to represent cases of indiscernibility using novel methods of rough classification described in the thesis. The use of rough classification methods together with manual landscape interpretations made it possible to evaluate semantic uncertainty in geographic data. Such evaluations of spatially aggregated geographic data sets show both predictable and non-predictable effects. and these effects may vary for different environmental variables.</p><p>Development of methods that integrate crisp, fuzzy and rough data enables spatial decision support systems to consider various aspects of semantic uncertainty. By explicitly representing crisp, fuzzy and rough relations between datasets, a deeper semantic meaning is given to geographic databasses. The explicit representation of semantic relations is called a Geographic Concept Topology and is held as a viable tool for context transformation and full integration of geographic datasets.</p>

This research is concerned with theoretical and methodological aspects of geographic information transformation between different user contexts. In this dissertation I present theories and methodological approaches that enable a context sensititve use and reuse of geographic data in geographic information systems. A primary motive for the reported research is that the patrons interested in answering environmental questions have increased in number and been diversified during the last 10-15 years. The interest from international, national and regional authorities together with multinational and national corporations embrace a range of spatial and temporal scales from global to local, and from many-year/-decade perspectives to real time applications. These differences in spatial and temporal detail will be expressed as rather different questions towards existing data. It is expected that geographic information systems will be able to integrate a large number of diverse data to answer current and future geographic questions and support spatial decision processes. However, there are still important deficiencies in contemporary theories and methods for geographic information integration Literature studies and preliminary experiments suggested that any transformation between different users’ contexts would change either the thematic, spatial or temporal detail, and the result would include some amount of semantic uncertainty. Consequently, the reported experiments are separated into studies of change in either spatial or thematic detail. The scope concerned with thematic detatil searched for approaches to represent indiscernibility between categories, and the scope concerned with spatial detail studied semantic effects caused by changing spatial granularity. The findings make several contributions to the current knowledge about transforming geographic information between users’ contexts. When changing the categorical resolution of a geographic dataset, it is possible to represent cases of indiscernibility using novel methods of rough classification described in the thesis. The use of rough classification methods together with manual landscape interpretations made it possible to evaluate semantic uncertainty in geographic data. Such evaluations of spatially aggregated geographic data sets show both predictable and non-predictable effects. and these effects may vary for different environmental variables. Development of methods that integrate crisp, fuzzy and rough data enables spatial decision support systems to consider various aspects of semantic uncertainty. By explicitly representing crisp, fuzzy and rough relations between datasets, a deeper semantic meaning is given to geographic databasses. The explicit representation of semantic relations is called a Geographic Concept Topology and is held as a viable tool for context transformation and full integration of geographic datasets.