This work describes how sociology as an academic discipline was introduced, established and pursued at Swedish universities during the period 1930-1955. The main purpose is to follow the establishment of sociology and call attention to dominating ideas of sociology, science and society, and also to reflect the relation between sociology and the demands and expectations of society. This academic institutionalization is considered a continuously changing process where centers and boundaries are formulated and reformulated in accordance with contemporary conditions and preferences of the actors. Expectations on the discipline are investigated, as they were expressed in official inquiries and other political settings as well as in common press. Changes in university structure that led up to the establishment of sociology as a discipline are studied, as well as the official investigations that directly preceded the set up. Institutional activities in the new discipline are dealt with; as are persons, curricula, dissertations and investigations. Internal debates and conflicts are studied and analyzed. The reception of sociology is considered, as well as the use of sociological knowledge in academy, industry and other domains. A main question is how sociology, when established, was understood and pursued. Soon, a clear conception was established in leading quarters. According to this conception, sociology was to be recognized as a specialized discipline alongside other disciplines of social science. The object of sociology was to study modern society and its social conditions, preferably in Sweden. The method of study was to be scientifically empirical, which, above all, meant quantitative field surveys. This study analyzes the formation of this idea of sociology. It was contested, but persons representing deviating conceptions were marginalized. The "boundary-work" that was carried out is therefore considered especially significant. The boundaries were about the implication of the concept of sociology, and conflicts and antagonisms revealed in the boundary-work are analyzed. It is argued that the polemical and dichotomizing rhetoric style used by the actors was of significant importance. By describing, defining and legitimating sociology in terms of opposites: empirical rather than speculative, American rather than continental, quantitative rather than qualitative, it was emphasized that the discipline of sociology was new, scientific and necessary for a modern and progressive community like Swedish society. / digitalisering@umu

The digitization of media has undermined much of the social authority and economic viability on which U.S. journalism relied during the 20th century. This disruption has also opened a central tension for the profession: how to reconcile the need for occupational control against growing opportunities for citizen participation. How that tension is navigated will affect the ultimate shape of the profession and its place in society. This dissertation examines how the leading nonprofit actor in journalism, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, has sought to help journalism innovate out of its professional crisis. This case study engages a series of mixed methods—including interviews, textual analysis, and secondary data analysis—to generate a holistic portrayal of how the Knight Foundation has attempted to transform itself and the journalism field in recent years, particularly through its signature Knight News Challenge innovation contest. From a sociology of professions perspective, I found that the Knight Foundation altered the rhetorical and actual boundaries of journalism jurisdiction. Knight moved away from “journalism” and toward “information” as a way of seeking the wisdom of the crowd to solve journalism’s problems. This opening up of journalism’s boundaries created crucial space in which innovators, from inside and outside journalism, could step in and bring change to the field. In particular, these changes have allowed the concept of citizen participation, which resides at the periphery of mainstream newswork, to become embraced as an ethical norm and a founding doctrine of journalism innovation. The result of these efforts has been the emergence of a new rendering of journalism—one that straddles the professional-participatory tension by attempting to “ferry the values” of professional ideals even while embracing new practices more suited to a digital environment. Ultimately, this case study matters for what it suggests about professions in turbulent times. Influential institutions can bring change to their professional fields by acting as boundary-spanning agents—stepping outside the traditional confines of their field, altering the rhetorical and structural borders of professional jurisdiction to invite external contribution and correction, and altogether creating the space and providing the capital for innovation to flourish. / text

Preschool is a central part of Swedish family life. The manner in which the state regulates preschool through laws, ordinances, and various kinds of written objectives has an impact on many people in the Swedish society. The thesis examines the development of preschool state regulation from the 1940s until 2008. The starting point of the study is a draft for a new Education Act, put forward in 2003, which proposed that preschool should be integrated into the school system as a new form of school. The purpose of the study is to generate knowledge about the state regulation of Swedish preschool, and how it has contributed to the shaping of preschool as a societal institution. Questions considered in the analysis are how regulation delimits preschool as a social category, what role this regulation assigns preschool in relation to other actors and societal institutions involved in early childhood education and care, and what principles this regulation is based on. The study has evolved within the research tradition of curriculum theory as developed in studies in educational politics. The analysis is carried out as a text analysis, where the concepts of boundary work, official classification and activity system serve as important analytical tools. Texts produced within the formal chain of decision and legislation: directives for committees, government white papers, ministerial task forces, bills, legislative texts etc., form the empirical foundation for the study. The analysis shows that economic as well as legal and ideological governing instruments are used in the shaping of the framework of preschool. These frameworks are indicated in the form of different boundary markers that delimit preschool as a specific category and arrange it in relation to other categories. The boundaries indicated by these boundary markers have been subject to extensive discussion during the formulation process. Through this boundary work, preschool has been constructed as a full time preschool, commissioned to provide both education and care. The boundaries of this commission are in some respects indistinct and contain several overlapping elements with regards to family, social services and school. At the same time, preschool holds a fixed core with more distinct boundaries, in the form of a part time public preschool delimited by time and age and regulated by far-reaching legislation regarding the rights of children to attend. Owing to this construction, preschool may balance several different and partly contradictory demands placed on it by other institutions and by different interest groups, while at the same time maintaining a core of identity of its own. In that sense, preschool may be described as a boundary object. Thus, when it is suggested that preschool should constitute a form of school and be placed in the more formal regulation structures of the school system, the balance of this construction is challenged.

Den polska forskningspolitiken har efter statssocialismens fall 1989 stått inför omfattande förändringar. Transformationen från den sovjetiska modellen för forskningspolitiskt styre, till formuleringen och implementeringen av en ny forskningspolitisk modell, innebar att KBN (Komitet Badan Naukowych, ”Forskningskommittén”) blev huvudansvarig för utformningen av den nya forskningspolitiken och organiseringen av forskningssystemet. Kommittén skulle fungera som en mer eller mindre autonom instans i förhållande till den polska regeringen, och hade inte bara hand om ansökningsprocesser om forskningsanslag, utan även forskningspolitiken på makronivå för att försäkra vetenskapens ”frihet” i förhållande till den politiska styrningen. Politikens relation till den vetenskapliga kunskapsproduktionen gick därmed på kort tid från att vila på ideal och värden som handlade om hur vetenskapen i första hand skulle bidra till samhällsnyttan, till ideal som snarare erkände dess egenvärde, allt formulerat och utarbetat i just det forskningspolitiska sammanhanget. Detta ideal hade dessutom stark förankring i den politiska historien, och de strukturer och kultur den ”gamla” forskningssystemen, forskningspolitiken och intelligentian i Polen präglades av. Snart började dock omfattande reformer av den polska forskningspolitiken ta form. Det tidiga nittiotalets sönderfallande ekonomi, där behovet av mobilisering av offentliga resurser för uppbyggnaden av marknadsekonomin upplevdes som angeläget, och efter det, förberedelserna inför EU-inträdet 2004, bidrog till omfattande omförhandlingar och omtolkningar av den anti-politiskt orienterade forskningspolitiska modellen med akademisk självorganisering som grundval. Dessa omfattande omförhandlingar och omtolkningar är också utgångspunkten för den här studien. Fokus i analysen ligger på hur förändringsdynamiken tog sig uttryck i omtolkningarna och omförhandlingarna av idéer om och förväntningar och krav på, vetenskapens roll i den polska forskningspolitiken mellan 1989-2011. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för studien består av dels den tidskrift som KBN utgav månatligen och som kom att bli arenan för forskningspolitisk diskussion i landet, dels styrningsdokument från hela den studerade perioden. Med hjälp av en socialkonstruktionistisk ansats visar studien att idéer om och förväntningar och krav på vetenskapens roll omförhandlats och omtolkats dramatiskt under den studerade perioden, men också hur omförhandlingarna och omtolkningarna gått till. / In 1989, Polish research policy underwent transformation in the context of a broader societal transition from state socialism to democracy. KBN, Komitet Badan Naukowych (”The State Committee for Scientific Research”) was primarily responsible for the design of a new research policy and organization of the research system. In order to allay concerns about lingering state control, the Committee was to operate as a more or less autonomous body in relation to the workings of the Polish government. The Committee not only had responsibility for administering research grants, but also for research policy at the macro level to ensure academic freedom from political control. As a result the ambition of science policy was rather abruptly transformed from an instrumental view of science tied closely to societal progress under the Soviet regime to one recognising the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge. This transformed view of the role of science was not entirely new. It had strong roots in the political history and the structures and culture of the "old" research system, and more broadly among the Polish intelligentsia. However, several contextual factors acted to undermine the heralded ambition of autonomous scientific governance.  In the 1990s, economic conditions in Poland worsened.  In response mobilisation of public resources for the development of the market economy became an urgent imperative as did planning and preparation for the Poland’s accession to EU in 2004. These factors contributed to a yet another comprehensive reinterpretation and renegotiation of the role of science in Poland.  The empirical material that forms the basis for the study consists of both KBN’s periodical journal Sprawy Nauki that became the arena of science policy debate in the country and various governance documents from the study period. Using a social constructionist approach, this study analyses these transformational moments by focusing on how the dynamics of change found expression in the reinterpretations and renegotiations of the role of science in Polish research policy between 1989 and 2011.

Den polska forskningspolitiken har efter statssocialismens fall 1989 stått inför omfattande förändringar. Transformationen från den sovjetiska modellen för forskningspolitiskt styre, till formuleringen och implementeringen av en ny forskningspolitisk modell, innebar att KBN (Komitet Badan Naukowych, ”Forskningskommittén”) blev huvudansvarig för utformningen av den nya forskningspolitiken och organiseringen av forskningssystemet. Kommittén skulle fungera som en mer eller mindre autonom instans i förhållande till den polska regeringen, och hade inte bara hand om ansökningsprocesser om forskningsanslag, utan även forskningspolitiken på makronivå för att försäkra vetenskapens ”frihet” i förhållande till den politiska styrningen. Politikens relation till den vetenskapliga kunskapsproduktionen gick därmed på kort tid från att vila på ideal och värden som handlade om hur vetenskapen i första hand skulle bidra till samhällsnyttan, till ideal som snarare erkände dess egenvärde, allt formulerat och utarbetat i just det forskningspolitiska sammanhanget. Detta ideal hade dessutom stark förankring i den politiska historien, och de strukturer och kultur den ”gamla” forskningssystemen, forskningspolitiken och intelligentian i Polen präglades av. Snart började dock omfattande reformer av den polska forskningspolitiken ta form. Det tidiga nittiotalets sönderfallande ekonomi, där behovet av mobilisering av offentliga resurser för uppbyggnaden av marknadsekonomin upplevdes som angeläget, och efter det, förberedelserna inför EU-inträdet 2004, bidrog till omfattande omförhandlingar och omtolkningar av den anti-politiskt orienterade forskningspolitiska modellen med akademisk självorganisering som grundval. Dessa omfattande omförhandlingar och omtolkningar är också utgångspunkten för den här studien. Fokus i analysen ligger på hur förändringsdynamiken tog sig uttryck i omtolkningarna och omförhandlingarna av idéer om och förväntningar och krav på, vetenskapens roll i den polska forskningspolitiken mellan 1989-2011. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för studien består av dels den tidskrift som KBN utgav månatligen och som kom att bli arenan för forskningspolitisk diskussion i landet, dels styrningsdokument från hela den studerade perioden. Med hjälp av en socialkonstruktionistisk ansats visar studien att idéer om och förväntningar och krav på vetenskapens roll omförhandlats och omtolkats dramatiskt under den studerade perioden, men också hur omförhandlingarna och omtolkningarna gått till. / In 1989, Polish research policy underwent transformation in the context of a broader societal transition from state socialism to democracy. KBN, Komitet Badan Naukowych (”The State Committee for Scientific Research”) was primarily responsible for the design of a new research policy and organization of the research system. In order to allay concerns about lingering state control, the Committee was to operate as a more or less autonomous body in relation to the workings of the Polish government. The Committee not only had responsibility for administering research grants, but also for research policy at the macro level to ensure academic freedom from political control. As a result the ambition of science policy was rather abruptly transformed from an instrumental view of science tied closely to societal progress under the Soviet regime to one recognising the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge. This transformed view of the role of science was not entirely new. It had strong roots in the political history and the structures and culture of the "old" research system, and more broadly among the Polish intelligentsia. However, several contextual factors acted to undermine the heralded ambition of autonomous scientific governance.  In the 1990s, economic conditions in Poland worsened.  In response mobilisation of public resources for the development of the market economy became an urgent imperative as did planning and preparation for the Poland’s accession to EU in 2004. These factors contributed to a yet another comprehensive reinterpretation and renegotiation of the role of science in Poland.  The empirical material that forms the basis for the study consists of both KBN’s periodical journal Sprawy Nauki that became the arena of science policy debate in the country and various governance documents from the study period. Using a social constructionist approach, this study analyses these transformational moments by focusing on how the dynamics of change found expression in the reinterpretations and renegotiations of the role of science in Polish research policy between 1989 and 2011.

abstract: With more than 70 percent of the world's population expected to live in cities by 2050, it behooves us to understand urban sustainability and improve the capacity of city planners and policymakers to achieve sustainable goals. Producing and linking knowledge to action is a key tenet of sustainability science. This dissertation examines how knowledge-action systems -- the networks of actors involved in the production, sharing and use of policy-relevant knowledge -- work in order to inform what capacities are necessary to effectively attain sustainable outcomes. Little is known about how knowledge-action systems work in cities and how they should be designed to address their complexity. I examined this question in the context of land use and green area governance in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where political conflict exists over extensive development, particularly over the city's remaining green areas. I developed and applied an interdisciplinary framework -- the Knowledge-Action System Analysis (KASA) Framework --that integrates concepts of social network analysis and knowledge co-production (i.e., epistemic cultures and boundary work). Implementation of the framework involved multiple methods --surveys, interviews, participant observations, and document--to gather and analyze quantitative and qualitative data. Results from the analysis revealed a diverse network of actors contributing different types of knowledge, thus showing a potential in governance for creativity and innovation. These capacities, however, are hindered by various political and cultural factors, such as: 1) breakdown in vertical knowledge flow between state, city, and local actors; 2) four divergent visions of San Juan's future emerging from distinct epistemic cultures; 3) extensive boundary work by multiple actors to separate knowledge and planning activities, and attain legitimacy and credibility in the process; 4) and hierarchies of knowledge where outside expertise (e.g., private planning and architectural firms) is privileged over others, thus reflecting competing knowledge systems in land use and green area planning in San Juan. I propose a set of criteria for building just and effective knowledge-action systems for cities, including: context and inclusiveness, adaptability and reflexivity, and polycentricity. In this way, this study also makes theoretical contributions to the knowledge systems literature specifically, and urban sustainability in general. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sustainability 2012

This essay analyses the development of field and discipline formation in Sweden. A specific case is presented regarding the differentiation of the history of ideas, idéhistoria, and the delineation of the history of knowledge, kunskapshistoria, between 2015 and 2020. The distinction and differentiation between these disciplines has been contested by academics in related fields, who have questioned whether and what is new or distinct in the study of the history of knowledge and what prior disciplines and fields of study it draws on.  The aim of this study is to examine how the relationship between the two research fields is undertood by the academics that work in these fields themselves. The research question is: How is the interaction between the history of ideas and the history of knowledge described by Swedish scientists in papers published between 2015 and 2020? The study is based on scientific papers, anthologies, and book reviews written by Swedish scientists and mainly published in Swedish academic journals. The study shows that both research fields are developing towards eclecticism and internationalisation, both striving to participate in a broader international academic discourse. In both fields more publications are now written in English and fewer in Swedish. However, the predomination of English-language publications is more apparent in the new field of the history of knowledge. With respect to the history of ideas, the formative effects of institutionalisation as well as the importance of academic due due diligence i.e. engaging with the research in near-adjacent fields of study such as the study of the history of science, the history of medicine, and environmental history is apparent in the academic literature. The study indicates that Sweden has a potential of becoming a new research arena of some significance for generative and cooperatiion in humanistic science and thus of a general interest. / I studien analyseras samspelet mellan idéhistoria och kunskapshistoria i Sverige 2015 - 2010. Undersökningen berör generella frågeställningar om hur forskningsfält och discipliner skapas och påverkar varandra. Medan idéhistoria funnits i Sverige i snart ett hundra år har kunskapshistoria etablerats i Sverige först under de senaste fem åren. Detta ämne har av sina företrädare förklarats vara ett nytt oberoende forskningsfält med långt gående ambitioner ambitioner som sträcker sig över disciplingränserna. Dessa uttalanden ifrågasattes av forskare inom idé- och vetenskapshistoria om vad som var nytt inom det nya forskningsfältet och på vems axlar detta stod på. Syftet med denna studie var att analysera hur forskare från de två forskningsfälten upplevt påverkan mellan dem. Forskningsfrågan var hur påverkan mellan idéhistoria och kunskapshistoria framgått och beskrivits i publikationer skrivna av svenska forskare inom ämnena under perioden. Materialet som använts var uppsatser, antologier, recensioner och institutionernas utbildningsmaterial från denna tid, huvudsakligen publicerade i svenska tidskrifter. Studien visade att bägge forskningsfälten breddat sig och visat ökad ambition att delta i det internationella vetenskapliga samtalet. Här fanns dock en gradskillnad mellan ämnena. En möjlig inlåsningseffekt av att använda sig av svenska som språk diskuteras som en konsekvens av den äldre svenska forskningstraditionen. Fler publikationer inom idéhistoria skrivs dock numera på engelska och färre på svenska medan kunskapshistoria redan från början haft ett utpräglat internationellt fokus. Betydelsen av institutionalisering och de förmåner detta medför understryks. Studiens resultat visar att påverkan mellan kunskapsfälten under den studerade perioden generellt var liten. Ett undantag har varit den ovan nämnda kritiken från forskare inom idé- och vetenskapshistoria mot de anspråk som framförts av företrädarna för kunskapshistoria på att nu presentera ett verkligt nytt forskningsfält. Enligt kritikerna har man därvid bortsett från den utveckling som skett inom närliggande områden under de senaste åren. Vikten av akademisk due diligence har lyfts fram som en viktig princip inom forskning. / <p>By distance (Zoom)</p>

The main purpose of this study was to examine managers' capabilities to support the boundaries between work-life and private-life in the non-profit sector. The theoretical framework of the study is centered on work/family border theory where we focused on managers' dual role of border-crosser and border-keeper and explained this using new institutional theory as an analytical lens together with previous research on the special nature of the nonprofits, as well as policies for border control and the balance between autonomy and control. To understand the boundaries between the two domains, four focus groups were interviewed, consisting of three to four individuals. The participants were managers of various organizations within the nonprofit sector. According to boundary theory, employees become central participants when the organization helps them internalize the culture of the domain, develop knowledge in their jobs, when they connect with those who already have central membership, and when they are given responsibilities with which they can personally identify. The central membership is then assumed to provide tools for them to be able to increase the balance between work and private life on their own. The result of the study has shown that there are two factors that the managers believe affect the boundary between work and private life in addition to the actual time, namely performance boundaries and role boundaries. Based on what the focus groups convey, there is a notion of an ideal in the nonprofit sector where the job is to some extent expected to be seen as something more than a job that reinforces the boundless tendencies between working life and private life.

The main argument of this dissertation is that the White Mountain Apache Tribe's appropriation of ecological restoration played a vital role in reinstituting control over knowledge production and eco-cultural resources on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in the second half of the twentieth century. As a corollary, I argue that the shift in knowledge production practices from a paternalistic foundation to a community-based approach resulted in positive consequences for the ecological health of the Apachean landscape and Apache culture. The democratization of science and technology on the reservation, therefore, proved paramount to the reestablishment of a relatively sustainable Apache society. Beginning with the Indian New Deal, the White Mountain Apache slowly developed the capacity to employ ecological restoration as an eco-political tool to free themselves from a long history of Euro-American cultural oppression and natural resource exploitation. Tribal restoration projects embodied the dual political function of cultural resistance to and cultural exchange with Western-based land management organizations. Apache resistance challenged Euro-American notions of restoration, nature, and sustainability while maintaining cultural identity, reasserting cultural autonomy, and protecting tribal sovereignty. But at the same time, the Apache depended on cultural exchange with federal and state land management agencies to successfully manage their natural resources and build an ecologically knowledgeable tribal workforce. Initially adopting a utilitarian conservation model of land management, restoration projects aided the creation of a relatively strong tribal economy. In addition, early successes with trout, elk, and forest restoration projects eventually granted the Tribe political leverage when they sought to reassume control over reservation resources from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Building on this foundation, Apache restoration work significantly diverged in character from the typical Euro-American restoration project by the 1990s. While striving toward self-sufficiency, the Tribe hybridized tribal cultural values with Western ecological values in their restoration efforts. These projects evolved the tripartite capacity to heal ecologically degraded reservation lands, to establish a degree of economic freedom from the federal government, and to restore cultural traditions. Having reversed their historical relationship of subjugation with government agencies, the Apache currently have almost full decision-making powers over tribal eco-cultural resources. / Ph. D.

Diese Dissertation diskutiert am Beispiel der symbolischen Kämpfe zwischen kürzlich Zugezogenen und den Resten alteingesessener subkultureller Gruppen im Berliner Stadtteil Prenzlauer Berg die Frage, welche Rolle Orte bei der Konstruktion räumlicher und sozialer Identitäten spielen und entlang welcher Grenzziehungen diese Identifikationen organisiert werden. Empirisch stützt sich die Arbeit auf Tiefeninterviews mit den oben genannten Gruppen und einer Mediendiskursanalyse zum umstrittenen Symbol „Prenzlauer Berg“. Soziale Identität, das simultane Wechselspiel interner Identifikation und externer Kategorisierung (Jenkins 1996), ist eng verbunden mit der Frage nach Zugehörigkeit. Das Konzept des elective belonging (Savage et al. 2005) zeigt die Verbindung von Lebensstil und Wohnort. Diese Arbeit weist darüber hinaus auf den Zusammenhang zwischen einer starken symbolischen und praktischen Nachbarschaftsnutzung (Blokland 2011) der Zugezogenen und deren hoher Ortsidentifikation hin. Die eingesessene Subkultur Prenzlauer Bergs interpretiert diese symbolische Nutzung als einen Angriff auf die alte Ordnung im Kiez und bezieht ihre Verbindung mit dem Ort, infolge der fundamentalen Wandlungsprozesse, aus dem Erinnern (Halbwachs 1991) an eine Zeit, in der sie selbst sich den Raum aneigneten. Damit stellen sie der neuen Bedeutung Prenzlauer Bergs eine frühere Bedeutung, d.h. eine spezifische Vorstellung räumlicher Normalität, entgegen. Ausdruck dieser konkurrierenden Definitionen von Zugehörigkeit sind symbolische Grenzziehungen (Lamont; Molnár 2002) gegenüber neuen Bewohner_innen, die sich auch im medialen Diskurs über den Prenzlauer Berg wiederfinden. Dabei wird klar, dass die subkulturellen Stimmen zwar die Definition von Zugehörigkeit dominieren, der identifikatorische Zugriff auf die Nachbarschaft aber nur noch selektiv gelingt. Demgegenüber müssen die kürzlich Zugezogenen stetig um die Legitimation ihrer Zugehörigkeit kämpfen. / This thesis explores the role of place within constructions of social and spatial identities, and symbolic boundary work using the case of existing subcultural groups and affluent newcomers in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg. Empirically, this work draws on in-depth-interviews with both groups as well as a media discourse analysis of the contested meanings of the symbol ‘Prenzlauer Berg’. Social identity, understood as the simultaneous interplay of internal identification and external categorization (Jenkins 1996) is strongly related to a sense of belonging. While the concept of elective belonging (Savage et al. 2005) shows a connection between lifestyle and neighbourhood, this thesis also points to the strong relationship between symbolic and practical neighbourhood use (Blokland 2011), and place identification of newcomers. Subcultural groups read the newcomers’ symbolic neighbourhood use as an attack on the old order of the “Kiez”. Due to substantial neighbourhood change, these subcultures draw on remembering times (Halbwachs 1991) when their neighbourhood use was strong, both symbolically and practically. In this process, an old meaning of the neighbourhood (i.e. a specific notion of what the place used to be) is constructed in contrast to new meanings. These constructions are expressed in symbolic boundary work (Lamont; Molnár 2002) towards newcomers, a process which powerfully connects to media discourse. It becomes clear, then, that although a definition of belonging is dominated by the subculture, their access to the neighbourhood in terms of identification is only selective. In contrast, newcomers have to constantly defend their legitimacy to belong.