Background: The curriculum for both adapted upper secondary school and adapted compulsory school states that everyone within the school must use the curriculum. Nevertheless, it is stated in the introductory chapter of the curriculum that the curriculum is aimed to all teachers and for all teachers. It shows an exclusion of other professions, including student assistants, which are so important for students in need of adaptations. Along with them, the school's goal is to provide the right conditions for the students and the conditions come from the staff but also from the collaboration meeting that the school staff has together with other professions and relatives of the students.Aim: The purpose of the study is to interpret and understand the picture of how student assistants at an adapted school, experience power structures and power relations that they may encounter in a collaborative process. The issues related to the purpose are: What perceptions do student assistants have about their participation and influence in a collaboration process and what perceptions do the student assistants have about their room for manoeuvre in a collaborative process.Methods: I have done a qualitative semi-structured interview study. Where I interviewed five student assistants.Results: The results show that the student assistants may participate before the collaboration meeting but not in the meeting. The results also show that they have room for manoeuvre that they can use when they encounter resistance in the operations.Conclusions: The result of the study showed that there is a balance of power based on mandate and status within the organisation because the educators and principals have the overall decisive decision-making.

Förutsättningarna mellan Sveriges kommuner skiljer sig, till följd av urbaniseringen, alltmer och skapar olika utmaningar och varierande möjligheter att tillhandahålla välfärden, däribland äldreomsorgen som sedan ädelreformen 1992 åligger primärkommunerna. 2019 beräknades cirka en fjärdedel av Sveriges kommuner att gå med underskott vilket resulterar i neddragningar och sparåtgärder inom välfärden eftersom välfärdens nivå används för att balansera budgeten. Trots att andelen äldre i Sverige ökar så visar forskningen att platserna på särskilt boende har minskat sedan 1980-talet och att allt färre äldre får stöd och hjälp i hemmet. Enligt en granskning utförd av Inspektionen för vård och omsorg kan kommunala riktlinjer, för handläggning av bistånd till äldreomsorg, användas som ett sätt att kontrollera kostnader genom att anpassa kriterier och ambitionsnivåer för äldreomsorgen samt genom att minska skillnader i beslut. Justitieombudsmannen har riktat kritik mot kommunala riktlinjer som är oförenliga med gällande rätt och trots att tidigare forskning visar att kommunala riktlinjer används vid handläggning och bedömning av beslut till bistånd av äldreomsorg så är kommunala riktlinjer ett förhållandevis outforskat fält. Syftet med studien har därför varit att förstå vilken funktion kommunala riktlinjer har med avseende på lagstiftningen och tillämpningen samt vilken funktion riktlinjer har för politiker. För att besvara detta har följande undersökts: 1) riktlinjernas utbredning och innehåll, 2) hur politiker motiverar deras tillkomst och hur de skapas och 3) vilken inverkan biståndshandläggare anser att riktlinjerna har på deras beslutsfattande. Tre metoder använts i studien; dokumentgranskning, semi-strukturerade intervjuer och en enkätundersökning. Resultatet visar en omfattande utbredning av kommunala riktlinjer som finns i 274 av Sveriges 290 kommuner och att riktlinjerna är politiskt antagna i majoriteten av kommunerna. Granskningen visar att riktlinjerna innehåller vägledande information, om exempelvis lagstiftning och rättspraxis, men det är också vanligt att kriterier för att bevilja insatser eller nivåer för insatsernas omfattning i den aktuella kommunen anges. Resultatet indikerar vidare att riktlinjernas funktion är att överbrygga otydligheten i SoL genom en återgång till byråkratisering. Genom att minska handlingsfriheten syftar riktlinjerna också till att skapa trygghet och möjlighet till politiskt ansvarstagande för nyttjande av kommunala resurser, ansvarsutkrävande i relationen mellan politiker, medborgare och biståndshandläggare samt att kompensera för bristande kompetens. Standardiseringen som görs i syfte att uppnå likabehandling och rättssäkerhet riskerar dock att gå emot intentionen med SoL och den individuella prövningen. Studien synliggör vikten av att nödvändiga resurser investeras i de riktlinjer som skapas så att de utformas för att vara lagenliga, rättssäkra och tillgängliga men att förutsättningarna för detta skiljer sig kraftigt mellan kommuner. En möjlig väg framåt är att Socialstyrelsen eller en annan statlig myndighet ansvarar för att ta fram en mall till riktlinjer som kontinuerligt uppdateras med aktuell lagstiftning och rättspraxis. Sammanfattningsvis visar studien att riktlinjer har en utbredd inverkan på biståndshandläggarnas beslutsfattande. Riktlinjerna får därigenom en central roll i tillämpningen av välfärden med en inverkan på enskilda äldre och det bistånd som beviljas. / Cutbacks and austerity measures were in 2019 estimated in a quarter of the Swedish municipalities because of financial deficit. Due to the urbanization the conditions of the municipalities vary creating different challenges and possibilities to provide for the necessary welfare service such as elderly care. Despite a growing population of elderly previous research shows a decline in residential homes since 1980 as well as a decrease in caretakers receiving home help service. According to an inspection of the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (Inspektionen för vård och omsorg) local policy guidelines, for elderly care assessment, are being used to reduce the dissimilarities in decision-making within the municipalities’ and to control the financial costs by adapting criteria’s and care limits for the needs assessment. Critic has by the Swedish Ombudsman been directed towards municipal guidelines for not being in accordance with the law and case-law. Despite previous research indicating usage of municipal guidelines in the need’s assessment and decision-making process, municipal guidelines are still a quite unexplored field. The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand the role of municipal guidelines, for elderly care assessment, with regard to the law and the application of the law as well as the role municipal guidelines play according to politicians. In order to achieve this the following has been examined: 1) the spread and content of the municipal guidelines, 2) the creation and political motives for establishing the guidelines and 3) how the care managers view their impact on the decision-making process. The methods used are semi-structured interviews, a survey, and a documentation review. The result shows that municipal guidelines are politically established, that they are widely spread and can be found in 274 out of 290 Swedish municipalities. According to the survey the guidelines contains guidance of law, case-law and the like, as well as criteria’s and limits for the needs assessment and decision-making of elderly care service. The result indicates that the role of the local guidelines is to compensate for the ambiguity of the social Services Act (socialtjänstlagen 2001:453) by reinstating bureaucracy. By limiting the discretion, the guidelines aim to compensate for the lack of competence as well as creating certainty and enable political responsibility for the usage of municipal resources as well as accountability between politicians, care managers and citizens. By standardizing, the aim is to achieve equality and legal certainty despite risking the fundamental intentions of the social Service Act as a framework law designed for individual needs assessment. This study makes the need for investing necessary resources into creating guidelines more visible for them to be lawful and ensure legal certainty as well as accessible. The conditions, however, vary noteworthy between the municipalities. As a solution, the National Board of Health and Welfare, or some other authority, could be held responsible for developing a national guideline, regularly up to date and based on current law and case-law. In summary the study shows that municipal guidelines have a widespread impact on the decision-making of the care managers. The municipal guidelines thereby have a central role in the application of the law with the consequence of a noteworthy impact on the individual elderly and the help warranted as a consequence.

No description available.

This study explores how municipalities in Sweden interpret and apply the Social Services Act in their provision of eldercare, specifically in their original place of residence, which has been their responsibility since the 1992 elder care reform. Despite a national ambition for equal eldercare provision, municipalities have significant flexibility in shaping their own guidelines based on local conditions. The study contains a content analysis of 23 communal guidelineswhich were selected based on the municipalities’ size, geographic location, and population patterns. The guidelines were analyzed using Max Weber's concept of bureaucratization and identity theory. Notably, a significant proportion of the analyzed guidelines contain explicit time intervals for the home care interventions that are typically provided within the municipality. The study's key findings highlight substantial variations in these interventions across municipalities, encompassing differences in the types of interventions offered, as well as variations in their frequency and designated time intervals. It is reasonable to assert that the variations in home care interventions identified in this study bear significant consequences for older adults that seek home care, depending on their municipality of residence. This paper highlights the significant importance of guidelines in shaping the variations in home care services across different municipalities. It also seeks to promote further research and encourage broader discussions on the governance of eldercare in Sweden.

Since August 2022, the use of cell phones in Swedish schools is regulated by law. In this study, the implementation of the cell phone ban is studied from the perspective of upper secondary school teachers as an example of implementation within a street-level bureaucracy setting. Interviews were conducted with eight teachers to examine what factors they experience as affecting the implementation, how they act while implementing the ban, what discretion they experience in the implementation and what their opinions on discretion are. The study shows that the teachers generally understand the law and its implementation, but that knowledge-related issues concerning for example the implementation in specific situations exist. The willingness to implement varies among the teachers, which mainly seems to be connected to their views on cell phone use in the classroom and – in some cases – views on policy efficiency. Some teachers also have issues implementing the ban due to lack of time, information and support from colleagues, the number of students they must keep an eye on, and students opposing the ban. While several teachers collect the students’ phones or tell them to put them away, there are also those who do not act to implement the ban or only do it in certain cases. Finally, the teachers all experience discretion and find this positive, but some teachers see issues with other teachers having discretion and not implementing the ban.

The purpose of this study is to analyze if the workmethods in the European Commission's crisis management had post-bureaucratic characteristics, more specifically less hierarchy, horizontal communication, collective decision-making and own responsibility, during the Greek debt crisis 2010-2015. To carry out an analysis this study identifies four characteristics of a post-bureaucratic organization, in order to use the theory as a tool to clearly identify if there are any post-bureaucratic characteristics in the Commission's workmethods during the Greek crisis 2010-2015. The material used in the study is based on published reports from the European Parliament, European Court of Auditors, International Monetary Fund and the European Commission where facts on the European Commission’s crisis management are presented. This study's analysis shows that post-bureaucratic characteristics can be identified on the workmethods the Commission used in some situations during the Greek debt crisis 2010-2015. The study's conclusion is summarized by the fact that the European Commission’s workmethods in relation to post-bureaucratic characteristics are only found in some instances. Therefore the study can not conclude that the European Commission is a post-bureaucratic organization during the Greek crisis 2010-2015.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka vilka förutsättningar biståndsbedömare har för att bevilja en person ett särskilt boende samt hur handlingsutrymmet ser ut enligt biståndsbedömare i utredningar av särskilt boende. Vi använde en kvalitativ metod för att uppnå studiens syfte och har således genomfört sex enskilda intervjuer med biståndsbedömare i fyra olika kommuner i Mellansverige. Det insamlade materialet från samtliga intervjutillfällen analyserades utifrån Lipskys teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater. Resultatet visade att samtliga respondenter vid utredningar av särskilt boende beaktar anhörigperspektivet, kvarboendeprincipen samt det omfattande individuella hjälpbehovet för att bevilja ett särskilt boende. De kommunala kriterierna för särskilt boende var likartade oavsett kommun, däremot fanns det stora kommunala skillnader gällande trygghetsboenden. Resultatet visade att de organisatoriska ramarna påverkar biståndsbedömares förutsättningar att beakta den hjälpsökandes psykosociala behov. Biståndsbedömarna upplevde sig ha ett brett men otydligt handlingsutrymme men som möjliggör individuella bedömningar. Respondenterna upplever socialtjänstlagen och de kommunala riktlinjerna som otydliga, detta menar respondenterna har sina för- respektive nackdelar i samband med beslutsfattande. Otydligheten inger frihet samtidigt som det begränsar deras handlingsutrymme. Vidare upplevde vissa biståndsbedömare att de kommunala kriterierna för att bevilja ett biståndsbedömt boende många gånger strider mot deras etiska värdegrund vilket påverkar deras arbetstillfredsställelse negativt. / The purpose of this study was to examine the conditions that social workers in elderly care have to take into consideration and approve in order to provide assistance-assessed homes for the elderly, and what the discretion looks like according to social workers in elderly care in the investigation for assistance-assessed homes. To achieve the purpose a qualitative method was used which consisted of six conducted individual interviews from four different municipalities in central Sweden. The data collected from the interviews was analyzed based on Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucrats. The result showed that all respondents adhere to the relatives' perspective, the principle of remal Service law and the municipal guidelines in order to grant measures regarding assistance-assessed homes. The municipal criteria for assistant-assessed homes were similar regardless of municipality, however, there were large municipal differences regarding assistant-assessed sheltered homes. The result showed that the organizational framework affects the social workers ability to take the psychosocial needs of the person seeking help into account. The social workers felt that they had a wide but unclear discretion, but the discretion made it possible for individual assessment. The respondents perceive that the Social Service law and municipal guidelines as obscure which in turn has its advantages and disadvantages in regard to decision-making. The obscurity gives freedom at the same time as it limits their discretion. Furthermore, some social workers perceived that the municipal criterias for granting assistance-assessed homes sometimes contradict their ethical values which could affect their work satisfaction negatively.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva socialsekreterares upplevelse av sin arbetssituation i förhållande till möjligheter och utmaningar i arbetet. Data samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som sedan presenterades utifrån en tematisk analys. Resultaten visade att socialsekreterares arbetssituation påverkas av flera faktorer som ömsesidigt påverkar varandra och av denna anledning uppstod svårigheter att upprätta tydliga skiljelinjer mellan temana. Ett viktigt resultat var att uppfattningen av arbetsbelastningen inte endast bör mätas i kvantitativa mått, utan att även aspekter som ärendets komplexitet påverkar hur arbetsbelastningen uppfattas. Ett annat fynd var betydelsen av socialt stöd från kollegor. Resultatet visar att detta lyfts fram som den viktigaste stödformen för upplevelsen av trivsel och välbefinnande i arbetet, men att höga nivåer av stöd inte kan kompensera för en ohållbar arbetssituation. Vidare finns det flera skäl att fortsätta arbetsmiljöarbetet på socialtjänsten, inte bara för att förbättra socialsekreterares arbetssituation och välbefinnande, utan även för att en osund arbetssituation medför konsekvenser för såväl klienter som för organisationen i helhet. / The aim of this study was to describe social workers' experience of their work situation in relation to opportunities and challenges in their work. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews which were then analyzed based on a thematic analysis. The results showed that the work situation of social workers is affected by several factors that mutually affect each other and for this reason, difficulties arose in establishing distinct dividing lines between the themes. A significant finding was that the perception of the workload cannot only be measured in quantitative measures, but that aspects such as the complexity of the case affect how the workload is perceived. Another key finding was the importance of peer social support. The result shows that this is highlighted as the most important form of support for comfort and well-being at work, however, high levels of support cannot replace a sustainable work environment. Furthermore, there are several reasons to continue improving the working environment at social services, not only to improve social workers' work situation and well-being, but also because it has negative consequences for both clients and the organization as a whole.

[pt] A dissertação pretende investigar elementos da tensão entre burocracia e democracia, tendo por base a sociologia de Max Weber e perspectivas críticas da filosofia contemporânea, como é o caso das reflexões sobre o princípio político do Comum – que, na literatura de Christian Laval e Pierre Dardot, propõe uma revisitação da participação social na organização dos serviços públicos. Parte-se inicialmente da percepção de que, se de um lado a burocracia ainda é entendida como um imperativo de técnica, racionalidade e impessoalidade para a execução estatal das atividades e dos serviços públicos, de outro, é inerente e necessária à sua modelagem uma alienação social e popular. A organização estatal em um aparelho administrativo estruturalmente burocrático, composto em sua maioria por especialistas e técnicos (não eleitos), afasta a coisa pública dos cidadãos - e, assim, convive com o permanente risco de desqualificação da política e de dissipação da legitimidade democrática dos processos de implementação das escolhas relacionadas à gestão dos interesses, utilidades e serviços públicos. Identificado o problema, a pesquisa busca demonstrar que as principais oposições democráticas ao fenômeno da burocratização tecnocrática (sejam elas de matriz liberal/gerencial, no viés da democracia diárquica, da democracia monitória ou da defesa das reformas gerenciais no aparato estatal; sejam as de matriz crítica/social, no viés autogestão anárquica ou da mera abertura de canais participativos dentro da própria burocracia estatal), não trazem propostas suficientemente aptas a contornar o desafio antes descrito. Ao final, defende-se como alternativa para o enfrentamento da disputa entre burocracia e democracia o referencial epistemológico do princípio político do Comum - que, embora também inserido na genealogia do pensamento crítico/social, assenta proposições mais revolucionárias e originais para o problema da participação social nos serviços públicos, sobretudo a partir da práxis instituinte e do autogoverno democrático, como arranjos possíveis para a radicalização de uma estrutura decisória e coletiva fora da esfera estatal. / [en] The thesis intends to investigate elements of the tension between bureaucracy and democracy, based on the sociology of Max Weber and critical perspectives of contemporary philosophy, as is the case of reflections on the political principle of the Common – which, in the literature of Christian Laval and Pierre Dardot, proposes a revisitation of social participation in the organization of public services. It starts, initially, with the perception that, if on the one hand bureaucracy is still understood as an imperative of technique, rationality and impersonality for the state execution of public activities and services, on the other hand, a social and popular alienation is inherent and necessary to its moulding. The state organization in a structurally bureaucratic administrative apparatus, composed mostly of (non-elected) specialists and technicians, distances public affairs from citizens - and, thus, coexists with the permanent risk of political disqualification and dissipation of the democratic legitimacy in the implementation processes of choices related to the management of public interests, utilities and services. Once identified the problem, the research seeks to describe that the main democratic oppositions to the phenomenon of technocratic bureaucratization (whether they are on the liberal/managerial side, defending the diarchic democracy, the watchdog democracy or the managerial reform of the state apparatus; whether they are on the critical/social side, advocating an anarchic self-management system or the mere creation of participatory mechanisms within the state bureaucracy itself) does not present proposals that are sufficiently apt to avoid the challenge described above. In the end, the epistemological framework of the political principle of the Common is defended as an alternative for confronting the dispute between bureaucracy and democracy - which, although also inserted in the genealogy of critical/social thought, establishes more revolutionary and original propositions for the problem of social participation in public services, based, especially, on the instituent praxis and the institution of democratic self-government, as possible arrangements for the radicalization of a decision-making and collective structure out of the state sphere.

The purpose of this study is to explore how social workers in financial assistance describe their work situation. The aim is also to investigate how social workers in financial assistance describe their discretion and whether there is a relationship between their work situation and discretion. A qualitative method in the form of six semi-structured interviews has been used to obtain relevant empirical data for our study. We interviewed six social workers in the field of financial assistance with different levels of experience. The social workers who participated work either in the financial assistance intake unit or ongoing financial assistance for clients of varying ages who apply for continued financial assistance each month. Our study shows that social workers in financial assistance have different definitions of discretion. The first definition of discretion implies that social workers' discretion is created and adjusted by various factors such as laws, management and supervisors, personal preferences and clients. The second definition describes discretion as a right that comes with working as a social worker on financial assistance and implies that discretion is explored and tested in the work by the social worker himself. Our study also shows that the work situation of a social worker in financial assistance and their discretion influence each other. Greater discretion has a positive effect on the social worker's work situation and limited discretion has the opposite effect. A heavy workload and lack of time, while management and supervisors try to impose constraints on the social worker, have a negative impact on a social worker's discretion. This in turn leads to stress for social workers in financial assistance. The results of the study also show that factors such as experience and room for interpretation of the law increase the discretion, which contributes to a more positive attitude towards social workers’ work situation.