This paper analyses an ongoing economization trend in the sphere of higher education (HE) and discusses its implications on higher education for sustainable development (HESD). The sources of this trend are connected with neoliberalism understood as a political project that seeks to extend competitive market forces, consolidate a market-friendly constitution, and promote individual freedom. In global HE neoliberalism, decision-makers, be it educational, scientific, or other, are pressured to assess how their activities impact financially on the individual, organizational, and institutional levels and/or the imperatives of an internationally competitive economy. The paper provides a contemporary analysis of the rise of neoliberalism in HE, understood as the specific trend of an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime explained by Jessop's six analytic distinct and potentially overlapping stages of economization. This analysis is based on a review of European policies from 2006 until 2017 and explains characteristics of current economization strategies. Their core principles relating to higher education are about improving economic performance based on knowledge and innovation. Smart growth is defined politically as the main purpose of HE and positioning students as future workers, with the right higher skills, as the means. The relevance of students' skills higher education institutions (HEI) are urged to develop highly depend on business demands. European policies are driven by a comprehensive entrepreneurial agenda restructuring the organizational mechanisms in HE. Accountability towards the labour market and skills performance of students set this agenda. Funding strategies rest on strong industry ties and diversification of revenue streams depend on HEI capability to establish tech-driven knowledge alliances between research, education and business. These new intermediary and powerful alliances drive economization strategies, influence curriculum development and decide on relevant higher level skills. Respective learning practices are oriented strongly towards developing entrepreneurial and digital skills based on personalized learning environments. Currently HESD adapts towards a neoliberal education agenda rather than preventing further shifts from a capitalist towards a competitive financialized economy. A profound critique would have to question the dominant economization trends in higher education i.e. the very purpose of education and the current raison d¿etre of HEI. The core of the critique might build on new institutionalized learning environments allowing deep, social learning and, hence, the potential of HEI to act as social catalysts empowering collective and disruptive agency. / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Modern organizations within IT-developing needs to be prepared to face challengesthat are not necessarily connected to the mere technological aspects of softwares.These challenges might lie within e. g. communication between stakeholders, userinvolvement, organizational regulations, the need for standards and maintainability ofthe products. This study is investigating the software development at one of thevarious IT-departments at Swedish bank Nordea, in order to point out the mostinteresting areas of improvement. Many different tools, standards, organizationalprocesses and methodologies are available to the developers, whereof some of themmight be inhibitory rather than enhancing the effectiveness. Nordea is also having anoffshoring-oriented strategy, having development resources located in India. Thediscussion is concerned with modern methodologies such as Scrum and other agiledevelopment concepts, and their use in a geographically dispersed context and withina non-agile organization.

The thesis focuses on a knowledge management with the support of a talent management in an international bank and an insurance company. It analyses a talented person, their characteristics and the progress possibilities by a development program created according to an educational plan and a following evaluation. It looks for a connection between the talented person and the knowledge management, which supports their education by assigning the right meaning to the selected information in order to make it easier to share knowledge, create educational materials or offer internal courses with various trends.

Denna studie gjordes för att undersöka anabola androgena steroider (AAS). Problemformuleringarna som ställdes syftade till att identifiera tillgängligheten hos öppenvårdsenheter enligt behandlare samt att undersöka hur behandlare arbetar med dessa klienter. Community Readiness Model, transteoretisk förändringsprocess samt transformativt lärande har använts som teoretiska utgångspunkter i syfte att uppnå förståelse för så väl det organisatoriska lärandet samt för individens förändringsprocess. En kvalitativ studie har gjorts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med behandlare, aktiva inom öppenvården. Intervjumaterialet har kodats samt analyserats och ställts emot tidigare forskning för att slutsatser kring syfte och problemformuleringar. Faktorer som kunskapsbrist samt låg motivation har identifierats som bidragande orsaker till missbruksvårdens svårtillgänglighet. Man har sett ett behov av samverkan och kunskapsspridning som faktorer som skulle kunna öka tillgängligheten. Studien visar att vårdens motivation till förändring och arbete med denna problematik är lika viktig som klientens.

<p>This essay presents and discusses a study that was performed in a multicultural school, where the teachers, since August 2004, have obtained internal training in how to work with language development. The objective with this essay is to investigate how the connection between language development and the development of knowledge can be understood and apprehended by teachers working in this school, and furthermore, to show how a language developing way of work can be accomplished in the teachers daily work.</p><p>Moreover, I have studied which objectives and strategies, the three language developers in charge of the training of the teachers, have concerning this work, furthermore I have looked into if these objectives and strategies differ from what the teachers understand and practically perform.</p><p>Pauline Gibbons book, <em>Stärk språket, stärk lärandet </em>(2006), has become a base for this school’s work when it comes to language development. Gibbons presents theories and practical exercises which have their origin from Vygotskij, Halliday and Cummins. Their theories have also become my theoretical base in this study.</p><p>I have made qualitative interviews with four teachers working in this school, and with one of the language developers. The results, from the teacher’s views and opinions in this subject, are presented individually. The spread between the teacher’s thoughts, when it comes to the connection between language development and knowledge, is quite extensive and so are the methods they choose, consciously or unconsciously, to work in a language developing way. The most important result, drawn from this study, is that all four teachers give examples of how to work in a language developing way, but only one presents a more well-thought-out method of how to work, and also explains why these methods develops the students knowledge and not only the language development.</p><p>Consequently, there is a gap between the awareness of how important language development is in the process of developing ones knowledge, and how this is performed in the teachers’ daily work with the students’. This could be of interest for the school to investigate further.</p>

This essay presents and discusses a study that was performed in a multicultural school, where the teachers, since August 2004, have obtained internal training in how to work with language development. The objective with this essay is to investigate how the connection between language development and the development of knowledge can be understood and apprehended by teachers working in this school, and furthermore, to show how a language developing way of work can be accomplished in the teachers daily work. Moreover, I have studied which objectives and strategies, the three language developers in charge of the training of the teachers, have concerning this work, furthermore I have looked into if these objectives and strategies differ from what the teachers understand and practically perform. Pauline Gibbons book, Stärk språket, stärk lärandet (2006), has become a base for this school’s work when it comes to language development. Gibbons presents theories and practical exercises which have their origin from Vygotskij, Halliday and Cummins. Their theories have also become my theoretical base in this study. I have made qualitative interviews with four teachers working in this school, and with one of the language developers. The results, from the teacher’s views and opinions in this subject, are presented individually. The spread between the teacher’s thoughts, when it comes to the connection between language development and knowledge, is quite extensive and so are the methods they choose, consciously or unconsciously, to work in a language developing way. The most important result, drawn from this study, is that all four teachers give examples of how to work in a language developing way, but only one presents a more well-thought-out method of how to work, and also explains why these methods develops the students knowledge and not only the language development. Consequently, there is a gap between the awareness of how important language development is in the process of developing ones knowledge, and how this is performed in the teachers’ daily work with the students’. This could be of interest for the school to investigate further.

This thesis focuses on interaction in netbased education. The purpose being to increase awareness about what promotes interaction in netbased education through understanding and categorizing the students’ opinions . My method is qualitative with a phenomenographic approach. I have conducted a netbased survey with 21 respondents who have completed a netbased course. Further I have followed up and chatted with 7 of the respondents in the survey. The survey resulted in five different qualitative categories: the technique, the teacher, the student, the study guide and the physical meeting. The result shows clearly that the asynchronous forum of discussion is a very important factor in enhancing interaction. Respondents who are skilled and experienced chatters see the chat as a positive model for interaction. The teacher has an important role to promote interaction. They have to be skilled in the technique and also take part in the forum in various ways and degrees. However some of the respondents do not want the teacher to take part in the forum discussions. The teacher must even be active and respond quickly to simple questions. The student should also be well trained in the technique and be responsible for his own and the group’s studies. The study guide must be constructed so to enhance student cooperation. It must be very clear and contain the extent of cooperation needed in regard to examination work. Physical meetings are regarded as important but very few participate. / 0455-304212

According to the curriculum for the Swedish preschool system, children’s development and learning should be documented and analyzed in order to evaluate and develop the preschool quality. Social criticism is directed to some of the methods of documentation for assessing the children´s individual knowledge development. The purpose of this study was to examine how, what and why some teachers use documentation in preschool. I wanted to examine which methods preschool teachers used when they documented the children and what they focused on. I also wanted to examine why the teachers chose the methods they used. I have used a qualitative method with interviews and contacted four teachers from different preschools in order to get diverse information for my study. All teachers were educated preschool teachers and all of them had worked in the preschool system for at least ten years. The information given in the interviews has been analyzed by the use of socio-cultural theories and previous research. The interviews with the teachers showed the use of different methods to document the children. The most frequently used method was to photograph the children. The purpose of it was to visualize the children’s development of knowledge or to show different parts of some projects the children participated in. The purposes of the teacher’s documentation were various and I discovered three main reasons for documentation: In order to give information to the parents about their children. For the use of discussions with the children and serve as inspiration for them. For the use of discussions between the teachers in order to develop the preschool quality. My conclusion is that the teacher’s view of the children’s knowledge development, is critical for what the teachers chose to focus on in their documentation, knowledge as process or product!

The aim of this study is to explore how some teachers in compulsory education for pupils with intellectual disabilities work with assessing the knowledge development in pupils in their daily work. The study is based on four semi structured interviews with teachers in compulsory education for pupils with intellectual disabilities. The results of the study show that teachers enjoy working in compulsory education for pupils with intellectual disabilities and that they think that assessment is a big part of everyday schoolwork. The teachers are aware of how the assessment process is supposed to work but their knowledge level, that the result shows, is not always sufficient to find useful methods and tools for assessment. This result shows that it is formative assessment which is largely applied. Teachers use many methods and contexts that enable assessment of pupils´ knowledge such as talks, observations and documentation. The results show that feedback is used partly to make visible the student´s knowledge level to the teacher, and partly to make the development of knowledge visible to the student himself. The object feedback is to show where the student is, what the goal is and how the student should get there. Several of the teachers strive to encourage students´ participation in their own learning process by developing the knowledge goals together and through frequent feedback. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur några lärare i grundsärskolan resonerar kring bedömning av elevernas kunskapsutveckling. Studien belyser lärarnas erfarenheter kring bedömning ur ett brett perspektiv och i det vardagliga skolarbetet. Studien bygger på fyra halvstrukturerade intervjuer med lärare som arbetar i grundsärskolans årskurser 1-6. Resultatet visar att lärarna trivs att arbeta i grundsärskolan och att de tycker att bedömning utgör en stor del av det vardagliga skolarbetet. Resultatet visar att lärarna har kunskap om hur bedömningsarbetet är tänkt att fungera men en kunskap som inte alltid är tillräcklig för att finna användbara metoder och redskap för bedömning. I resultatet framträder att det är formativ bedömning som till största delen tillämpas. Lärarna visar många metoder och sammanhang som möjliggör bedömning av elevernas kunskapsutveckling såsom samtal, observationer och dokumentation. Resultatet visar att återkoppling används dels för att synliggöra elevens kunskapsutveckling för läraren och dels för att synliggöra kunskapsutvecklingen för eleven själv. Återkopplingens syfte är att visa var eleven är, vad målet är och hur eleven ska nå dit. Flera av lärarna eftersträvar elevernas delaktighet i sin egen kunskapsprocess genom att utarbeta kunskapsmålen tillsammans och genom tät vardaglig återkoppling.

This thesis study explores the existing knowledge management and sharing practices in donor organizations, particularly working in the developing countries. The potentional of knowledge management and sharing to facilitate development organizations in carrying out development work has been recognised in the literature. Literature presented mix of critique and appreciation to the existing efforts of donor agencies. Knowledge sharing platforms revolves around the country initiatives and donor agencies like UNDP and World Bank which are proactive in establishing these platforms for partner organizations. This research contributes practical insight to the question of delivery of these platforms, through an empirical investigation based on the development professionals&apos; experiences. As earlier research shows enormous amount of literature on individual, team and organizational level knowledge sharing, this study sets prime focus on community level or external knowledge sharing, an area where there exist a dearth of emperical research or contributing literature on examing the role of sharing initiatives and possible contribution in improving risk management in development projects. Literature shows the potential of knowledge management and sharing practices, as their possible contribution in the global development practices and in bridging gap between North-South stakeholders. However, cultural, technological, organizational and individual level issues escalate with external level of knowledge sharing and thesis rightly, identifies success factors from the literature alongwith their viability from the professionals. It is even more inadequate when it comes to projects of donor organizations in under developed and developing countries. With 80% of documented failure rates of knowledge sharing systems, external knowledge sharing with partner organizations or network organizations is really not adequate and do not have supporting culture. As this whole process of sharing knowledge, heavily relies on the perceived motivation and willingness to share, study has tried to identify the challenges facing wider use of these sharing systems. Study also contributes with suggestions for knowledge management and sharing system developers, policy and decision makers and system users, to improve the overall contribution of knowledge sharing in better risk management. Apart from the cultural barriers, there are technical and policy level issues which need more concerted efforts to improve the use of these sharing systems by various organizations and individuals. / House No. 174-A, St. 61, I-8/3, Islamabad, Pakistan Contact: +92-336-5666065, Email: noman-1985@hotmail.com