A main challenge facing spatial planning today issustainable development, in official documents defined asecological, social and economic sustainability. In a powerperspective these three dimensions can be characterised ascompeting discourses. Another challenge facing local authorityplanners is how to work in open processes with a growing numberof actors and stakeholders, in addition often as parties inchanging organisations. Altogether this provides a very complexcontext for local authority spatial planning and itsprofessional planners. This report is based on an investigation of how politicaland societal activities on European, national and local levelsare influencing the local authority spatial planning processes.The focus is on how planning is being administrated, and howplanning officers can manage planning processes in complexcontexts. The main research questions are how political visionsand objectives regarding sustainable development are managed inlocal authority spatial planning? And how can the growingnumber of actors and stakeholders with a wide range ofknowledge, interests and values be managed in such complexplanning contexts? Two case studies in Sweden have provided the empiricalmaterial. The first is a study of planners in local authoritiesof various sizes and spread geographic locations. The second isa detailed study of the planning organisation in a medium-sizedlocal authority with two major on-going planning processes.Qualitative research methods have been used in theinvestigation, direct interviews with the main actors, documentstudies and observations. The result of this study is an understanding of some theelements and connections in the complex situation facing thelocal authority planning administrations. These are describedin terms of competing policy discourses, each of which isrelated to and managed in different local planning directions.Why some discourses are stronger than others is discussed. Alsoidentified in the study are the problems involved in how thelocal planning administrations and the planners manage thiscomplexity. These problems are interpreted and formulated asdifferent types of dilemmas related to wider planning issues.Also problematised is how the planning organisation andplanners are managing these dilemmas. The findings from the study are relevant for those involvedin spatial planning education, making students conscious aboutthe complex contexts in planning practice. The study is alsorelevant for professional planners in order to fosterself-reflection and discussion about the problems they areinvolved in their daily work and how these can be managed inthe complex arena of spatial planning today.

<p>A main challenge facing spatial planning today issustainable development, in official documents defined asecological, social and economic sustainability. In a powerperspective these three dimensions can be characterised ascompeting discourses. Another challenge facing local authorityplanners is how to work in open processes with a growing numberof actors and stakeholders, in addition often as parties inchanging organisations. Altogether this provides a very complexcontext for local authority spatial planning and itsprofessional planners.</p><p>This report is based on an investigation of how politicaland societal activities on European, national and local levelsare influencing the local authority spatial planning processes.The focus is on how planning is being administrated, and howplanning officers can manage planning processes in complexcontexts. The main research questions are how political visionsand objectives regarding sustainable development are managed inlocal authority spatial planning? And how can the growingnumber of actors and stakeholders with a wide range ofknowledge, interests and values be managed in such complexplanning contexts?</p><p>Two case studies in Sweden have provided the empiricalmaterial. The first is a study of planners in local authoritiesof various sizes and spread geographic locations. The second isa detailed study of the planning organisation in a medium-sizedlocal authority with two major on-going planning processes.Qualitative research methods have been used in theinvestigation, direct interviews with the main actors, documentstudies and observations.</p><p>The result of this study is an understanding of some theelements and connections in the complex situation facing thelocal authority planning administrations. These are describedin terms of competing policy discourses, each of which isrelated to and managed in different local planning directions.Why some discourses are stronger than others is discussed. Alsoidentified in the study are the problems involved in how thelocal planning administrations and the planners manage thiscomplexity. These problems are interpreted and formulated asdifferent types of dilemmas related to wider planning issues.Also problematised is how the planning organisation andplanners are managing these dilemmas.</p><p>The findings from the study are relevant for those involvedin spatial planning education, making students conscious aboutthe complex contexts in planning practice. The study is alsorelevant for professional planners in order to fosterself-reflection and discussion about the problems they areinvolved in their daily work and how these can be managed inthe complex arena of spatial planning today.</p>

This study aimed to explore possible ways in which racist ideology and counter positions to this ideology are played out in discourses about cross-racial adoption (CRA) in the current post-apartheid context of South Africa. Three focus group interviews were conducted with 18 psychology students at the University of the Witwatersrand. The study adopted a social constructionist approach to knowledge and transcripts from the focus groups were analyzed using discourse analysis that combined techniques from Braun and Clarke (2006) and Parker (1992, 1999). Analysis revealed that students’ discussion focused mainly on the extent to which they thought black children raised by white parents should (or should not) be exposed to black culture. The discourses underlying these opinions appeared to gain social legitimacy for their speakers through three overarching repertoires, all of which tended to be used to divert attention away from the political ramifications of arguments. Firstly, participants claimed that their arguments were made with “the best interests of the child” at heart. Secondly, participants constructed particular meanings of the relationship between ‘race’ and identity by framing these meanings as central to “knowing who you are”. Thirdly, participants distanced themselves from accountability for their opinions by framing them as reflections of “other South Africans’ attitudes” towards ‘race’ and CRA. Overall, the analysis revealed that processes of racialisation show strong persistence in both black and white people’s discourses about CRA, but tend to be overtly expressed as a value and tolerance of different cultures and ethnicities. However, counter voices to these discourses did emerge in prominent challenges to the idea that ‘race’, ethnicity and culture are intrinsic and immutable features of people. Less prominent were the occasional counter voices that suggested these constructs are nevertheless pertinent, because of the ways in which they may be used to either challenge ‘racially’-derived inequalities between groups, or to fuel the prominence of racist ideology in society.