Like the rest of the western world, the UK faces a significant increase in the prevalence of diseases associated with lifestyle. Smoking rates have reduced, but increasing obesity has contributed to alarming increases in diabetes. Discovery of the correlation between behaviour and poor health has, since the 1970s, resulted in public health policies emphasising behaviour change, and personal responsibility; an emphasis that survived later research which demonstrated social, genetic and psychological determinants on behaviour and health. The latest version of the NHS constitution exhorts us to ‘recognise that you can make a significant contribution to your own, and your family’s, good health and wellbeing, and take personal responsibility for it.’ This thesis seeks to clarify the meaning and extent of personal responsibility for health, and at its core are four papers published in peer-reviewed journals. The first clarifies the concept concluding that it is best understood in a tripartite conception of a moral agent having obligations and being held responsible if he fails to meet them. The following two papers discuss the nature of the obligations, using utilitarian reasoning and arguments from analogy. First, an exploration of the moral obligations for our own health is undertaken via an analysis of the practice of tombstoning, jumping from height into water. I conclude that the obligations are of process rather than outcome, consisting of an epistemic duty to determine the health related consequences of our acts, and a reflective duty to consider these consequences for us and for those who share our lives. Second, following an examination of the moral status of blood donation, I conclude that despite its presentation as a praiseworthy and supererogatory act, it is more properly regarded as a prima facie obligation, supported by arguments from beneficence and justice. The final paper discusses the final part of the tripartite conception of personal responsibility for health: being held responsible. I discuss the nature of blame and extend the tombstoning analogy as a way of testing my own intuitions in response to an imagined adult son who has undertaken this dangerous activity. I argue that the notion of blame is not generally allowed as part of the patient – professional relationship, and yet without considering blame, the concept of personal responsibility for health is incomplete. I conclude that if the epistemic and reflective duties, individually applied, conclude that an obligation is owed, it is owed to those within personal relationships, and holding people responsible for their health-effecting behaviour is also best undertaken within these relationships. I conclude the thesis by considering the implications for professional practice. Inevitably this leads to consideration of the promotion of personal autonomy in health care. A more relational account of autonomy is suggested. Facilitating the epistemic duty so that individuals are better able to understand the risks of their behaviour requires rethinking of the way that health promoting material and information are presented.

1 ABSTRACT: The present thesis argues for the necessity of a fundamental change in the professional preparation of primary and secondary school teachers; additionally, it discusses the way the education of future teachers should take. From the perspective of educational management, it proposes concrete measures that should be taken in order to implement the change. The author points out the seriousness of the issue in a broader context on the basis of an analysis of the curricula of faculties of education. The main reason for the change in the professional preparation of teachers is seen in the insufficient reflection of the current needs of the contemporary society, both in the content and form of teacher education. The thesis is divided into four chapters: Contemporary context as a major imperative, The present state of the professional preparation of teachers, The objectives of the professional preparation of teachers in the contemporary context, and The main steps towards the realization of the new goals.

Following a growing concern among education stakeholders about the lack of a reading culture and low literacy levels among Rwandans in general and university students in particular, the aim of this thesis is to increase the awareness of Rwandans about the development of a reading culture and early literacy. To achieve this aim, four studies with participants representing different experiences related to reading culture were performed. These qualitative studies draw on different perspectives on the development of a reading culture and emergent literacy by using open-ended questionnaires and interviews. The thesis takes sociocultural and emergent literacy theories as points of departure. The first study investigates students’ reflections on their previous reading experiences, and discuss ways to develop literacy and a reading culture in Rwanda. The next one sheds light on parents’ involvement in literacy practices at home and the third study concerns what literacy knowledge teachers expect from their pupils when they start nursery and lower primary school. An example of a literacy event (storytelling) is given in the fourth study where children’s narratives of fairy tales are followed by their discussions on gender issues, which in turn can develop the children’s interest in reading. This can also help them relate texts to their life and teach them to think critically. In sum, the studies show that there is a limited reading culture in Rwanda. That is attributed to the colonial and post-colonial education system, reliance on verbal communication, limited access to reading materials, and ultimately the low status of the mother tongue Kinyarwanda within the sociolinguistic configuration of Rwanda. Also, the participating students and teachers point out the necessity of involving parents more in the creation of an environment that nurtures children’s emergent literacy development so that it becomes a shared responsibility translated into a teacherparent partnership for children’s success at school. Hence, the findings inform the use of this thesis which is to promote literacy and a reading culture in Rwanda by engaging the whole nation in a national effort to build a sustainable culture of reading. To paraphrase the old African saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, I want to conclude by saying that it takes a nation to develop a culture of reading.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the employers’ responsibilities for rehabilitation of employees in Sweden, who due to illness or injury are unable to work. The process of the rehabilitation will be analyzed in a gender perspective. A minor comparative study about rehabilitation in Denmark will also be carried out. The purpose is to see how the process of the rehabilitation is designed for those who due to illness or injury are unable to work, which factors that affects the rehabilitation and which differences there are between Denmark and Sweden regarding the employers responibility for rehabilitation. A juridical method has been used for in this study. It is mainly the social insurance office, the employer and the employee who have the responsibilities for the process of the rehabilitation. The social insurance offices foremost function is to coordinate and supervise the efforts, which are needed for the rehabilitation. The employers shall take actions which are needed for an effective rehabilitation, have responsibility for the systematic work environment management and give the social insurance office the information that is needed. The employees responsibility is to participate in the planning of the rehabilitation and in the actual rehabilitation as good as possible. There are many factors which affect the rehabilitation for those who due to illness or injury are unable to work. It can for example be the employees own participation in the rehabilitation, the systematic work environment management and the size of the company. There are differences between Sweden and Denmark regarding the employers responsibility for the rehabilitation. The most important difference is that the employer in Denmark does not have any responsibilities for the rehabilitation. There is also a difference between the countries in the employment security.

(On the shift of responsibility for compulsory schooling. The path to management by objectives and results and some of its consequences). The aim with this thesis is to contribute to the discussion about the responsibility for compulsory schooling in the 1990s. The decade began with a shift of responsibility for the compulsory school, a process generally referred to as 'municipalization', which on an everyday basis makes it perfectly clear where the responsibility lies. This thesis probes a little further into the problems of the distribution of responsibility, through investigating how the issue of responsibility for the nine-year comprehensive compulsory school has been discussed and motivated over time, in order to analyse more precisely the conditions at hand as the municipalities were to take over responsibility for the different schools in the 1990s. As a sequel to the fundamental direction of this study it enters into a discussion about the consequences following the distribution of responsibility: the effects of management by objectives and results on the school's cognitive approach and problematizing the issue of power and influence under the new model of responsibility. The thesis contains an analysis of how the issue of responsibility for compulsory schooling has been discussed in official commission reports over time, with the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the compulsory school in the 1990s, and its conditions. The historical study thus focuses on the school reform conducted in the early 90s and the three concepts seen as central to the discussion about responsibility for the compulsory school towards the end of the twentieth century: municipalization, decentralization and turning the school into a goals and achievement-related organisation. The analysis is founded upon an outlook based on discourse, aiming to distinguish any changes in the meaning of those three key expressions as well as to define shifts and discursive breaks in textual references to the responsibility for comprehensive school.

The study investigates what the EU and Swedish legislation indicate about pollution, how the polluter-pays principle is used, and how the legislation has been applied in two Swedish municipalities. The purpose of the study was to identify if the legislation is a support or a barrier regarding accountability and financing of remediation of old pollution areas, and how polluted areas are handled in practice.The case study investigation was done through a literature study in combination with 7 respondent interviews with representatives from two County Administrative Boards, two municipalities, one consulting company, one private company and one university researcher. The results show that the most explanatory factors of why old pollution still remains are the ambition and will of all actors in the society regarding priority lists and procrastination, and inertia between different actors in society. Other explanatory factors are demarcation difficulties when assessing liability, lack of competence in assessments of liability and justified extent, lack of investigation resources, and lack of money. Improvement options were found in the Swedish application model and in the cooperation model between the actors in society. This demonstrates that the explanations found for why old pollution still remains are attributed less to legislation and more to other factors. / <p>2023-06-01</p>

This study investigated a number of important research questions that were prompted by the existing literature relating to the concept of responsibility for learning. Such literature has highlighted the importance of promoting personal responsibility for learning to not only students as individuals but also to the direction of education and pedagogy in general. The literature has also shown a broad concern over students’ apparent lack of responsibility as well as a lack of consensus over the precise meaning of this concept. The present study addresses gaps in the literature by exploring the following specific issues: firstly, What are students’ understandings of the concept of responsibility for learning?; secondly, How have students reported their own learning related attitudes and behaviours?; and thirdly, What are the associations between students’ understandings and their self-reports? It was also intended that data collected for the first two research questions would enable the investigation of year level and gender differences. With a methodology based on a written survey design, this study collected data from a sample of some 286 students from Australian schools in both the Primary and Secondary sectors (comprising Years 5, 7, 9 and 11). The process of data collection involved participants completing one open-ended question and two newly developed Likert-type response questionnaires that incorporated 40 individual descriptive items that were associated with six distinct subscales (i.e., Orientation Towards Schools and Learning; Active Participation in Learning Activities; Autonomy and Personal Control of Learning; Initiative; Management of Learning Resources; and Cooperation and Control of Classroom Behaviour). One scale (the SURLQ), along with the open-ended question, measured students’ understandings of Responsibility For Learning and the other scale (the SRLABQ) measured students’ perceptions of their own learning related attitudes and behaviours. The data pertaining to the first research question was analysed in two distinct ways. Firstly, students’ responses to the open-ended question were analysed qualitatively by sorting and tallying their original responses according to a determination of the themes and descriptors offered. Secondly, the responses to the SURLQ were analysed quantitatively by calculating the mean and standard deviation scores for all 40 descriptive items and hence the six subscales. Similar quantitative statistical analysis procedures were applied to the data pertaining to students’ self-reported learning attitudes and behaviours (i.e., the SRLABQ). Reliability coefficients for the SURLQ and the SRLABQ were also calculated. Descriptive data for the subscales of these two measures were cross-tabulated by year level and gender to determine whether statistically significant differences were evident. Cohen’s Effect Size calculations were applied to such differences. Statistically significant interactions between these independent variables were determined by Multivariate analysis of variance techniques. The third research question was investigated by applying correlation analysis to the mean scores of corresponding subscales and by calculating the differences between the same sets of mean scores. With respect to the first research question, it was found that according to both sets of data, students’ understandings of responsibility for learning generally supported a primarily behavioural perspective that emphasised a high degree of application to learning and relating sociably with others in the classroom. Although the SURLQ data also showed a greater acknowledgement of attitudinal components, it was noted that according to data from the two questionnaires, students did not readily associate responsible learners with being autonomous and having personal control of learning (as does the literature). With respect to the second research question, it was found that students reported themselves to be reasonably responsible learners as evidenced by the moderately high scores collected in all of the six responsibility for learning subscales. This finding led to the conclusion that the concerns expressed in the literature over students’ lack of responsibility in the classroom are not perceived by the students themselves. As the data pertaining to the third research question showed a reasonable correlation between students’ understandings of responsibility for learning and their self-reported learning attitudes and behaviours, it was concluded that students were likely to view themselves as responsible learners in a way that reflects their understandings of the concept. It was concluded that this research has important implications for all stakeholders in education. Although this study makes a major contribution to defining and describing responsibility for learning, it is evident that a lack of consensus in understanding between key stakeholders groups (i.e., researchers, educators and students) still exists. The divergence of outlook between students and various elements of the literature reinforces the need for further research to be conducted to determine the relative acceptance of behavioural compliance (and/or prudence) in the classroom versus personal control and accountability with respect to learning. It is also argued that such work would be integral to educators having a clear and unambiguous understanding of responsibility for learning so that the enhancement of this quality in students may take place in classrooms of the future.

The aim of the thesis is to systematically present, analyse and critically reflect Hans Jonas's (1903-1993) conception of moral responsibility with respect to his axiological ontology, anthropology, speculative theology and conception of modern technology with account of the most important topically relevant German secondary sources, including the latest ones. The first chapter maps the relevant Czech and Slovak secondary sources, whereby it evaluates to what extent Jonas's ethics of responsibility represented a general or applied approach, whether it was only an ethics of survival and whether in this context Jonas's thinking can be labelled anthropocentric. The second chapter offers insight primarily into Jonas's ethical thought in the chronological context of his life. The third chapter analyses Jonas's axiological ontology, anthropology, speculative theology and conception of modern technology. Against this philosophical and speculative-theological background the fourth chapter critically examines Jonas's conception of moral responsibility proper. The fifth chapter critically reflects on both the philosophical and speculative-theological background of Jonas's conceptions of responsibility and the conception itself. An excursus into applied ethics, which concludes the fifth chapter and the work as a whole, finally solves a topical ethical challenge in the sphere of assisted reproduction having to do with the categorical imperative of Jonas's responsibility for future generations. The main results of critical analysis and reflection: Jonas's ethics of responsibility is a supplementary applied conception, an ethics of survival, whose normative axiom commands the preservation (perpetuation) of the human capacity to responsibility. Jonas's thought is monistically anthropocentric. That follows from Jonas's integral monism, in which the difference between god and world, spirit and matter, reality and possibility is levelled out. These monistic confusions are more or less also projected into the ethical points of departure of Jonas's conception of responsibility, especially his specific axiological onto(theo)logy, in which the difference between ontology and axiology is levelled out. The main characteristic of Jonas's proper conception of responsibility consists in confusion (identification) of the object of responsibility with the instance of responsibility - from which at the level of theory of responsibility Jonas's specific two-place relationship of responsibility (subject - object=instance) follows. Although Jonas within his ethics of responsibility, in order to justify responsibility for future generations, broadened his specific two-place relationship to a three-place one, the author of this thesis finds none of the versions of Jonas's three-place relationship plausible - though the author agrees that an at least three-place conception of responsibility is necessary (instance - subject - object). However, for a more differentiated analysis of responsibility a five-place conception is suitable (normative standard - instance - subject - action - object affected by the action), with respect to the possibility of solving some of the problems of Jonas's responsibility for future generations a six-place conception (last instance - normative standard - instance - subject - action - object affected by the action).

Are implicit biases something we can rightly be held responsible for, and if so, how? A variety of social and cognitive psychological studies have documented the existence of wide-ranging implicit biases for over 30 years. These implicit biases can best be described as negative mental attitudes that operate immediately and unconsciously in response to specific stimuli. The first chapter of this thesis surveys the psychological literature, as well as presents findings of real-world experiments into racial biases. I then present the dominant model of implicit attitudes as mere associations, followed by evidence that at least some implicit attitudes take on a propositional form and involve making inferences based on evidence. I then reject adopting either of these two rigid models in favor of a dispositional approach that treats implicit biases as on the same spectrum of, but adjacent to, beliefs. I then evaluate the moral wrongdoing associated with holding explicitly prejudicial beliefs, appealing first to Kantian notions of respecting individuals as agents, then appealing to Strawson’s argument that we are responsible for expressions of our will. Our status as human agents involves participating in complex and sustained interactions with others, which necessarily implies that we take part in the social practice of holding each other responsible for the quality of their will. The reactive attitudes we display in our everyday interactions indicate which features and circumstances are most important when investigating this practice. After applying this approach to implicit attitudes, I then pose the objection that their unconscious and unendorsed nature disqualifies implicit attitudes as proper expressions of our will. I develop this objection using Scanlon’s account of moral responsibility, which requires the capacity to self-govern in light of principles that are generally agreed upon as good reasons for guiding interactions with one another. Finally, I critique Real Self theories that seek to arbitrarily privilege one part of ourselves in favor of the Whole Self, which privileges those features that are most integrated into our overall character.

Diplomová práce se zabývá problematikou užívání ženské hormonální antikoncepce z perspektivy mužů jakožto jejich partnerů. V teoretické části podává ucelený obraz o expertním i veřejném diskurzu a základních argumentech souvisejících s problematikou v odborné literatuře. Analytická část je konstruovaná prostřednictvím polostrukturovaných rozhovorů s vybranými respondenty, kteří svými odpověďmi vykreslují podobu této problematiky z mužské perspektivy. Jejich výpovědi jsou průběžně analyzované genderovou optikou. Diplomová práce volně navazuje na předchozí práce, zabývající se sociálními aspekty užívání hormonální antikoncepce z pohledu žen. ABSTRACT This diploma thesis deals with the problematics concerning the female usage of hormonal contraception from the perspective of their male partners. In the theoretical part, the thesis describes the basic assertions, expert as well as public discourse linked with the problematics represented in professional literature. The analytical part is built on semi-constructed interviews with selected respondents. The interviews are drafted to illustrate the male conception of the problematics. Their answers from the interviews are analysed one by one through the views on gender. The thesis loosely follows previous theses describing social aspects of the usage of...