This paper is about if municipal council's ideology affect steering in the municipalities of Vellinge and Fagertsa. Vellinge has for a long time been governed by Sweden's conservative party Moderaterna. Fagersta has for a long time been governed by Sweden's left party Vänsterpartiet. The main question of the paper to be answered is as follows: Is there a relation between the steering in municipalities and the ideology of the governing parties? The hypothesis is that there is a connection between what ideology the party that governs has and how the municipalities are being governed. The question is being answered by an idea analysis. Two ideal types are being used to compare the two steering alternatives New Puplic Management and Traditional Bureucracy with the two municipalities. The conclusion is that there is a connection though it is rather weak. It is also clear that the steering is being affected not only by the governing parties ideology but also by the state. This explanation is supported by the theory employed in the paper. Keywords: Styrningsrationalitet, New Public Management, Traditional Bureucracy, Kommuner

Den här uppsatsen syftar till att belysa förändringar i hur hälsoanspråk använts och utformats i kommersiellt syfte under 1900-talet. Förändringarna synliggörs genom att analysera problem, mål och medel i Mjölkpropagandans tidskrift utifrån teorin om styrningsrationalitet. Förändringarna i reklamverksamhet är intressanta att studera eftersom Mjölkpropagandan var en omfattande kommersiell historisk aktör, vars verksamhet sträckte sig över en längre period. Uppsatsen ingår huvudsakligen i diskussioner om hur hälsa har använts i reklam, men den bidrar också till diskussioner om hälsoupplysning och historien om mjölk och mjölkpropagandan i sig. Undersökningen visar hur hälsoanspråk anpassats i reklamen utifrån kontextuella förändringar och kritik. På så vis har mjölkens auktoritet och reklamkampanjens legitimitet bibehållits. Reklamen har gått ifrån att vara subjektiv och värderande som ett folkhälsoprojekt på 1920- och 30-talet till att vara objektiv och vägledande gentemot konsumenterna på 1960- och 70-talet. Uppsatsen visar även hur mjölken genom anpassade sätt att använda och utforma hälsoargument blivit ett etablerat behov.

Global hierarchies based on power and resources affect international migration and ethnic relations in many ways. To understand how this works you have to understand processes of globalization – like global agreements. One case of global agreement is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is described as a plan of action and contains 17 universal goals for global sustainable development. In Sweden, the plan of action is described as inevitable because the global challenges that stand before us is associated with high costs. The way global challenges are constructed like a threat can be derived from the neoliberalism. Neoliberalism can be understood as a governmentality and a policy rationality. In this thesis, I aim to discuss the neoliberal governmentality and neoliberal policy rationality that can be seen in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development using critical discourse analysis. One of the things my study showed is that the 2030 Agenda goals are aimed to solve problems through “economic affordability”, market logic and governance/self-management. These ways of solving problems can be derived to neoliberals in several ways – one of them being the neoliberal way of constructing problems and solutions in line with neoliberal interests like market competition and “free choices”. Another thing my study showed is that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be seen as a form of administrative technique of the biopower.

Denna studies syfte är att undersöka huruvida högskolestudenter anpassar sig efter rådande anställningsbarhetsdiskurs i samhället. Studien innefattar två frågeställningar, den första frågeställningen avser vilka strategier studenterna använder och kan tänka sig använda för att göra sig själva anställningsbara. Den andra frågeställningen undersöker om något samband finns gällande vilka strategier studenterna använder sig av och kan tänka sig använda sig av utifrån anställningsbarhetsdiskursen avseende civilstånd, ålder eller hemmaboende barn. Studien utgår från forskning om anställningsbarhet, Atkinsons flexibilitetsmodell, Bourdieus kapitalteori samt Foucaults teori om styrningsrationalitet. Studien baseras på en kvantitativ enkätundersökning, som 96 högskolestudenter deltog i. Studiens resultat visade att studenterna använde och kunde tänka sig använda flera strategier för att göra sig anställningsbara. Vidare påvisade studien att studenterna använde sig av liknande strategier för att göra sig anställningsbara oavsett civilstånd, ålder eller om de hade hemmaboende barn.

This master’s thesis focuses on educational discourse as it appears in texts about reading promotion interventions directed towards children in public care and children in families with long-term financial assistance. Three case studies of interventions are presented: Skolfam, Paired Reading and Letterbox Club Sweden. The aim of the thesis is to investigate how the interventions are related to the Foucauldian concepts of governmentality, pastoral power, normalization and technologies of the self. The method used is based on the ideas and concepts of Michel Foucault, who deals with the different modes by which we as human beings perform our subjectivity in relation to discourses and institutions. The case studies analyse how reading and math activities are directed towards socially vulnerable children for the prevention of adverse outcomes and social exclusion in adulthood. The relationship between social problems and literacy are of central importance to the analysis. The results of the analysis reveal that the interventions are linked to liberal governmentality. The reading promotion activities are expected to change the children’s reading behavior and attitudes toward education. It is hoped that the interventions will achieve a self-regulating capacity among the children, in order to make them improve their school achievements. The underlying ambition is to form and shape subjects to become independent, democratic citizens who are capable of maintaining a life without long-termed social assistance.  The interventions are especially focused on supporting the foster parents to best meet the needs of the children in accordance with liberal governmentality. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

The aim of this dissertation is to review the molding process of the politics that preceeded the work for gender equality which inSwedengathered speed in the early 1970s. Particular focus has been put to how society through legislation, economic and social privileges during the years 1921-1971 affected Swedish women’s possibilities to make a living and to achieve economic independence. In the dissertation three commissions initiated by the government have been analysed, all of which have been considered paramount for Swedish women’s economic emancipation. The stance that has been applied presumes that the way in which a “problem” has been formulated and framed is of importance for which measures will obtain interpretative preference, thus having an influence on both legislation and the politics pursued, and which measures were considered inconceivable. The dissertation demonstrates that different interpretations of the problems, based on disparate values and indisputable suppositions of how women as regards economic issues should be, choose and act, to varying degree and effect converged in the reports presented by the commissions. In the politics applied women were then manouvered into another economic practice than men, but also into different activities for different groups of women.   One of the main arguments in this dissertation is that in spite of the fact that parts of the women’s liberation movement were active in this molding process during the years 1921-1971, it was not the result of liberal and women-friendly politics. Change over time was pushed by governmentality. By, in the commissions analysed, problematising how certain women’s behaviour contributed to major social problems, such as a dropping marriage frequency, decreasing nativity and preventing economy from expanding, the rights and other social benefits would steer them into serving what was regarded as the public good. Thus, during the time period reviwed, Swedish women´s extended rights and other social benefits were not implemented to create possibilities for women to achieve economic independence, but as a means to resolve other superior social problems.

Sport has been increasingly recognized in social policy as a means of steering social change and as a method for responding to diverse social problems. The present study examines how rationales of social change are formed through ‘sport as a means of responding to social problems’. Four research questions are posed: (1) How is it that sport can be thought of and articulated as a means of responding to social problems? (2) How are sport practices assumed to operate as a means of responding to social problems? (3) How are social problems represented when sport is promoted as a means of response? (4) What conduct, subjectivity and citizen competences are shaped within this regime of practice? The study focuses on the government of subjects’ conduct, the formation of community and delineation of domains subjected to social change. The gradual shifts in the governmental rationality of the Swedish welfare state provide a framework for the study. Two kinds of empirical material are investigated. Initially, scientific knowledge is analysed; after this, a sport-based intervention, conducted in cooperation between a social entrepreneur, municipality and local sport clubs, is examined. In relation to scientific discourse, research on sport for social objectives would benefit from more theoretically driven constructionist perspectives related to welfare state transformations. In scientific discourse, rationales of social change in sport are conceived of as individual attainment of skills, competences and powers that are presumably transferable to other social spheres. Such discourse represents problems as individual problems. With respect to the sport-based intervention, individual change is promoted by representatives of the social entrepreneur in terms of providing subjects with motivational powers, which are shaped by role models and applied in “choosing the right track”. By representing problems as risks, avoidance is formed as an individual opportunity. This positions subjects as being responsible for their own welfare and inclusion. Municipal policy makers view the intervention as a way to form community and social cohesion in response to tensions in society. They present sport (and the social entrepreneur) as a way to mobilize and activate civil society – which is associated with the potency of voluntarism, authentic leadership and personal relations based on common identity. Consequently, responsibility for responding to social problems is spread and elements of de-professionalized social work are imposed. To conclude, sport is conceptualized as a means of responding to social problems because sport practices are associated with individual agency and with an active civil society and moral community. The technologies and rationality of social change point out ‘the self’, ‘the community’ and ‘the place’ as locations where social change is possible, rather than the whole of society. For instance, the technologies of social change are based on activation and responsibilization of ‘the self’ and of ‘the community’. These rationales of social change are based on a critique of welfarist governmentality and of the idea of governing from ‘the social’ point of view. Arguably, such discourse obscures more profound social reform. The study provides some empirical explorations illustrating how a range of tendencies and mutations in the governmental rationality of the welfare state and of social work are  manifested in ‘sport as a means of responding to social problems’. / De senaste åren har idrott alltmer kommit att betraktas som ett socialpolitiskt verktyg med förväntningar om att åstadkomma social förändring och bidra till att lösa sociala problem. I den här avhandlingen undersöks hur den sociala förändringens rationalitet formas i relation till idén om ’idrott som en lösning på sociala problem’. Detta görs genom fyra frågeställningar: (1) Hur har idrott blivit möjligt att betrakta som en lösning på sociala problem? (2) Hur förmodas idrott i praktiken fungera som en lösning på sociala problem? (3) Hur representeras sociala problem när idrott lyfts fram som en lösning? (4) Vilken typ av uppförande, subjektivitet och medborgerliga färdigheter fostras genom att använda idrott som en lösning på social problem? Särskilt fokuseras på styrning av individers uppförande, skapande av gemenskap och sammanhållning samt gränsskapande kring vilka domäner som kan utsättas för förändring. Undersökningarna relateras till mer övergripande förändringar i den svenska välfärdsstatens styrningsrationalitet. Två empiriska material har undersökts: dels den vetenskapliga diskursen, dels olika företrädares beskrivningar av en idrottsbaserad välfärdsintervention för unga i risk för problem och exkludering, en verksamhet som sker i samverkan mellan en social entreprenör, kommun och föreningsliv. Avhandlingen pekar på vikten av teoretiskt driven forskning med konstruktionistiska perspektiv relaterade till välfärdsstatens och socialpolitikens förändring. I den vetenskapliga diskursen lyfts social förändring fram med avseende på individuell förändring genom tillägnande av färdigheter som antas kunna användas även i andra sociala sammanhang. Denna förståelse iscensätter de adresserade problemen som individuella problem. I idrottsledarnas beskrivningar av den sociala interventionen kan ungdomar motiveras individuellt, bygga självförtroende och självkänsla, genom att identifiera sig med positiva förebilder och ledare. Detta blir viktigt för att kunna ”välja rätt väg i livet”. Genom att framställa problem som risker blir de möjliga för individen att undvika. Detta positionerar ungdomarna som själva ansvariga för sin välfärd och inkludering. I politikernas beskrivningar lyfts idrotten fram som ett sätt att skapa gemenskap och sammanhållning som ett svar på spänningar och oro. Genom idrotten (och den sociala entreprenören) kan man mobilisera civilsamhällets föreningsliv vilket associeras med frivillighet, autentiskt ledarskap samt personliga och moraliska band baserade på gemensam identitet. Därmed kan ansvaret för att hantera sociala problem spridas mellan olika aktörer, något som även kan bidra till informalisering och de-professionalisering av det sociala  arbetet. Sammanfattningsvis kan idrott konceptualiseras som en lösning på sociala problem därför att dess praktiker associeras med individuell aktivering samt med ett aktivt civilsamhälle som bygger på moralisk fostran och gemenskap. Den sociala förändringens teknologier och rationalitet pekar ut ‘självet’, ‘gemenskapen’ och ‘platsen’ som de domäner där förändring bedöms vara möjlig. Den sociala förändringens rationalitet bygger på aktivering och ansvarsgörande av ‘självet’ och ‘gemenskapen’. Styrningsrationaliteten bygger på en långtgående kritik av välfärdsstatens sätt att styra där samhället i sin helhet betraktas som målpunkt. Genom sådan diskurs skyms mer genomgående samhällsförändringar. Avhandlingen utforskar empiriskt och illustrerar hur en rad tendenser och mutationer i välfärdsstatens styrningsrationalitet och i det sociala arbetet kommer till uttryck genom ‘idrott som en lösning på sociala problem’.

Syftet med denna avhandling är att studera hur den vuxna studerande konstrueras genom olika styrningstekniker inom Vuxenutbildning, Folkbildning och Högre utbildning. Vidare är syftet att analysera vad för styrningsrationalitet som både skapas genom och som skapar dessa praktiker. Det teoretiska ramverket är baserat på Michel Foucaults begrepp styrningsrationalitet (governmentality) och genealogi. Styrningsrationalitet syftar på ett specifikt sätt att se på styrning där fokus är på de tankar/mentaliteter som skapas genom olika diskurser om hur styrning skall utövas. Centrala frågor är: vad är styrningsproblematiken, vad ska styras, hur skall styrning gå till och vad är målet med styrning? Genea-logi syftar på ett specifikt sätt att se på historien. Utgångspunkten är de tankefigurer som är del av dagen diskurser, i denna avhandling diskurserna om vuxenutbildning och livslångt lärande. Vad består dessa diskurser och vad för härkomsthistoria har vissa av dess tankefigurer? Historia ses här som icke-linjär beståendes av brott och oregelbundenheter där syftet inte är att berätta en historia om framsteg där kausala samband är centrala. Istället använder jag genealogi för att destabilisera det vi idag tar för givet gällandes den vuxna studerande. En diskursanalys har genomförts av offentliga utredningar (SOUs och Ds) från 1920-talet fram tills idag som handlar om de praktiker som nämnts ovan. Resul-taten pekar på att en neoliberal styrningsrationalitet dominerar dagens diskurser om vuxenutbildning och livslångt lärande. Enligt texterna måste Sverige och Europa se till att alla dess medborgare konstant lär sig nya saker som ett sätt att möta en osäker och ständigt föränderlig framtid. Därmed skapas den vuxna som ständigt lärandes och som ett kompetent subjekt. Alla medborgare måste bli autonoma, själreglerande människor som konstant lär sig och som konstant gör val i enlighet med sina önskningar. För att konstruera sådana subjekt skapas flera tekniker för styrning såsom vägledning, risk, målstyrning/granskning, bedömning, mångfald m.m. / The aim of this dissertation is to study how the adult learner is constructed through dif-ferent techniques of governing in the practice of adult, liberal adult, and higher educa-tion. Further, the aim is to analyse what rationality of governing such governing practices create and are created by. The theoretical framework is based on Michel Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and genealogy. Governmentality refers to a specific way of viewing questions of governance where the focus is on ideas concerning how governing should be practiced. These ideas are constructed through discourse. Central questions are: what is the problematic of government, what is to be governed, how is governing to be practiced and what is the teleos (the goal to be reached) of government? Genealogy refers to at specific way of viewing history. The starting point is the figures of thought that are part of the discourses of today. In this dissertation, these discourses are adult education and lifelong learning. What are these discourses made up of and what is the descent and emergence of some of its figures of thought? Here, history is seen as non-linear and containing ruptures and irregularities. The aim is not to tell the story of how it really was, where causality is central. Instead, genealogy is a way for me to destabilize the taken-for-granted ideas of the present concerning the adult learner. A discourse analysis has been conducted based on official documents produced since the 1920s and up to the present day concerning the practices mentioned above. The results point to neo-liberal governmentality dominating the discourses of adult education and lifelong learning today. According to the texts, Sweden and Europe need to make sure that all their citizens are constantly learning as a way of facing an uncertain and constantly changing future. Thus, the adult learner is constructed as a constantly learning and competent subject. All citizens have to become autonomous, self-regulating humans who are constantly learning and who constantly make choices according to their inner desires. Several techniques of governing such as guidance, risk, auditing, assessment, diversity, etc., are constructed as a way of constructing such a subject. / On the day of the public defence date of the doctoral thesis the status of article III was: Accepted; The status of article IV was: Submitted.

I centrum för avhandlingen står den konflikt om skolagan som aktualiserades när det svenska skolväsendet skulle stöpas om till en enhetsskola. Undersökningsperioden är 1946-1962. Det övergripande syftet har varit att analysera denna konflikts upprinnelse, utveckling och följder i relation till skolans fostransuppdrag och barndomens innebörder. Med utgångspunkt i detta syfte har dels har det formella skolpolitiska spelet kring enhetsskolan och skolans fostransuppdrag beskrivits, dels har ett antal centrala texter som producerades i denna process analyserats. Teoretiskt och metodiskt har undersökningen knutit an till ett diskursanalytiskt förhållningssätt där frågor om makt och styrning är centrala. I diskussionen om skolans fostransuppdrag framträdde olika diskurser som på vissa punkter stod i skarp opposition mot varandra. Vid en närmare granskning av denna konflikt har diskursernas olika möjlighetsvillkor undersökts, i betydelsen deras historiska och samhälleliga förutsättningar och deras inre logiker; och de centrala ord, begrepp och metaforer som har utgjort diskursernas centrala element har kunnat ringas in. De två maktteoretiska begreppen styrningsrationalitet och hegemoni har utgjort de primära analytiska redskapen. Med hjälp av styrningsrationalitetsbegreppet har de målsättningar, inställningar och problem som har varit knutna till hanteringen av barnen under perioden åskådliggjorts. De olika antaganden om barnet som den fostrande verksamheten har vilat på, kunskaperna och vetenskaperna som har legat till grund för den, teknikerna som har ansetts nödvändiga samt det subjekt som utgjort målet för olika fostrande åtgärder har analyserats och diskuterats. Med hjälp av hegemonibegreppet har kampen om skolbarnets fostran under perioden kunnat förstås och fostransdiskussionens konsekvenser för hur den nya skolans fostrande målsättningar formulerades och kom till uttryck i grundskolans formativa dokument. / This dissertation analyses the controversy on corporal punishment that arose in conjunction with the Swedish comprehensive school reform. The time period covered is 1946-1962. The overarching aim has been to explore and analyse the origins, development and consequences of this debate in relation to the school’s task of character formation and changed notions of childhood. The school politics in which the comprehensive school reform took shape has been examined and a number of central documents that were produced in this process have been analysed. Theoretically and methodologically a discourse-analytical approach has been used where issues of power and governance have been central. In the discussion on character formation in school different discourses were operating, which at certain points stood in sharp disagreement with each other. This became especially clear in the debate on corporal punishment. A closer analysis of these discourses has revealed their different conditions of possibilities, in the sense of their historical and societal circumstances and their internal logics, and the keywords, concepts and metaphors that constituted the central elements of these discourses have been highlighted and described. The two theoretical concepts governmentality and hegemony have been used as the primary analytical tools for the study. With the concept of governmentality the goals, attitudes and problems that have been tied to the training of the schoolchild during the period have been made visible. The different presuppositions about the child’s being and development on which the character-forming practices have been built, the knowledge and science that have been referred to, the techniques that have been viewed as necessary and the subject that has been the goal for various character-forming actions have been analysed and discussed. With the concept of hegemony the power struggle connected to the discussion of character formation during the period has been examined and the various guidelines for the school’s task of character formation that were formulated and expressed in the formative documents of the comprehensive school have been made visible.

Over time, the state has undertaken various reforms to govern the development of education. The issue of using new media may be seen as such an example. A change in the use of media in education imposes great challenges on both municipalities and teachers. This thesis aims to visualise and discuss governance in the contradictions that arise in practical activities aimed at integrating new media in school teaching, based on three actors’ perspectives, namely the dilemmas of the teacher, the media pedagogue and the media developer. The study is based on systemic thinking about governance and I employ both activity theory and the concept of governmentality to visualise and discuss the governance. The study is conducted in the form of a case study. The case consists of a municipality where, based on the curriculum’s mission, teachers have tried to find ways to integrate new media into their teaching. My own connection to the case consists of having been a driving and governing force in the work as a teacher, media pedagogue and media developer. The case was chosen because the municipality’s work on the national level and via the media has been held up as a good example. The empirical part consists of both my own life narrative and studies of different documents, texts, images, films and sound recordings that show how govern­mentalities are formed and take shape on the micro, macro and meso levels. I use a methodological prism, a combination of different analytical perspectives, discourse, activity, narratives and governmentality. The results reveal that the driving actors are innovatively handling the systemic contradictions that arise in the work of carrying out the curriculum’s mission. The governance of the activities is based on a trust rationality. The more the use of new media is spread in the municipality’s schools, the more contradictory it becomes for the middle level’s actors. The trust rationality has been superseded by a distrust rationality, creating a growing gap between the administration and the activities.