The purpose of this paper is to investigate and describe how principals in Swedish schools handle the issue concerning the participation of political parties. I want to find out a) What factors are the most important accordning to principals when deciding if political parties and/or political youth associations should be allowed in to schools or not? What are their positions on the issue? b) What does the process look like when schools decide to invite political parties and/or political youth associations? Who is responsible for inviting the politicians? c) How do principals view the new addition to the school law? How will it affect their work situation in the future?The study is qualitative and based on semi-structured interviews with seven principals from different schools in and around central Sweden. The main theoretical starting points are Herbert A. Simons theory of human decision making and organisational theory in the form of Michel Lipskys theory of the street-level bureaucrat. I´m also using an operationalized version of three categories highlighted by Sture Långström and Arja Virta to describe how pricipals approach the subject; the avoiders, the diggers and the tactics.My conclusions are that principals have a positive or neutral attitude to political parties participating in schools. They percieve it as a possible tool to help shape the students into being active democratic citizens. Altough the principals are still keen on remaing in control of the day-to- day operations in the schools. Visits have to be informative for the students and a part of the regular education. Schools therefore invite more often for debates then allow political parties to set up tables in the corridors. Not all schools invite on a regular basis, some not at all. If schools invite it´s mostly in or around election time. Much of this can be attributed to the teachers. Principals tend to view teachers of social studies as having a special responsibility to take initiative. Teachers mostly plan invitations around election time. Therefore chances decrease that political parties also will be invited between elections.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-64753 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Hellström, Albin |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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