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Starting with the question of why there is so much religiously motivated resistance against compulsory sex education, this article explores and discusses entanglements of norms about sexuality, gender, and religion in education. Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer perspectives on connections between religiosity and discourses about sexuality. The first part centres around religious resistance against compulsory sex education. The second part draws on phenomenology of religions to explore roots for this religiously motivated resistance. In the third part, the perspective is reversed, discussing how and why secular education dismisses religious perspectives and values. The conclusion is that awareness of how arguments are based on differing presumptions about religion offers opportunities for dialogue, and that considering human existence as vulnerable, interdependent, and responsible might be a valuable religious contribution to sex education.

Handling the vast amounts of data and information available in contemporary society is a challenge. Geovisual Analytics provides technology designed to increase the effectiveness of information interpretation and analytical task solving. To date, little attention has been paid to the role such tools can play in education and to the extent to which they can process actionable data for students. The aim of this paper is to examine students' learning activities involving a Geovisual Analytics tool in order to understand education in such settings. The paper builds on a study conducted in three public primary schools in grades 4 through 6. The implemented technology was used in four different social science classes, each for a period of two to four weeks. Empirical data were collected via video observations and speak-aloud interviews conducted using software that allows recordings by computer webcams and captures the actions on the computer screen.The interactions were analyzed, applying constructs and metaphors developed by Latour. The results indicate that, together, the data-rich setting and the students create intelligibility, where knowledge emerges from heterogeneously constructed networks. These show that learning is complex in character, continuously ongoing in an intertwined, multimodal, multiple, and content-focused mode.

Poverty is generally defined as income or expenditure insufficiency, but the economic condition of a household also depends on its real and financial asset holdings. This paper investigates measures of poverty that rely on indicators of household net worth. We review and assess two main approaches followed in the literature: income-net worth measures and asset-poverty. We provide fresh cross-national evidence based on data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study. (Contains 3 figures, 6 tables, and 16 footnotes.)

Aims: Future research on health inequality relies on data that cover life-course exposure, different birth cohorts and variation in policy contexts. Nordic register data have long been celebrated as a 'gold mine' for research, and fulfil many of these criteria. However, access to and use of such data are hampered by a number of hurdles and bottlenecks. We present and discuss the experiences of an ongoing Nordic consortium from the process of acquiring register data on socio-economic conditions and health in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Methods : We compare experiences of data-acquisition processes from a researcher's perspective in the four countries and discuss the comparability of register data and the modes of collaboration available to researchers, given the prevailing ethical and legal restrictions. Results : The application processes we experienced were time-consuming, and decision structures were often fragmented. We found substantial variation between the countries in terms of processing times, costs and the administrative burden of the researcher. Concerned agencies differed in policy and practice which influenced both how and when data were delivered. These discrepancies present a challenge to comparative research. Conclusions : We conclude that there are few signs of harmonisation, as called for by previous policy documents and research papers. Ethical vetting needs to be centralised both within and between countries in order to improve data access. Institutional factors that seem to facilitate access to register data at the national level include single storage environments for health and social data, simplified ethical vetting and user guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public supply of adult education is very different between countries, making it likely that there is scope for efficiency gains. The contribution of this paper is to provide an economic evaluation of the earnings impact of adult education at upper secondary level (AE) in Sweden, where the supply is plausibly larger than in any other country. The analysis is based on register data for 1990-2002 of the cohort born in 1970 on accomplished AE course credits and possibly subsequent higher education. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that for AE enrolees in 1994-1996, a year of AE credits increased earnings in 2002 by 6% for males and by 4.5% for females. The estimates are reconciled with conflicting results from earlier studies. According to crude calculations, which disregard other societal benefits of AE, the earnings benefits are sufficient to cover the costs incurred by society within 17 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) provide two interlinked platforms for the assessment of impacts on biodiversity caused by human developments. Although it might be too early to draw conclusions on the efficiency of SEA to assess such impacts, a number of persistent problems have been identified in the case of EIA. Some of these shortcomings concern the lack of proper prediction and impact quantification, and the inadequate/insufficient assessment of cumulative effects. A number of problems are related to the scale(s) at which the assessment is performed. SEA may provide a more adequate framework than EIA to discuss scale-related issues (i.e. cumulative impacts) but it also requires the use of adapted tools. This paper presents a case study where a GIS-based habitat model for the lesser spotted woodpecker is tested, validated and applied to a planning scenario in the Stockholm region in Sweden. The results show that the method adopted offers great prospects to contribute to a better assessment of biodiversity-related impacts. Even though some limitations remain in the form of data requirement and interpretation of the results, the model produced continuous, quantified predictions over the study area and provided a relevant basis for the assessment of cumulative effects. Furthermore, this paper discusses potential conflicts between different scales involved in the assessment — related to administrative boundaries, ecological processes, data availability, the method adopted to perform the assessment and temporal aspects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: There are increasing examples of linking data on healthcare resource use and patient outcomes from different sectors of health and social care systems. Linked data are generally anonymised, meaning in most jurisdictions there are no legal restrictions to their use in research conducted by public or private organisations. Secondary use of anonymised linked data is contentious in some jurisdictions but other jurisdictions are known for their use of linked data. The publics' perceptions of the acceptability of using linked data is likely to depend on a number of factors. This study aimed to quantify the preferences of the public to understand the factors that affected views about types of linked data and its use in two jurisdictions.Method: An online discrete choice experiment (DCE) previously conducted in Scotland was adapted and replicated in Sweden. The DCE was designed, comprising five attributes, to elicit the preferences from a representative sample of the public in both jurisdictions. The five attributes (number of levels) were: type of researcher using linked data (four); type of data being linked (four); purpose of the research (three); use of profit from using linked data (four); who oversees the research (four). Each DCE contained 6 choice-sets asking respondents to select their preferred option from two scenarios or state neither were acceptable. Background questions included socio-demographics. DCE data were analysed using conditional and heteroskedastic conditional logit models to create forecasts of acceptability.Results: The study sample comprised members of the public living in Scotland (n = 1004) and Sweden (n = 974). All five attributes were important in driving respondents' choices. Swedish and Scottish preferences were mostly homogenous with the exception of 'who oversees the research using linked data', which had relatively less impact on the choices observed from Scotland. For a defined 'typical' linked data scenario, the probability (on average) of acceptance was 85.7% in Sweden and 82.4% in Scotland.Conclusion: This study suggests that the public living in Scotland and Sweden are open to using anonymised linked data in certain scenarios for research purposes but some caution is advisable if the anonymised linked data joins health to non-health data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The δ13C chemostratigraphy of five of the seven Ordovician global stages has been published previously but no such data have been available from the Floian GSSP and most of the Sandbian GSSP in Sweden. This lack of information has now been remedied by isotope data obtained from series of closely spaced shale samples collected from the Floian stratotype at Diabasbrottet in Västergötland and the Sandbian stratotype at Fågelsång in Scania. Although the bases of these stages cannot be precisely tied to levels of conspicuous δ13C excursions, that of the Floian Stage, which is marked by the appearance of the graptolite Tetragraptus approximatus, is between the closely spaced excursions named LTNICE and BFICE. The base of the Sandbian Stage, which is defined as the appearance level of the graptolite Nemagraptus gracilis, is just below a negative excursion previously known as the "Upper Kukruse Low", which is nowadays known as the LSNICE. The relations between chemostratigraphy and graptolite and conodont biostratigraphy in the Swedish GSSPs and some coeval key sections in Baltoscandia, China, and America are briefly discussed. It is concluded that the data at hand indicate that there is good regional agreement in these relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The aim of the article is to investigate what characterizes the information constructs that the archival discourse and the open data discourse communicate in text, and what their similarities and differences are. This article proposes that it is possible to see the open data initiative and modern archival practice as two discourses that have used different terminology to express and communicate their messages in the literature. In this article, we have applied a hypothesis-like assumption that the information constructs used in open data are actually nothing other than records, as they are in the archival discourse. Design/methodology/approach – This article is based on a mixed method approach. A quantitative text analysis (word count) was carried out in a large set of documents representing the open data discourse and in the archival discourse. This was followed by a qualitative text analysis. Findings – It was found that both discourses did focus on records. However, the opendata discourse very seldom used the term record, but used information and data much more frequently. The archival discourse used the term information almost as often as record. A possible adaption of communication strategies can be identified, targeting a much wider audience through a user-centered approach. This could be an indication of a change in the archival discourse, which seems to be moving from a discourse that is very much regulated by law toward a discourse that is more focused on benefit and usability. Originality/value – This research indicates that it is possible to interpret both the open data and the archival discourse as one united discourse, an effect derived from working with e-government. There is an ongoing harmonization of the words used, and in the studied archival discourse, a more user- and business-oriented focus can be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject organization of this article is the government employment agency in Sweden. The agency is a key component of the national labour market focusing specifically on placing the unemployed and job-seekers in work. The agency also administers the processes of providing benefits to the unemployed. We describe the agency, its work and some of its special features and its workforce. We discuss how these features impact on organizational climate and performance. We outline the characteristics of a cadre organization, and particularly how features of this type of organization influence workplace climate. We discuss the ways in which workplace climate contributes to workplace performance. Finally, we review two empirical studies of the agency and its workforce and use data from these studies to augment our discussions. The agency is a real-life organization managing real world issues. Complexities abound. We attempt to unravel some of these complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]