Research on educational policy borrowing has mostly focused on explicit transfer processes, often highlighting how explicit reference to the international has served legitimatory purposes in the borrowing country. In contrast, this paper focuses on "silent" borrowing, i.e. non-acknowledged processes of policy transfer. The paper argues…

Discusses approach examining why individual did not kill himself when he could have been expected to do so. Uses approach to examine nonsuicide of Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Focuses on disjunction between Strindberg's early and later life, specifically on factors that enabled him to recover from psychotic episodes with suicidal…

Forms of guardianship for U.S. individuals with disabilities are reviewed, and Swedish legal and public policy innovations that replace guardianship with personal support services, such as mentors and personal assistants, are considered. The impact of Sweden's reforms on autonomy, independence, and integration is addressed. (Author/SW)

The current structure of governance and decision making in Swedish higher education and the effects of recent national reform on perceived and actual autonomy at the central, regional, and local levels are discussed. An initial desire for more decentralized decision making has turned to increasing demand for more guidance by central organizations.…

Autonomy in Swedish universities is investigated. A new approach to the analysis of the concept of university autonomy and an outline of a theory on university autonomy are presented. Autonomy is viewed as a vital characteristic of higher education; its role in Swedish education throughout history is analyzed. (Author/SF)

The paper describes the conflict between parental responsibility for a handicapped child, particularly a retarded child, and the parents' other interests and concerns. Swedish parents (N=60) of retarded children were interviewed once and three families were interviewed several times over a 6-month period. Parents typically went through a period of…

Describes Sweden's massive effort to bring democracy to the workplace through programs of worker education and participation in industrial decision making. Stresses that the United States can learn much from the Swedish workplace education experience. (Author/MJL)

The extent of democratization of Scandinavian higher education is evaluated. Democratization is considered to include: (1) the subordination of university decision-making to parliamentary democracy and, in Sweden, to corporate representative bodies; (2) the decentralization of higher education regionally, important particularly in Finland, Norway,…

The application of the idea of diplomacy to educational change is addressed, with attention to the problems faced by the head of a teaching and learning support group within a university, along with the role of educational advisers, or consultants, The analysis is structured based on the main elements of diplomacy. Attention is directed to an…

School change is examined using the experiences of local educational change projects in Sweden. Specifically discussed are Swedish educational development centers that encourage experiments directly involving teachers and the SSK experiment in Uppsala designed to give teachers, parents, and pupils a greater say and more responsibility in…

Major public policies for institutional governance in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the past two decades are reviewed, and factors that may account for differences in policy developments in the three countries are considered. In France and (although only recently) in Sweden, politics have aimed at increasing institutional autonomy in…

After describing Sweden's economic and political background, the author discusses its industrial democracy--workers' participation in management--and labor legislation, particularly the Act on Employee Participation in Decision-Making effective January 1, 1977. Contrasts beliefs in the unions' possible stranglehold of industry in co-determination…