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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effects of comprehensive education as compared with vocational training by using Swedish data on a large sample of unemployed individuals aged 25 to 55.

The Adult Education Initiative (AEI) in Sweden was introduced in the autumn of 1997 and generated a massive expansion of subsidized adult comprehensive education. Participants in the vocational part of Labour Market Training (LMT) are used as a comparison group. The relative program effects are obtained by way of OLS fixed effects estimates, using register data of annual wage earnings from 1991 to 2003.

There are weaker earnings effects of comprehensive education relative to vocational training. However, insignificant coefficient results are obtained for individuals aged 43‐55 and also for females who prior to enrolment had experienced two‐year upper secondary schooling or resided in a municipality associated with a low level of average educational attainment.

Identification of true underlying effects rely on fixed effects estimates. Using non‐experimental data, one would ideally have access to an instrumental variable, which could explain program choice without being correlated with wage earnings.

The results add to our knowledge on the relative average returns to general and specific human capital accumulation. In this specific case, more careful targeting of participants in the AEI could have improved the relative efficiency of the program.

This study offers guidance to labour market policy makers on how an appropriate mix is attained between vocational training and comprehensive education.

To introduce the papers which make up a special issue of IJM on labour market intervention.

Briefly describes each of the five papers which comprise this issue of IJM.

Notes that the study contexts of the papers are New Zealand, the UK, Sweden, West Germany, and 14 member countries of the EU.

The papers provide an international overview of contemporary, empirical findings on the effectiveness of various types of labour market intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the issue of social assistance receipt among immigrants to Sweden and compare to receipt by natives.

The paper describes the institutional background, reports statistical information and surveys the literature on the immigrant‐native disparity in social assistance receipt.

Most out‐payment for social assistance in Sweden refers to foreign‐born persons, a category comprising 14 percent of the population. Immigrants tend to assimilate out of social assistance receipt. However, receipt continues to be higher many years after immigration among immigrants from non‐rich countries than for natives with several identical characteristics. The elevated probabilities of social assistance receipt among immigrants from non‐rich countries are interpreted to be mainly due to failed integration into the labor market at the destination.

Policies for integrating immigrants into the labor market are also policies for reducing social assistance receipt among immigrants and reducing immigrant‐native social assistance disparity. However, other factors such as the structure of Swedish welfare policy play a role as well.

This is the first survey of the literature on disparities in social assistance receipt between immigrants and natives in Sweden.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the development of the quality movement in Sweden since the mid-20th century. The authors are convinced that a summary of the Swedish quality journey so far will offer important lessons for further quality improvements in Sweden and elsewhere.

The authors study how the quality movement has been included in the industrial agenda and how it has been adopted in student curricula and in research. The authors have a focus on how business leaders have learnt, adopted, adapted and innovated with respect to quality development. often in collaboration with academia.

Although the quality movement has fit well with the Swedish culture and that successful corporate leaders have successfully used the specific cultural characteristics there is still a lot to be learnt with respect to the public sector, where the ideas from the quality movement have problem to overcome institutional barriers.

The study is limited to the Swedish context.

There is a serious need to revitalize the public sector by getting leaders and politicians to understand the need for systematic quality improvement.

If future Swedish achievements with respect to healthcare and other social welfare elements are to once again become world-class, the public sector needs to be open-minded and collaborate with the industrial sector and academia to find cost-effective strategies for making quality improvements. However, the private sector must also be alert not to be overtaken by some highly active Asian countries.

Swedish large companies have been very successful in applying quality leadership – however, in the public sector, this has not been the case. Suggestions for improvement are made.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between feminine gender identity and leadership intention. Based on the theory of planned behavior and social role theory, the indirect relationship between feminine gender identity and leadership intention was analyzed through affective motivation to lead and perceived leadership self-efficacy. In addition, drawing on the person–environment fit theory, feminine gender identity was examined as a moderator of the relationship between cooperative organizational culture and leadership intention.

A cross-sectional survey was administered among a sample of 183 full-time employees.

Results demonstrated that controlling for sex, perceived leadership self-efficacy mediated the relationship between feminine gender role identity and leadership intention. In addition, feminine gender role identity acted as a moderator in strengthening the relationship between cooperative organizational culture and leadership intention such that highly feminine individuals in high cooperative organizational cultures showed higher intentions to become leaders than did individuals with less feminine identities.

In research on leadership intentions, it will be important to measure both sex and gender, as gender identity explains variance in important outcomes over and above sex. In addition, beginning to include organizational characteristics (such as perception of culture) in this stream of research is important.

Organizations wishing to promote more feminine individuals to leadership roles should examine their organizational culture to determine if it is cooperative, as this type of culture allows these individuals to be more intent on seeking leadership roles.

This research adds up to the literature by looking at an organizational factor, culture, and analyzing its role in increasing leadership intention in highly feminine individuals. In addition, by studying gender while controlling for sex, this paper suggests that regardless of sex (being a female or a male), feminine individuals will benefit from a cooperative environment. This includes any individuals (females and males) that identify more with communal behaviors.

A bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view is given. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 1,726 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1996‐1999.

Gives a bibliographical review of the error estimates and adaptive finite element methods from the theoretical as well as the application point of view. The bibliography at the end contains 2,177 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the subjects that were published in 1990‐2000.

The purpose of this paper is to show, from a theoretical perspective, how lesson study (LS) can initiate processes that have an effect on most fundamental teachers’ (and teacher–students’) personal beliefs which are the basis of a teacher’ interactions. On the basis of research referring to educational beliefs and good practice, the paper’s approach is to bring underlying beliefs into relation to Pierre Bourdieu’s sociocultural concept of the habitus. Awareness of these unconscious fundamentals is a requirement for improvement. Developing a professional habitus will allow inappropriate beliefs to be changed by informed knowledge. LS can support that.

This is a theoretical paper aiming at illustrating the potential of LS to initiate learning and reflection among teachers, and challenge and ultimately affect deep ranging beliefs. Guided by the idea that beliefs are not only a random collection acquired in a biography, the paper applies the Bourdieuian idea of habitus and field, suggesting habitus as the origin and source of beliefs and, therefore, ultimately of classroom practice. The paper defines LS as a tool in teacher education that has the potential to make teachers change inappropriate concepts by reflecting on their habitus and develop a more professional habitus.

Research agrees that teachers’ decisions and actions are strongly rooted in their unconscious beliefs, which have accumulated during their biographies, especially during their own school days whereas informed knowledge is neglected. The Bourdieuian theory of habitus is a heuristic concept that provides an integrative social perspective on beliefs as both a part and a result of a teacher’s habitus. Reflection on practice and teacher cooperation is essential for teacher learning. LS is an ideal setting providing these essentials, and the paper finds that the negative effects of habitus-rooted unconscious beliefs and practices can be affected by developing awareness through LS.

This paper aims at bringing together Bourdieu’s sociocultural theory of habitus and field, and LS. Inappropriate beliefs guiding practice can hinder informed knowledge on education to be integrated. An analysis of the habitus as the foundation of beliefs can create awareness of the effects resulting from biographical and social sources in both pre- and in-service teacher training. Rather than changing single beliefs, developing a professional habitus allows to integrate informed knowledge and affect a lasting change. The Bourdieuian approach opens up a new perspective of the capacity of LS and makes a relevant contribution in developing a professional habitus.