Do pedagogical training courses for university teachers have desirable effects on the participants? We set out to answer this question by following a panel of 183 university teachers from Sweden's six largest universities, who participated in pedagogical training courses. Our study reveals that the participants' selfreported confidence in their role as teachers increased slightly, and their self-assessed pedagogical skills increased notably after they had finished their courses. Even though the courses were rather short, we could also observe some changes in fundamental approaches to teaching in some of the subgroups of respondents, both toward more student-centeredness and, perplexingly, toward more teacher-centeredness. Additionally, most respondents (7 out of 10) found the courses useful or very useful. Course satisfaction was most notable among participants with less than three years of teaching experience. Considering the fact that we find the positive effects of pedagogical training courses to be present mainly in the group of participants with less than three years of teaching experience, we discuss whether a policy of making these courses mandatory for all university teachers implies an overestimation of their impact.
ARTICLE HISTORY
In this article, the concept Normative Europeanization is developed from a synthesis of Normative Power Europe (NPE) and Europeanization. It is argued that NPE has focused too narrowly on the external relations of the European Union (EU), while Europeanization has focused on changes in policy structures. The synthesis developed here overcomes these shortcomings by emphasizing normative internal relations within the EU. Normative Europeanization is defined as a top-down process based on the logic of appropriateness, where states with a close relationship to the EU, i.e. candidate and member states, develop a commitment to a European centre and their normative point of departure is changed. It is argued here that a process of normative Europeanization affects candidate countries and new EU members especially where pro-European norms are diffused through different mechanisms. The theoretical argument is illustrated through a case study on Swedish foreign policy reorientation during the 1990s. The empirical analysis is structured around two ideal types: internationalist foreign policy and normatively Europeanized foreign policy. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that Swedish foreign policy has undergone strong normative Europeanization.
The Covid 19 pandemic has put the issue of public trust at the centre of political analysis. This article inquires into the level of public trust in Sweden concerning current crisis management as well as preparedness for future crises. The empirical basis for this study consists of unique data generated through two surveys on the Covid 19 virus conducted during 2020 in Sweden. Respondents were asked to assess their trust in different actors' crisis management. In addition, the first survey asked about how the actions of different actors impact on the forward-oriented trust held in Swedish emergency preparedness for a future severe crisis. Four key findings stand out. First, the results display rather weak levels of interpersonal trust. Second, a surprisingly high level of institutional trust can be found during the initial phase of the pandemic. Simultaneously we see somewhat decreasing levels of trust later during the pandemic. The results include interesting variations across age, gender and education. Third, relating the results to earlier research on trust in Sweden, the results contain indications of stable trust levels despite the all but stable contextual conditions. Fourth, the analysis shows important variations in trust levels among different institutions and layers of government.
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