This article deals with the relationship between established political conceptions about government reforms and experiences with reforms and their evaluation, the background being the change in Norwegian reform policy which has taken place in recent years. This change has increased our insight into how reforms are created in the state sector and has also shed light on the different functions of such reforms, highlighting the consequences of topical questions for understanding evaluation and the evaluation strategies which are used.
Empirical and critical studies of inclusion and inclusive practices in school represent different understandings of inclusion and different approaches to studying the phenomenon. They give a contrasting and diffuse picture of what inclusion is and about how inclusion is practiced. This article discusses two different ways of researching inclusive education and defining inclusion to be found in the Norwegian research literature. It is argued that by adopting either just a macro-orientation, studying the school structures, or only a microorientation, studying what selected teachers do in class, obscures other important issues that determine the quality of what goes on in school and that have to be addressed for inclusion to be operative.
The main question in this study is related to how the composition and formal competence of staff can affect the division of labor in Norwegian kindergarten. The article discusses the distribution of activities between kindergarten teachers and assistants, and what characterizes the two groups' responsibilities at work. The study is based on a survey representing kindergartens from all over Norway, and is part of a national research project 1. Division of labor is weak. The findings are discussed using a frame factor theoretical approach (Dahllöf 1967, Lundgren 1981). It is argued that several factors affect how staff utilize the scope of action in kindergarten.
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