Changes in professional vision in the context of practice

In initial teacher education, it is a challenge to foster the development of teaching skills proximal to classroom action. In this study, the impact of a combined practical and theoretical university-based term on preservice teachers’ professional vision is investigated by a video-based approach to supervising their knowledge acquisition and assessing their learning outcomes. Participants were N = 109 preservice teachers attending a 5-month theory practice term guided through video-based courses about effective teaching and learning. We measured their changes in professional vision using the video-based tool Observer. Our results show that preservice teachers positively change their professional vision during the theory practice term, especially if they show low entry levels at the beginning. Their notes on the observed teaching lessons illustrate these changes.     

Geographic Ancestry and Cause-specific Mortality in a National Population

There are marked differentials in mortality risks across regions in Finland. No exhaustive explanation to this variation has been provided, however. The aim of this paper is to analyse how geographic ancestry, as proxied by persons’ birth region and population group, interrelates with cause-specific mortality risks. Focusing on people aged between their mid-thirties and late-forties, we use longitudinal population register data that offer opportunities to account for variables that represent both persons’ social background and their own social status at young adult age. Results of Cox proportional hazard models say that these variables have substantial effects on mortality of different causes, but only a marginal impact on the variation in death rates by birth region and population group. The geographic mortality pattern is found to be specifically prominent for causes of death that are fairly unrelated to persons’ lifestyles. Our findings suggest that genetic predisposal as expressed in terms of geographic ancestry might play a relevant role in understanding mortality variation within the population of Finland.     

Private versus public financing of education and endogenous growth

This paper examines interactions between education policy and growth. The analysis is carried out in an OLG model with two types of individuals: skilled and unskilled. An increase in public education reduces private costs of education, increases the proportion of skilled individuals, and tends to promote growth. On the other hand, education spending crowds out physical capital and reduces learning-by-doing. A marginal increase in the education subsidy can lower growth. It is yet shown that pure public education maximizes the long-run growth rate. Importantly, a partial subsidy to education can result in lower growth than pure private education. Received: 7 March 1999/Accepted: 25 November 1999     

Homelessness in Sweden–discussion,patterns, and causes

In a number of countries in Western Europe and in North America homelessness has come to the fore once again over the last 15-20 years, a fact to which many books and surveys bear witness. In a number of countries, organizations have been formed both for and by the homeless.¹Newspapers sold on the street to promote the cause of the homeless are becoming an increasingly common sight.²Despite this trend there is at present still no generally acknowledged explanation of the cause of homelessness and we do not know whether the causes are the same in the social democratic European welfare states, in the USA and Canada, or in countries with a poorly developed welfare system. Nor do we know whether homelessness for the individual is a short-term or permanent state. This article highlights Swedish homelessness. It is based on the results of a research project which I ran from 1993 to 1998.³The article has three objectives. First, I wish to provide a brief presentation of the issue of Swedish homelessness using, among other things, a study of how the media have dealt with the issue. Secondly, I wish to discuss the pattern of homelessness in Sweden and provide an explanation of why the length of homelessness varies. Thirdly, I wish to highlight the question of how we explain why people can be homeless in a country where social welfare and housing policies have, decade after decade, been directed at eradicating housing problems. The last two questions were highlighted in a case study conducted by me in Malmö, the country's third largest city.     

The EKC Hypothesis Does Not Hold for Direct Material Flows: Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis Tests for Direct Material Flows in Five Industrial Countries

This study analyses the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis (EKC) with direct material flow data from the USA, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Finland in the years 1975 to 1994. Recently, there has been a discussion concerning the relevance of the EKC hypothesis suggesting that also the intensity of material use should decline with income growth. The EKC hypothesis has not been widely tested with direct material flow data, and this paper presents one of the first attempts to do such tests. The results of the empirical hypothesis tests indicate that the EKC hypothesis does not hold in the case of aggregated direct material flows among industrialised countries like Germany, Japan, the USA, the Netherlands and Finland.     

The Effects of Education, Social Class and Income on Non-alcohol- and Alcohol-Associated Suicide Mortality: A Register-based Study of Finnish Men Aged 25–64

This study aimed to analyse the effects of different socioeconomic indicators on non-alcohol-associated and alcohol-associated suicide in Finland. The data used comprised the 1990 census records for men who were 25–64-years old linked to the death register for 1991–2001. Poisson regression was used to calculate the adjusted relative mortality rates. There were 6,452 suicides among the study population, and in 42% of them alcohol intoxication was a contributory cause. Education, occupation-based social class and household income were inversely and strongly related to suicide regardless of the link with alcohol. For non-alcohol-associated suicide, the effect of education was largely mediated by social class and income, the effect of social class was partly explained by education and partly mediated by income, and the effect of income was rather small after adjustment for the other two indicators. When alcohol was involved, social class mediated a large part of educational effect, but a strong association also remained. Respectively, education explained a large proportion of the social class differences. Income had a minor effect. Adjustment for employment status explained some of the income differences, but living arrangements had little effect. The findings imply that low social class is associated with increased suicide risk regardless of employment status, and that the roots of socioeconomic differences in alcohol-associated suicide lie in early adulthood when education and health behavioural patterns are set. This casts some doubt on claims that current material factors are the main drivers of socioeconomic differences in suicide.