Joint parental responsibility even when the parents do not live together is standard in Sweden. The system of rules is based on consensus and only in the two areas of residence and access, the court can make a decision. When parental responsibility became standard the conflict was moved from the question of parental responsibility to residence/access. There are three alternative ways of solving such a conflict concerning residence/access. The parents can together reach an understanding. They can, with municipal help, through "mediation-conversations" come to a joint conclusion. If the parents still can not agree, the court can give judgement. The purpose of the mediation-conversations is to reach an agreement between the parents. The question is though to what extent the agreements correspond to the best interest of the child, but also to what extent they are the results of a negotiation where the stronger parent has come through the battle as the winner. It is a common idea that the mediation-conversations much more often than decisions in court, lead to shared residence.
This study will consist of three parts. The first part will, from a comparative perspective, survey different dispute-solving models, while the second part will compare the result of court decisions to the result of mediation-conversations, through text-analysis - PERTEX. The third part will contain profound conclusions leading to propositions for alterations of the Swedish regulation.