271.
Wissö, Therese
(författare)
Småbarnsföräldrars vardagsliv. Omsorg, moral och socialt kapital.
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis is a study about the everyday lives of Swedish parents of small children. The empirical data comprises individual interviews, couple interviews and focus groups with 30 parents, as well as focus group interviews with 22 child health nurses in order to investigate their perception of parent’s daily lives and need for support. The objective of the thesis is to analyse the family practices of parents with small children, and the ways in which daily routines are negotiated in relation to various resources, as well as to norms regarding gender, family and parenthood. The aim of the thesis is also to investigate how the concept of social capital can be used in order to analyse the institutional, informal and market-related resources, as well as the values ascribed to them, to which the parents have access and of which they make use in their daily lives. A central point of departure is that parenthood is a process of doing, and the view of the family as a doing and negotiating activity. Theoretical concepts as family practices, welfare regimes and gender ideologies are used to analyse the data. Social capital is another central concept, both to describe actual resources in the form of formal and informal social relationships, but also expectations and perceptions of the significance of these relationships. Information, practical assistance and emotional support are important for the social capital in parenthood. The results reveal that places of work and colleagues contribute to the social capital of families, since the community of colleagues is a source of informational and emotional support in parenthood. Parents who, for various reasons, are excluded from the labour market, have inferior access to social capital in parenthood. Parents also have varying degree of social capital in the form of practical assistance, which is due to access to actual recourses, but also a common moral of care. Hence, the construction of family affects the accessibility of social capital. The parents primarily relate the concept of family to a heterosexual nuclear family, in which biological parenthood forms the foundation. They also express a distinct moral of caring in which biological family ties, close relationships and longstanding transactions are described as the basis of good care. Existing norms that surround the family practices, and the moral of care that is associated with family, make it difficult for parents to create social capital outside the limits of the heterosexual nuclear family. Since we live in a changing society, the resources that are perceived of as social capital might however change. The thesis for example indicates that parents negotiate with themselves and with actors of the market with regards to how the moral of care should be formulated. Social arenas for parents, such as parent groups, open pre-schools and internet forums, can function as positive resources in the everyday lives of parents, thus contributing with social capital, since emotional support and information can be found in these arenas. However, the arenas are hierarchic and normative, which can lead to the exclusion of certain parents. Furthermore, the thesis shows that parents’ access to formal support, for example via child health centres, is affected by the construction of gender by professional actors. Mothers are more severely scrutinized while fathers, and their relationships with their children, tend to be made invisible. Professional actors who meet parents on a daily basis must have the courage to question their own perceptions as well as the prevailing discussion about parent support and family, thus opening up for new opportunities to create resources in parenthood.
272.
Wittrock, Hanna
(författare)
Säg inte mötesplats! : Teater och integration i ord och handling
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the notion of multiculturalism in relation to theatre and drama. In Swedish public discourse, culture and the arts are frequently referred to as a social glue which keeps society together. In this context theatre holds a particular position. On the one hand theatre is looked upon as a magic key capable of opening up all sorts of discriminatory structures. Theatre, and actors, stereotypically exhibit essential features for achieving success in late modern society. Examples of such features are charisma, creativity, and flexibility. On the other hand theatre, especially theatre as an established institution, is criticised for being discriminatory and conservative. Theatre thus inhabits a position of ambivalence in relation to society at large. It is encouraged, even obliged, by the state to reach out to new audiences beyond that of Swedish-born, middle-class spectators. This is done in several ways; by creating mixed ensembles, with professionals and amateurs, or by producing scripts based on documentary research and “real” stories, told by “real” people. While the work produced within theatre should reflect society, artistic expressiveness is often surreal and fantastic. In this capacity theatre is ascribed an almost “magical” function in moving publics and dissolving unwanted boundaries. The task is twofold. I start by trying to trace and describe systems of values and presuppositions underpinning multicultural theatre projects in Sweden. I then explore how such projects are launched, carried through and realized on a concrete empirical level. The observation was carried out primarily in 2006, in the setting of two theatre projects. One of them was a role play about refugees, A Journey Unlike any Other. The purpose of the project is to make teenagers understanding and sympathetic to the plights of refugees and immigrants. The other one was a version of the classical drama, Hamlet, transposed into a contemporary urban setting as Mohamlet. The play is an attempt to reach a new audience by placing it in a multicultural milieu; a falafel-restaurant reminiscent of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. These two productions are on opposit ends of the wide spectrum of late modern theatre dealing with multicultural topics. Theatre is thus referred to, in one instance, as key, and in another as a closed door. It is at one and the same time portrayed as a solution and as a problem. My aim is to articulate, to illustrate, and to explain this duality and the processes in which it inheres, both within and beyond the confines of theatre performances and settings.
273.
Yang, Chia-Ling
(författare)
Othering Processes in Feminist Teaching : A case study of an adult educational institution
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Taking its starting point from a critical dialogue with feminist and postcolonial theory, this dissertation explores processes of othering in a feminist adult educational institution, Women’s Room, in Sweden. Women’s Room is a women-only school and half of the student body has a migrant background. The project is an ethnographic study consisting of nine months of participant observations and interviews, with special attention to courses for migrant women. The active involvement of two groups of women – migrant students and feminist teachers – in processes of negotiation, resistance and reproduction of boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are at the centre of the analysis. While special attention is given to educational practices at the institution, these are also explored within the broader contexts of the Swedish gender discourse on nationhood and belonging as well as the changes taking place within the Swedish welfare state. Using the concept of intersectionality, the dissertation demonstrates how categories of difference are interwoven and intermeshed in processes of boundary making. Different social categories, such as racialized class locations and racialized gender/sexuality, are articulated in different forms of racism. The study identifies racism in the interrelations of power structures and demonstrates that gendered and sexualized racism is embedded in discourses and practices of gender equality and the welfare state in Sweden. Although my results highlight gendered and sexualized racist practices and discourses in feminist teaching and identify how these contribute to boundaries of difference and belonging, my research also illuminates complexities within the two groups of women in my study. Migrant students disidentify with the category of ‘them’ and challenge the stigmatized representation of migrants in society. Teachers present a fractured ‘we’, who criticize the boundaries of difference while also (re)constructing the migrant students as Others in the educational processes. I, the researcher, also participated in the othering process. Taken together this supports the fragmentary and contradictory nature of subject formations and identities. This dissertation aims at furthering scholarship and activism in feminist methodology, feminist teaching practices and theorizing difference. I make the process of conducting feminist research transparent and discuss the dilemma of closeness and distance in writing a feminist research product. With my analysis of the roles of feminist teaching in the processes of othering, I wish the reader to (re)consider how difference can be theorized in feminist scholarship and how boundaries of difference can be resisted in feminist teaching.
274.
Zakharov, Nikolay, 1978-
(författare)
Attaining Whiteness : A Sociological Study of Race and Racialization in Russia
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Attaining Whiteness is the first book-length sociological study of how ideas about race resonate in post-Soviet Russia. The book charts how tropes of self, hybridity, and maturity constitute important symbolic vehicles for applying the idea of race to the drawing of differences. A new theoretical framework is developed that casts light on fields of study that have not yet received sufficient attention in Western European and American research concerning racial issues. This study of racialization takes a step towards providing a better understanding of how the discourses of race are extended and transformed through the production of social knowledge and social relations. This volume addresses the resilience of genetic criteria for defining cultures and behaviors in both the sciences and humanities in Russia, and also examines the ongoing and pervasive policy of racialized exclusion. The study argues that the concepts and practices of race, whiteness, and Russianness operate ambivalently insofar as they both hold the social fabric together, organizing the perception of the “Other”, but also undermine the unity of society. Racialization thus fosters, first, the sense that Russia belongs to the core of civilization as opposed to the Third World; second, the formulation of policies towards the internal peripheries that support social control informed by the notion of human material; and, finally, the promotion of exclusionary ethnic self-identifications that employ the discourse of hybridity.
275.
Zettervall, Charlotta
(författare)
Reluctant Victims into Challengers : Narratives of a Kurdish Political Generation in Diaspora in Sweden
2013
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis concerns a sociological analysis on the role of generations in the processes of the construction of national identities, and long-distance nationalism in diasporic settings. The empirical case taken is a political generation of Kurds from Turkey who once arrived in Sweden as political refugees. The primary aim of the thesis is to study how national identities are constructed and maintained in the political generation of interest here. Twenty-three men and women who arrived in Sweden in the years surrounding the military coup of 1980 have been interviewed. They are all from Turkey and have all been involved in the Kurdish resistance during the 1960s and/or 1970s. Theoretically the thesis draws on the concepts of sociological generation, diaspora and long-distance nationalism. The analysis contained herein adresses questions of how Kurdish national identities of this political generation are constructed and maintained in a diasporic setting. Using a narrative approach the thesis demonstrates how competing stories together form a complex and intricate narrative. The stories are both backward- and forward-looking, articulating different experiences of suffering, strength, emancipation and challenges. The backward-looking stories are on the one hand associated with experiences of political unrest, violence and denial. On the other hand these stories articulate senses of idyllisation, displacement and longing for a homeland lost. These are the stories of a defeated political generation and fit into the dominant diaspora victimisation narrative. The forward-looking stories concentrate on the subjects efforts in developing practices and strategies in their present lives in diasporic settings. In Sweden they have continued to commit themselves to the Kurdish cause. Gradually new political strategies developed and many of the interviewees became engaged in transnational networks. The forward-looking stories indicate that the generation has come to challenge the dominant diaspora victim narrative. Simultaneously, however, their their position as a defeated political generation was challenged. The results also point to the fact that national identities are complex and changing.
276.
Zink, Eren, 1974-
(författare)
Flexible Science : An Anthropology of Scientists, Society and Nature in Vietnam
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Eren Zink explores the conditions of doing science in Vietnam. The scientists included in this study were engaged in local and international efforts to conserve nature, establish the fact of climate change, and carry out scientific research in Vietnam. In most instances they had received some of their higher education outside of Vietnam, and later returned to positions within Vietnamese government ministries, universities, research institutes or (to a lesser extent) nongovernmental organizations. Paying close attention to cultural and historical influences, the thesis reveals a politics of science whereby actors deftly navigate intricate webs of social and political networks. Partnerships amongst local and foreign actors become possible as a result of the ‘slippery spaces’ where misunderstandings are carefully cultivated and maintained. And, in combination with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and international development aid, these actor-networks support the arrival of climate change in Vietnam. Nevertheless, Vietnamese scientists are much more than intermediaries between local and foreign interests. Where the Red River meets the sea, scientists compete with national plans for aquaculture expansion in an effort to conserve an idea of nature that has roots in the rural villages of their remembered past. Meanwhile, in their own research institutions there are struggles over both the purpose of doing science, and the authority to practice it. With different degrees of success, the Vietnamese scientists studied here use the resources at hand to realize personal and professional ambitions, as well as to contribute to the (re)production of Vietnamese society. The study is based upon eleven months of anthropological fieldwork that took place in Vietnam during 2007 – 2009. Study sites included Vietnamese research institutions, universities, ministries, embassies, and non-governmental organizations, as well as shrimp ponds and national parks in the coastal zone.
277.
Åkerblom, Annika
(författare)
Children making sense of physical phenomena
2011
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis concerns the activity of expressing understanding with words. The overall aim is to explore, analyse and describe how 64 children aged 6, 10 and 14 expressed their understanding of certain physical phenomena in reflective dialogues. In the dialogues, the children were asked to reflect over expressions which they had used to explain their conception of the problem. Four studies were conducted that concern different aspects of the activity of expressing understanding with words. Different parts of the interplay between language use and knowledge formation were analysed and described. The results indicate that the children used the same expressions with a number of meanings. They dealt with the ambiguity of meaning in different ways, as well as displaying varying degrees of awareness of how they used language to make sense. A variation also appeared in the ways that the children used language to approach content matter. In order to make sense of content matter and reflect over the function of language use, certain conditions appeared to be more critical than others. Drawing on the results of the investigation, implications for pedagogical practice are discussed.
278.
Åkerström, Jeanette, 1979-
(författare)
"Participation is everything" : young people's voices on participation in school life
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis shows that participation is an important and comprehensive concept for young people. The aim of the thesis is to explore young people’s perspectives on and experiences of participation in school. Young people are in this research project understood as competent participants and as valuable contributors in research. Young people (aged 13–19 years) are involved as both research partners and research respondents. The design is explorative and mixed methods are used. Study 1 describes an interactive research circle with young people as research partners. Participation and asymmetric responsibility are identified as integral to research with young people. Study 2 describes a youth survey about young people’s participation that was conducted by the research partners in the research circle. This study shows that young people’s opportunities and abilities to communicate are crucial to their participation. Supportive relations are an important aspect and the young people describe that they want adults to support them in taking responsibility themselves. Study 3 is based on the results of the youth survey and describes a model of young people’s perspectives on participation. Viewed from young people’s perspectives, participation is shown to include social, educational and decision-making dimensions. Communication is identified as a central participatory dimension. This study describes how participation in school is created in both horizontal and vertical relations. Study 4 is about participation and exposure to bullying and threats in school and is informed by the results of the youth survey. This study shows how students with disabilities and especially students with multiple disabilities are in a vulnerable situation. They face greater risks of being excluded from participatory dimensions in school or of being more exposed to degrading treatment if they do participate. Girls with multiple disabilities seem to be in an extra vulnerable situation. Overall, this research project shows that young people’s perspectives are an important complement to adults’ perspectives on participation in school.
279.
Öberg, Stefan, 1978
(författare)
Social bodies : family and community level influences on height and weight, southern Sweden 1818-1968
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation consists of an introduction, four research papers and one paper describing the data I collected for the studies and how I conducted the study. I collected information on men from conscript inspection lists and linked this to a sample of men in the Scanian Economic Demographic Database (SEDD) born between 1797 and 1950. The four research papers analyze influences on height and weight in the 19th and 20th centuries using individual-level data with uniquely rich and detailed information on community context and family background. Paper 1 investigates the long-term changes in socioeconomic differences in height. Sons of landholders were, on average, taller than others in the early and mid-19th century but lost this advantage in the late 19th century. Sons of fathers with non-manual occupations were always the tallest group in the population. The magnitude of the socioeconomic differences in height varied over time but became smaller over time. Paper 2 investigates the association between the number of siblings present in the household and the height of the sons. I find that men with a larger number of siblings were, on average, shorter than others in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Dilution of parental resources is a likely explanation of this. The results show that, even if the parental resources were important, it is also important to consider the societal and historical context. The average height of men in Sweden shows a closely mirrored development to the level of infant mortality. In Paper 3 I test the association between height and the infant mortality rate in the year of birth, first year of life and the adult death rate during pregnancy using a sibling comparison design. I find that both the influence of the risk of being sick as an infant and the selection effect of mortality on height are likely to be weak. Paper 4 investigates the occupational differences in body mass index among men born between 1934 and 1950. Socioeconomic differences in body mass index and the risk of obesity are found almost universally in present-day high-income countries. Information on these differences prior to the most recent decades is scarce, for Sweden and internationally. I find that the occupational differences in body mass index were similar in the mid-20th century and in present-day Sweden.
280.
Östberg, Francesca, 1952-
(författare)
Bedömningar och beslut : Från anmälan till insats i den sociala barnavården
2010
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The focus of this thesis is on social workers’ role in assessing and making decisions in child welfare cases. The primary aim is to identify factors that influence decisions concerning reports assessed, investigated, dismissed or processed to intervention within child welfare agencies in Swedish municipalities. Social policy, professional and organisational factors are perspectives considered in the analysis. All reports and requests for support for children and adolescents in the 0–19 age group were collected during two months in two local agencies, in 2003 (n= 260) and followed by interviews with social workers. Factors connected to social workers’ assessments at different stages in the process were tested in regression models and grounds for their assessments explored. Main results: two-thirds of reports are sorted out without investigation. One-fifth led to interventions. The highest probability for a report to be investigated was if it was assessed as acute, concerned abuse, came from a professional (not the police) concerned a girl and handled in the integrated agency. The most common problems, such as family conflicts and antisocial behaviour were investigated the least. A majority of the children came from underprivileged families, mainly poor single mothers. The process draws the pattern of a heavily tapered funnel with few interventions at the end. Children are not in focus and the attitude is to keep them out of the system for their own good. Social policy and organisational factors restrict social workers’ discretion. Contradictory demands are solved by a ‘consensual ideology’. Parallel tracks appear on risks in a narrow perspective and on voluntary counselling mainly directed to mothers. This forms child welfare into a rejecting practice, where hard social conditions are individualized. Legislation gives municipalities considerable leeway to produce a variety of services and interventions, but practice works on the basis of another kind of rationality.
