1.
Liedgren Dobronravoff, Pernilla
(författare)
Att bli, att vara och att ha varit : Om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen
2007
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation seeks to describe and investigate the entering and leaving of a highly structured and hierarchical religious community, exemplified in this case by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The respondents in this study were chosen from both active members of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Sweden and those who have left the organisation for personal reasons. Repeated interviews with ten active members of the organisation have been conducted in the course of the study and compared to equal numbers of former members. The interviews have been semi-structured to deal with questions of how a person has come into contact with the organisation; how they retrospectively experienced the process of entry; the reasons for becoming a member. Questions have also been asked about life in the organisation. The group of "exiters" have also been asked about the experience of leaving, why they wanted to leave, and how this process was started and carried out. In addition to this I have analysed a four-year diary describing the time inside and the process of leaving the organisation. This has given me an extra psychological insight into the inner experience of someone who has gone through the whole process. The analysis has been done by categorising the content of the transcribed interviews. The analysis of the diary has involved thorough reading, resulting in a division of it into four different parts, where each part has been given a certain key-word, signifying the author's emotional state when writing it. A person converting as an adult has to pass six phases before being considered a Jehovah's Witness by the organisation. These are: Contact with the Jehovah's Witnesses, studying the bible with members of the organisation, questioning, accepting, being active as publisher (spreading the belief), being baptised. For a person brought up in the organisation, the process to full membership is much shorter: Upbringing in the organisation, taking a stand on the belief, being baptised. The exit process contains of seven phases: Different levels of doubts, testing of doubts, turning points, different kinds of decisions, different steps in executing the decisions, floating, a period of emotional and cognitive consideration of membership and its experiences, relative neutrality.
2.
Tham, Pia, 1960-
(författare)
Arbetsvillkor i den sociala barnavården : förutsättningar för ett kvalificerat arbete
2008
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis describes and analyzes the working conditions of child welfare social workers who responded to a comprehensive questionnaire (n=309, dropout rate 3 per cent).In Study 1, the working conditions of social workers new to the profession (0-2 years) were compared with those of social workers with longer experience. The study shows that less experienced workers were more often found working in areas characterized by worse socioeconomic conditions and in workgroups where many others were also new and inexperienced. Although they described some aspects of their working conditions more positively they tended to report more health problems.In Study 2, working conditions of the child welfare social workers were compared with those of other professional human service workers. The study shows that although social workers in general and child welfare social workers in particular made positive assessments of their working lives, social work was unusually demanding among human service professions on several measures of workload, complexity of tasks and quality of management.In Study 3, the associations between the child welfare social workers’ working conditions and their health and well-being were investigated, controlling for background variables. The negative consequences of high job demands, especially for psychological health and well being emerge.In Study 4, factors associated with the social workers’ intention to leave the job were investigated. The study showed that lack of human resource orientation within the organization was of greatest importance. The results are analyzed from two different perspectives; the effort/reward model and new institutional theory. The main conclusions are that improvement is needed of the introduction to the profession at the workplace, that the status of child protective work needs to be raised and that social workers need help to limit their responsibility load, more time and space for reflection, and greater valuation of their work.
3.
Turunen, Päivi
(författare)
Samhällsarbete i Norden : Diskurser och praktiker i omvandling
2004
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The dissertation deals with an inquiry concerning how the transformation of community work can be understood from a comparative perspective within the framework of social work in Scandinavia. Community work is examined by means of two main studies: an international literature review and an empirical study in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). The transformation is discussed in the light of theories of modernisation and discourse analysis. The results propose that the transformation is characterised by differentiation, both divergence and convergence. The discourses are far from constant, while the practices seem to remain the same. There are surprisingly many similarities between settlement work and contemporary community strategies across the globe. Since the 1980´s, they have expanded rapidly because of the political and ideological changes within welfare states – towards decentralisation and devolution. The concept of community work has been replaced by a plurality of community-orientated concepts. Within social work, it has converged into community social work. The transformation of Nordic community work has also moved towards a national and local diversity. The Nordic countries share similar phases of transformation of community work, but also have traits of their own. In general, community work has been carried out as projects. Denmark is characterised as the promised land of projects, Finland as the community land of minimal number of projects, Norway as the land of co-ordinated projects, and Sweden as the land of structural project-ideology. The transformation has also resulted in a polarisation – an increased professionalisation in academic communities and deprofessionalisation in practice. A constant problem with community work is its temporary nature, due to dependence upon recurring projects. There is a great need for sector transcending and integrating research, knowledge and practice development within the area of community policy and practice, including community work.
4.
Wahlin, Lottie
(författare)
Den rationella inbrottstjuven? : En studie om rationalitet och rationellt handlande i brott
1999
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Rationality as purposive action among burglars is the theme of this study. Various theories concerning rationality, Rational Choice Theory especially, are discussed. The first purpose of this thesis is to highlight the concept of rationality. Rationality is a complex concept and it is defined in various ways in the literature. The basic definition is to act in a purposive way towards a defined goal. The second purpose is to study the occurence of rational components in criminal behaviour among burglars. The action of burglary has been treated as a serie of actions, in which there are many decisions to make. Ethnographical studies and interviews have been conducted. The analyses and interpretations of the narratives render a picture of a situationally bounded rational action which also is contextually and culturally anchored. The necessity of further theoretical refinements for empirical studies covered by rationality, is emphasized. Concludingly, criminal behaviour seen through rationality as a general framwo rk has been acknowledge as being fruitful and relevant.
5.
6.
Sjöberg, Stefan, 1967-
(författare)
Löntagarfondsfrågan - en hegemonisk vändpunkt : En marxistisk analys
2003
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The aim of the dissertation is twofold. The primary aim is to explain how the wage-earner funds could change the way they did, from the original proposal 1975 to the carried through 1983. The second is to show the relevans of Marxist analysis today, through the application of Marxist theory on the wage-earner funds issue. A discourse analyses is carried through to show the arguments and positions taken by key actors during the wage-earner funds struggle.One important finding is that the wage-earner funds struggle was what I designate a hegemonic turning-point in the Swedish post war history. Until and including the raising of the fund issue the Swedish labour movement had for decades gradually moved their positions forwards vis-a-vis the bourgeois in wide meaning. The bourgeois won the fund struggle and has ever since step by step forced the labour movement on the defense. The wage-earner funds struggle then meant a very important change of the balance between the organized class forces.Previous works on the wage-earner funds have a strong emphasis on the political level in trying to explain the issue. The dissertation shows that although this is an important factor, it has to be related to others. In accordande with a structuralist influenced Marxist perspective the interrelation of economical, political, cultural and ideological factors has to be evaluated in the analysis of the issue. The agenda on the political level needs to be related to processes in the economy. In other words changes in the economic base strongly influenced what was taking place in the political/cultural/ideological domains.Marxism has for a long period been the objective for deconstruction and dissolution. Through the concrete analysis of the fund struggle the dissertation shows that Marxist theory is still relevant. The dissertation stresses that a relevant Marxism today is not the same as the classical marxism that culminated during the 1970’s. But there is fundamental parts, core, centrality, that can be built upon for a modern Marxism that is not ending up at the Post-marxism that dissolves and gives up still relevant foundations.
7.
Wikman, Sofia, 1971-
(författare)
Våld i arbetslivet : Utveckling, uppmärksamhet och åtgärder
2012
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Over the past two decades, violence at work has become the object of an increasing level of attention. The objective of the thesis is to analyse how the development of violence at work as a social problem might be understood. The studies in the thesis examine trends in exposure to violence at work among different occupational groups (I), the attention focused on violence at work in trade journals (II), the measures proposed to combat the problem in trade journal articles (III) and in the occupational injury reports made by the victims themselves (IV).The first study shows that, according to victim surveys, levels of exposure to work-related violence have increased since the beginning of the 1980s. The increases are greatest in relation to the female-dominated occupations found in the care provision sectors. Study II presents a quantitative content analysis of trade journals from the period 1978–2004. The results show that there has been an increase in the amount of attention focused on violence at work. The results indicate that definitions of violence have expanded and that attention has become focused on new groups of victims and perpetrators. Study III examines the ways in which trade journals describe measures to combat violence at work. The results indicate that there has been a shift from viewing violence as a problem that should be resolved at the workplace as a health-and-safety issue, to increasingly viewing it as a problem that should be resolved externally with the help of the justice system. Study IV is based on an analysis of occupational injury reports from staff in the care sector who have been exposed to violence at work. Irrespective of the nature of the risk situation that preceded the violent incident, the staff who have been exposed to violence at work would prefer to see the problem resolved internally at the workplace.
8.
Öberg, Peter, 1960-
(författare)
Livet som berättelse : Om biografi och åldrande
1997. - 3
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation’s objective is twofold: (1) to show how the life lived is reflected in old age (the articles), and (2) to analyze how life-stories are presented and interpreted from the social constructivist perspective (the comprehensive summary). Article I is a critical discussion of two biographical methods of data collection: the “freely-told” life-story and the semistructured biographical interview. Article II addresses the thesis’ first aim. This article presents the data gathered through the qualitative biographical interviews conducted with elderly Finns, which resulted in a typology of six ways of life: The bitter life and Life as a trapping pit, which end up in a problematic old age; Life as a hurdle race, The devoted silenced life, Life as a job career and The sweet life, which describe different strategies for successful ageing. Article III is a study of Life as a hurdle race, where successful ageing is reached, despite previous difficulties in life. Article IV explains the paradox of the absent body in social gerontology, in light of the dualism of the Platonic-Christian tradition between body and soul. The comprehensive summary consists of critical methodological reflections on the conducted research. This summary acknowledges how the conclusions, reached at through analytic induction, where influenced by gerontology’s two myths (misery vs. success). The summary also treats the Renaissance of biographical social research, and the conducted research in relation to the theoretical debate on “the realist perspective” vs. “the story-focused, constructivist perspective.” From the latter perspective it is shown how emplotment shapes the life-story. Finally the summary addresses the generalizability and credibility of my results; results which by virtue of the life history perspective open up for a new qualitative understanding of ageing.
9.
10.
Grell, Pär, 1966-
(författare)
Komplexa behov eller komplexa organisationer? : konsekvenser av specialiserad individ- och familjeomsorg ur ett klientperspektiv
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Even though recent decades have seen a clear trend towards organizational specialization within Swedish personal social services (PSS), there is a lack of knowledge about the consequences of this, particularly from a client perspective. The aim of this compilation thesis is to describe and analyse the consequences of organizational specialization for clients with complex needs. The empirical material consists of a survey and an interview study, both addressing clients whose needs can be considered complex since they entail several parallel contacts with different specialized PSS units. Article one is a research review aimed at summarizing and discussing the research on organizational structures in the social services, and these structures' impact on work with clients. The review suggests that, to function adequately, social service organizations need to combine and balance aspects of both specialization and integration. Article two aims to describe and analyse how clients with complex needs perceive and value the service conditions of the organizationally specialized PSS. The main findings are that clients primarily perceive and value their encounters with the specialized PSS negatively, and that they experience several elements of service fragmentation. The aim of article three is to describe and analyse how clients with complex needs account for their handling of service conditions within specialized PSS. A key finding is that clients combine different approaches (categorized as consensus, resignation, fight, and escape) in a balancing act intended to promote their own best interests. Article four aims to describe and analyse how clients with complex needs perceive the conditions for helping relations in a PSS setting marked by organizational specialization. A lack of system trust, the people-processing dimensions of work, and an organizational and professional emphasis on formal organizational structures and boundaries were found to constitute unfavourable conditions. Conversely, the occurrence of individual trust, the people-sustaining and people-changing dimensions of client work, and the boundary-spanning efforts of both informal organizations and individual social workers constituted favourable conditions. The thesis concludes that there seems to be a substantial lack of fit between the logics and features of organizational specialization on one hand, and the complex and interwoven nature of clients’ actual needs and everyday lives on the other. It is also argued that organizational specialization means that the complexity involved in encounters between clients and the PSS is overlooked or obscured. Further research on the structural arrangements and service conditions that surround encounters between clients and the social services is suggested, especially research that adopts a client perspective.
