1.
Lukkerz, Jack, FIl licentiat, 1972-
(författare)
Sex på rätt sätt : Unga, sexualitet och svensk samtida sexualsyn
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Swedish sexuality education, mandatory since 1955, is part of general social politics, aiming among others to prevent socio-sexual problems through educating and disciplining young, future citizens. The overall aim is to examine contemporary societal view on sexuality through studies of representatives of schools, authorities and NGO’s negotiating young people's sexuality regulations related to current ideas of socio-sexual problems, and to outline constructions of young people's sexuality through the organisation of sex education. Two studies with ten years in between highlight the contemporary view on youth and sexuality through an analysis of 1) professional views on sexuality education and 2) analysis of documents regarding the new Swedish curriculum, in force since autumn semester 2022. The first study contains of focus group interviews with staff working with young people with intellectual disabilities, previously published 2014, using Theory of Social Representations. The second, newer study, using Critical Discourse Analysis as method and Rubin´s radical theories on sexuality politics as theory, analyses views on sexuality in open access published preparatory works regarding the new curriculum. Young people's sexuality is related to risks, while the idea of pleasure is absent. Young women, young LGBTQ people, and young with intellectual disabilities are made vulnerable and norm breaking, while young men´s sexuality, heterosexuality and able-bodiedness are a not scrutinised norm. Sex education is defined by professionals and experts on elite level, not necessarily linked to scientific knowledge. Equality, pornography, and consent appear as questions that engage. Equality is related to a binary understanding of gender, or a freer view on gender as a prerequisite for equality work to succeed. Pornography is understood as a problem in young men, affecting young women and promoting violence and negative attitudes. Consent is welcomed, but with lacking analyses of how to communicate it.
2.
Samzelius, Hanna, 1975-
(författare)
Bakom bonusfamiljen : Kvinnliga föräldrapartners och partnerdöttrars omsorgsgörande
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The purpose of the thesis is to contribute new knowledge about how relationships and care in stepfamilies are constructed, negotiated and renegotiated over time. The study is based on life-story-interviews with stepdaughters and stepmothers about their experiences of care from the beginning of the relationships until the stepdaughter has children of her own. The following questions have guided the analysis: 1) How is care done and negotiated over time? 2) What values, principles and/or motives emerge as important in exercising care? 3) How is good care portrayed in the stories? 4) What events and circumstances are portrayed as significant in terms of the change in the relationships and the practices of care? The study’s perspective is that both families and care are best viewed as negotiated and moral practices. The study shows that the housework and significant emotional work was done by the stepmothers, in the stepdaughters´ childhood as well as in adulthood. While the stepdaughters wanted to feel like the stepmothers´ own children, it was seen as taboo for her to claim a place or title as mother or grandmother, make decisions, set boundaries or have opinions about finances. The principle of “children’s best interests”, together with gender structures, seemed to limit the ability of the stepmother to choose how care was done if it should be perceived as being of good quality. On the other hand, the fact that the adult stepdaughter made a distinction between caring for her biological mother and stepmother was perceived as morally defensible and almost self-evident. The motives for the stepdaughter to provide care seemed to be about emotional closeness or reciprocity, rather than obligation. The study suggests that relationships between stepdaughters and stepmothers are more fragile than those between parents and their own children. The care during the step-daughter’s childhood had an impact on the development of the adult relationship. Moreover, the relationship could be renegotiated after some identi-fied turning points: the stepdaughter´s move away from home, a separation between parent and stepparent, and the stepdaughter’s own parenting. After such events, the relationship could become both closer as well as more distanced. The findings show how the care practices are partly detached from blood ties and legal ties but stuck in conceptions of gender.
3.
Tuncer, Merve, 1992-
(författare)
Weaving Translocal Lives, Bridging Ageing Experiences : Turkish-born Women in Sweden
2023
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis explores Turkish-born women’s experiences of ageing in a translocal setting by looking into the narratives of women who lived in Sweden for 40 years on average. It is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 Turkish-born women who are between the ages 60 and 78. The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to new knowledge about the diversified later life experiences of ageing migrant women from an intersectional life course perspective. The following research questions have guided the analysis: How do Turkish-born women con-struct their sense of belonging after almost 40 years in Sweden? How did the migration to Sweden influence the women’s understandings of gender norms? How do they make sense of ageing and care in a migration context? And how can we explore the complex power dynamics that have been produced over the life course of ageing migrant women? The study incorporates a cross-fertilisation of intersectional and life course perspectives to emphasise the simultaneous influence of agency and structural forces to reveal the racialised and gendered experiences of migrant women. The analysis shows that sense of belonging is constructed at a translocal scale that extends national borders and has a temporal nature. The women construct their sense of belonging through family and kin ties and become rooted in certain localities through negotiations and re-negotiations over the years. Care and work come to the fore as important sites of such negotiations as the women age in Sweden. Both care and work arrangements carry gendered patterns as they do and undo gender by performing household work, paid work and care for family and kin. The analysis shows that the women often have one foot in traditional gender norms while having another foot in gender equal norms. Moreover, the ‘doing’ of gender extends to old age. The women do age through negotiating intergenerational and gendered care with other actors in their lives. The study suggests an intersectional life course perspective to expand our gerontological imagination.
4.
Alvinzi, André, 1984-
(författare)
Working for a Wage - What´s the Point? Lived Experiences of Meaningfulness and Meaninglessness in Professional and Manual Occupations
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis explores experiences of meaningfulness and meaninglessness in wage labor, and how these work experiences relate to social and organizational factors in work situations (situational meaning). It also explores the centrality and value of wage labor in life in a broader sense (existential meaning). In the research field ‘meaning of work’, previous research is primarily leadership-oriented, psychological and quantitative. Sociological studies have remained scarce, and the concept of meaning tends to be used in confused ways. An explicit philosophically informed sociological perspective of lived experience, action and meaning is lacking. The thesis argues that this can be initiated through theorizing and interviews with a social phenomenological focus. Theoretically and empirically, the thesis contributes with a sociological perspective that integrates social phenomenological and structure-oriented perspectives. Based on 20 interviews with presently employed and recently retired individuals from professional and more manually oriented occupations, the findings suggest that (a) the wage is fundamental for employees’ initial conceptions and experiences of the purposive meanings of working. (b) People are not really themselves at work. Such inauthenticity has consequences for work experiences of meaning. (c) Employees perceive that managers do not understand their work situations and what is realistic to achieve in them. This can become a source of meaninglessness at work. (d) Some experience working life as a whole meaningful for its broader life structuring temporal and practical functions in terms of socializing, routines and habits in everyday life. (e) Working life biographies matter. Previous work experiences from past and current occupations are central for understanding employees’ expectations of- and ways of framing their experiences of meaning in the current job. (f) At work, non-work activities may be experienced as more meaningful than work tasks. (g) Habits and routines from work may generate an embodied form of work centrality. They may become internalized and embodied and spill over to life outside of work; (h) Employees across occupations value disconnecting from work, either at or in life outside work. This may be difficult to achieve because of (g).
5.
Aronsson, Pia, 1950-
(författare)
Det professionella projektets framväxt inom ramen för en forskningscirkel : en manipulativ eller frigörande praktik?
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis looks back on an important transitional period for the municipal social services, a transition between different social models and ideals. During this transi-tional period, in the mid-90s, there was a process of change from the community ideal to market liberalism, the latter being characterized by the client-provider model as a form of governance for the municipal organization. Users of social services were becoming customers and professionals were moving towards increased specialization and centralization of social work. The process of change within the municipal organization is a recurrent theme giving this thesis present timeliness although the process of change presented in the thesis took place almost three decades ago.The overall aim of the thesis was to contribute with in-depth knowledge of the professionals' possibilities to exert influence over a process of change in a politically controlled organization using an empirical example as a starting point. The research approach was based on the action research tradition and primarily towards critical action research.The empirical example, the research circle, where professionals met with the prac-tice of social work and the practice of research for a mutual knowledge formation became a temporary action arena where the “professional project” was developed during the years 1994 to 1996.In the thesis politically adopted policy documents are analyzed, the content of which outlined the direction for the future organization and the content of social work, the "Political Project". The analysis reveals the power relations where the political and administrative domain worked to separate and centralize social work while the professionals worked to maintain a decentralized and integrated individual and family care using new working methods and approaches such as open social counseling, group-oriented social work and city district networks as a basis for social service.The thesis shows that the professionals' influence in the process of change was limited by politically adopted decisions in accordance with the conditions of representative democracy, and that only parts of the professional project, which did not challenge overall organizational structures, could be implemented.Before future reorganizations, it is recommended that those affected by the reorganization should be involved in the process early on in order to expand the decision makers knowledge base by including the professionals' opinions, knowledge and will.The development towards a market-liberal form of organization was a lengthy process but has today become the dominant form of organization within municipal administration.
6.
Brauer, John, 1988-
(författare)
Labour Market Policies : Structure and Content, Space and Time
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Labour market policies has two aims: cushioning the economic hardship caused by unemployment and increasing employment rates. In many welfare states, responsibilities for such policies are divided between different political-administrative levels. This dissertation aims to enhance the understanding of labour market policies and especially the involvement of sub-national governmental actors, by analysing the role of municipalities in the Swedish context. The dissertation also investigates the involvement of social work and social workers within labour market policies. A theoretical framework consisting of four pillars, structure, content, space, and time, is used to analyse labour market policies. The analysis combines a historical review with empirical data. The findings show that the involvement of municipalities, in active labour market policies, has taken place against the background of three processes: the multi-level governance of financial support, the shifting role of active labour market policies, and the dialectic relationship between financial support and active labour market policies. The divided responsibility for financial support generates incentives for municipal measures that qualify social assistance recipients for nationally funded social insurances. The fear of work disincentives has also been a driving force in the development of municipal activation. The reliance on municipalities to design and deliver active labour market policies opens for greater crossmunicipal differences. An ongoing reform of the Public Employment Service, the national agency that provides active labour market policies, that decreases the number of local offices and increases the reliance on private service providers, is likely to change the role of municipalities within active labour market policies. Many scholars criticise the involvement of social workers, within labour market policies, given the use of conditionality through activation. This criticism calls for further empirical investigation, not least in terms of how practicing social workers position their work.
7.
Johansson, Sara, 1984-
(författare)
Mellan orten och kalifatet : En studie om utresandefenomenet
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Starting 2011, many travelled from other countries to support different parties of the Syrian revolution. Many came from Sweden, and many joined the Islamic State. Swedish “Syria travellers” often came from areas labelled as [especially] vulnerable. The purpose of the thesis is to examine and analyse different understandings of the phenomenon of individuals travelling from Sweden to the conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, based on narratives collected from actors with local anchoring. The empirical material consists of 54 interviews with public and local actors, and Syria travellers. The results show a territorial stigmatization and a moral differentiation where the residents of the [especially] vulnerable area is understood as “failed” or "tolerated" citizens, something that informants link to the study object. There is a gap between those who seek background explanations in religion and those who seek them in social structures. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are several possible representations of Syria travellers, ranging from terrorists and nihilists to moralists. The work against “radicalization” is described as poorly anchored among practitioners and an extended supply of knowledge is requested. The interviewed Syria travellers describe them-selves as moral actors, and often highly religiously motivated. The thesis also show how guilt by association is a lived reality for Muslims in a time where negative representations of Islam dominate. The thesis should be regarded as a contribution to the expansion of the important field of research on professionals' social representations of why some individuals make violent interpretations of Islam and are attracted to movements such as the Islamic State. The thesis is also a call to further explore Syria travellers' own representations and arguments. Both local actors and Syria travellers represent groups that professionals may en-counter in their work. Knowledge of such social groups, and about the representations articulated within them, is valuable for the practice of Social Work, but also for other professions such as teachers, leisure workers, police, and decision makers at different levels in society.
8.
Wamara, Charles Kiiza, 1980-
(författare)
Towards an Indigenised Social Work Practice to Better Address Elder Abuse and Neglect in Uganda
2022
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Understanding and addressing elder abuse in the Global South is complex as it occurs in different contexts and cultures. To be fully grasped and addressed, this problem demands indigenised theories, concepts, and models ooted in the people’s cultures and worldviews. While substantial efforts are being made to indigenise social work to tackle local challenges, there seems to be less effort to integrate indigenous concepts and theories into gerontological social work practice in Africa. This study proposes indigenised social work practices as a better alternative to Westernised interventions to address elder abuse in Uganda. It answers the principal question: How can social work develop indigenised social work practice to better address elder abuse in Uganda? The overall aim is to gain an indepth understanding of how social work practice can develop indigenised social work interventions to effectively address the abuse of older people. The thesis answers four specific questions: (1) In what ways do older people in Uganda experience abuse and how do they make sense of their experiences? (2) How do social workers respond to elder abuse in Uganda? (3) How do social workers in Uganda perceive indigenised social work practice? and (4) How can social work practice develop indigenised social work practice to better address elder abuse?The thesis builds on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions held with older people and social workers in the five districts of Hoima, Gulu, Luwero, Wakiso, and Jinja. The results show that participants largely viewed their abuse from a cultural perspective, contrary to the West’s perception based on a discourse of human rights. Paradoxically, most of the current safeguarding interventions fall under therapeutic, remedial, and curative approaches despite the elders’ perceptions of their abuse as a cultural problem. Results show three images of indigenised social work practice as (1) collective action and mutuality, (2) communal welfare and respect for life, and (3) liberation and restoration. These images denote the principles of the local cultures and world views. The results call for family- and community-centred approaches premised on indigenous values of togetherness, reciprocity, solidarity, responsibility, and love for humanity. The thesis concludes by proposing the need for Ubuntu-guided social work interventions, a culturally competent practice, modification of the community development approach, and emancipatory and empowerment practice.
9.
Aronson, Olov, 1991-
(författare)
Understanding the social integration of adolescents of foreign origin : Longitudinal investigations of inter-origin friendship formation
2021
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The present dissertation aims to understand some of the opportunities for, and influences on, the social integration of adolescents of foreign origin in Sweden. Informed by previous research, the dissertation suggests that successful social integration involves friendship formation between peers of similar origins (intra-origin friendship formation) as well as friendship formation between peers of different origins (inter-origin friendship formation). Social integration can be difficult to achieve in practice because most individuals tend to be homophilic and form intra-origin friendships rather than inter-origin friendships.Four studies based on longitudinal data are presented in the dissertation. The first study seeks to widen the understanding of refugee girls’ friendship formation through a qualitative analysis of interviews with refugee girls. The second study estimates stochastic actor-oriented models to investigate the friendship formation of adolescents with supportive and/or controlling parent-child relationships. The third article presents cross-lagged panel models for the reciprocal longitudinal associations between friendship formation and two forms of leisure: visits to youth centers and participation in structured leisure activities. Finally, the fourth study uses stochastic actor-oriented models to analyze with whom adolescents form friendships when they are involved in different forms of digital leisure, including online communication, video watching, and digital gaming.The refugee girls in the qualitative study stated that they formed close friendships with family members, such as cousins and siblings, rather than with peers of native origin because they experienced the latter as too dissimilar from themselves. The adolescents in the first quantitative study formed relatively more inter-origin friendships when their parents were supportive and fewer inter-origin friendships when their parents were controlling. According to the third study, visits to youth centers were associated with a larger number of intra-origin friendships among adolescents of foreign origin, while participation in structured leisure activities, such as sports and cultural projects, was related to more friendship formation regardless of origin. The fourth study suggested that native adolescents who were involved in digital gaming formed fewer friendships with native peers and had fewer friends outside of the school class, and foreign adolescents who communicated more online formed fewer friendships with native classmates but more friendships outside of the school class.All four studies indicate that the social integration of adolescents of foreign origin is not an automatic process that invariably happens when adolescents of different origins are mixed in the same location. When adolescents organize their own social lives away from the involvement of adults, they seem to remain or become more homophilic and form more friendships with peers of their own origin. By contrast, native and foreign adolescents tend to form more inter-origin friendships when adults provide them with support and structured social activities. In other words, the social integration of foreign adolescents seems to require supportive and committed adults, who contribute to facilitating inter-origin friendship formation.
10.
Meriläinen, Eija, 1987-
(författare)
Urban Disaster Governance : Resilience and Rights in the Unequal City
2021
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
While a hazard, such as an earthquake, may result from natural processes, the unequal ways in which it impacts people’s lives are not an outcome dictated by forces of nature. Indeed, the disaster unfolding from a hazard has much to do with how human societies are governed. In a disaster, marginalised people are more likely than others to lose their homes, livelihoods, lives, and people they care about. Meanwhile, powerful actors are likely able to protect themselves from many negative consequences of hazards and disasters, while sometimes even being able to capture potential benefits. These inequalities become exposed in the case of urban disasters, where people living in neighbouring residential areas may experience very different outcomes from a disaster. Addressing these inequalities calls for scrutiny on disaster governance, and the ways in which diverse actors address and experience disaster impacts. This thesis explores how disasters in the unequal city are governed, particularly within the frame of resilience discourse. Furthermore, the work strives to imagine more just urban disaster governance focused on the rights of people. The analysis is focused on elaborating and explicating the conceptualisations of resilience and rights within academic and expert literatures. The focus is on the critical analysis of bodies of knowledge on disaster governance.The thesis draws from and contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of disaster studies and human geography. The key contributions of the thesis lie in its four essays, which adopt diverse perspectives to disaster governance research and policy. A key emerging theme is the framing of subjectivities of disaster-affected people within disaster studies. Three subjectivity categories are identified: the beneficiary-stakeholder that is steered by actors ‘from above’; the active citizen that has agency only in relation to a pre-existing and persisting governance institutions; and the territorial community that is a political and organised group of people that can assert claims. In addition to these subjectivity categories, a broader narrative emerges in the thesis: one where a diffused network of private and non-state actors increasingly has the resources and power to shape how the exception of disasters is framed and governed. Against this backdrop, conceptualisations (e.g. resilient community), discourses (e.g. urban resilience) and streams of literature that may be benign in and of themselves may shape disaster politics in problematic ways. They might decentre and obscure underlying patterns of marginalisation and facilitation that result in unequal disaster risk – at worst delegitimising the politics that target structural causes of disasters.
