1.
Wide, Sverre, 1973-
(author)
Människans mått : Om statistik, sociologi och världen som socialt vara
2005
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This dissertation should be understood as an effort to provide a kind of critique of statistical reason. “A kind”, since it has another focus as well: the question of sociality. It is argued that these two topics are closely interrelated, not only, as the short exploration into the prehistory of statistics shows, for historical, but also and mainly for systematic reasons.The first part of this thesis is concerned with methods; not, in fact, so much with different methods as with the idea of methods in general. The second part deals with statistics, its prehistory and structure. It is argued that statistics is inherently causal and always and only understands the world as means (for our power), as it is. The third part explores a socio-logic, a concept meant to capture both the essence of sociality and our understanding of this sociality. And sociality, in the last analysis understood as play or game, turns out to be what cannot be controlled or dealt with in a methodical manner; it can never be reduced to what it is. The fourth and final part discusses and tries to overcome the proposed antithetical relation between statistics (methods) and sociality, and discusses possible consequences of the analysis for the fields of sociology and social thinking.In sum: The dissertation contributes to our understanding of methods, statistics and sociality and their interrelations.
2.
Liedgren Dobronravoff, Pernilla
(author)
Att bli, att vara och att ha varit : Om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen
2007
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) 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.
3.
Lundberg, Anders P
(author)
Om gemenskap : En sociologisk betraktelse
2005
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Various reports have stated that the traditional Swedish popular movements (e.g. the Workers movement and the Free church movement) are loosing ground. Instead of joining a political party or a church, politically or religiously active individuals are said to seek out new and individualized ways of being involved. This thesis studies a number of men and women that persist in being communally involved within the traditional movements (as above). It asks questions such as "What does their involvement look like?" "How important is a sense of belonging for being involved?" "To what extent is it possible to be an autonomous individual while being communally active?" "What difficulties do they encounter, as related to the problem of individualism and community?" "How do they solve these problems?" To aid in an understanding of the conditions for communal involvement in a post- or late modern era, the thesis employs two different (partially opposed) theoretical schools: post modernism and communitarianism. Drawing from these schools, while at the same time presuming an intimate knowledge of the traditional Swedish popular movements (folkrörelserna), the writer constructs two ideal typical concepts: stable community (resembling the communitarian vision) and casual community (resembling the post modernist vision). These ideal types are employed to create an understanding of the conditions for community and communal involvement today. Empirically, a number of strategies are found among the interviewees in order to keep up their involvement. These include: a privatization of ideology; an effort to make a professional career within the movement; the phenomenon of nonprofit professionals; an effort to view involvement as a gain for the personal life project; to view life as a series of stages where it is possible to step in and out of involvement at different times during a life course; to keep organizational structures at the back, letting them promote affinity and affection among individuals rather than being in focus themselves. Also empirically, this thesis shows how involvement among the interviewees resembles what the author labels stable community. It shows the perceived importance of relations of trust, emanating from stable community. It also shows though, a tendency (primarily among those active within the Free church) to expect too much of the relations within a community: rather, it would be necessary to realize the importance of other types of relations (i.e. elective affinity, a relation typically emanating from casual community; but also what the author labels friendship) for keeping the fire burning. Also, there is a tendency (primarily within the Workers movement) to invite too many new individuals too fast into the group of active individuals. Trust (stable community) takes time to create: when rushed, a sense of belonging may be missing, possibly leaving members embittered and disillusioned.
4.
Wolmesjö, Maria
(author)
Ledningsfunktion i omvandling : Om förändringar av yrkesrollen för första linjens chefer inom den kommunala äldre- och handikappomsorgen
2005
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
During the 1990s many of the local authorities have been forced to reduce expenditure on the care of the elderly and people with disabilities, and many organisational changes have been carried out. New problems and their solutions are often related to leadership and management. This dissertation deals with three trends in the development of the organisation: The first trend is a market orientation, one example of which is the attempt to increase effectiveness and efficiency by utilising a purchaser/provider model in the organisation. Here the needs assessment model is studied. The second trend is the response to the pressed situation due to heavy workloads that staff members and their managers express, exemplified by self-managing work teams and a year-based working hour system. Here called flexible work organisations. The third trend focused in this dissertation is the decentralisation of social services. It is connected to increased demands on involvement in, and participation from those who use the services, i.e. the elderly and people with disabilities. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on how politicians and managers view, experience and describe management and leadership in three types of local authority organisations. The focus is on the demands on managers and how the working conditions for managers are described in the different organisations. The material includes three different empirical methods. The first is a questionnaire to politicians and local authority officials, mainly managers at different levels in the care of the elderly and persons with disabilities. The second method consists of qualitative interviews with politicians and managers. The third method involved a document study of local authority documents, e.g. official guidelines, plans and evaluations. The method of analysis, a ?qualified content analysis? is inspired by discourse analysis and focuses on a comparison between the different local authorities, between politicians and managers and between women and men. This dissertation shows that the organisational changes brought about unexpected consequenses for management and that the demands differ between politicians and managers and between different organisations. Politicians and higher-level management expect the managers to manage the organisation, and employees expect them to lead. The solution seems to be a high level of competence, but which competence is needed? There are two different ideals for leadership. One is associated with focus on effectiveness and efficiency and the other associated with focus on communication. The dissertation highlights the conditions of a management, which is currently being pushed further down in the organisation. The dilemma of leadership ? being a manager or a leader will not disappear. Somewhere in the organisation the perspective of effectiveness and efficiency and the perspective of communication have to meet. It might be seen as a dilemma that will not go away ? only be placed in different levels in the organisation.
5.
Aytar, Osman, 1960-
(author)
Mångfaldens organisering : Om integration, organisationer och interetniska relationer i Sverige
2007
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to examine inter-ethnic relations between organizationally active people with different ethnic backgrounds. I focus on relations that are based on a mutual interdependence between parties, mutual respect, common procedural rules, real opportunities that expressly approve or reject a proposal in a decision or deliberation situation free from compulsion, where people, who have different ethnic backgrounds, strive after insight and understanding in their relations.In this dissertation I present three empirical cases about cooperation, consultation and participation as forms of inter-ethnic relations from the organizational fields in the society. These cases are examples of what I characterize as “organizing inter-ethnicity”, or organizing people with different ethnic backgrounds around common concerns. Organizing inter-ethnicity is in turn a part of organizing and integrating diversity in society. Drawing on the results of three case studies, I distinguish between opportunities and barriers.My case studies clearly illustrate that the tensions that influence the patterns of and variation in opportunities and barriers have sources that reach well beyond ethnicity. Tensions between old and new organizations, between working immigrant organizations and refugee organizations, between organizations from same group or between organizations that have conflicts from their members’ countries of origin provide some examples of the difficulties that generate barriers to broad interest constellations between organizations.
6.
Bask, Miia, 1977-
(author)
A longitudinal approach to social exclusion in Sweden
2008
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This thesis consists of four papers, and has as its central theme the accumulation of welfare problems and social exclusion. We use Swedish data and all analyses are based on individuals of working age. We perform longitudinal analyses to scrutinize the accumulation of disadvantages over the individual life courses as well as to detect the general trends in social exclusion occurrence in Swedish society during the past two decades. In Paper I, in an analysis of social exclusion among immigrants in Sweden, we find that immigrants suffer more often from social exclusion than native Swedes do. We also find that even if the accumulation of welfare problems is more common among immigrants than native Swedes, the connections between welfare disadvantages are stronger among Swedes. Furthermore, a logistic regression analysis revealed that time spent in Sweden decreases the risk of social exclusion among immigrants. However, even though we control for several demographic variables, human capital indicators and socio-economic class, the odds for social exclusion are still greater for immigrants than for native Swedes. Some form of discrimination can therefore not be excluded. Paper II is co-written with Björn Halleröd. This paper involves a longitudinal analysis of the accumulation of closely related welfare disadvantages, showing that the initial deprivation increases over time. Latent growth curve models reveal that a high initial deprivation is related to low socio-economic class and being single. It is also shown that a high initial deprivation decreases the probability of upward class-mobility as well as the probability of deprived singles becoming cohabiting. Moreover, a high initial deprivation increases the risk that couples will experience a household break-up. In Paper III, we perform a longitudinal analysis of social exclusion in Sweden during the period 1979-2003, in which several logistic regression models for panel data are fitted to our data. We find no support that immigrants have been better integrated into Swedish society over time from the perspective of social exclusion risk. Instead, there are weak signs that integration has become worse. We also find weak signs that the higher social exclusion risk that men have relative to women has decreased during the past two decades. Furthermore, comparing with couples without children, the odds for social exclusion among singles with children have increased and the odds for couples with children have decreased during the period 1979-2003. Paper IV utilizes latent class factor models to scrutinize the connections between welfare problems and a set of demographic variables, human capital indicators and socio-economic class. We find that welfare problems do cluster. Our results also support several of the findings in the previous paper. Family type, especially being single or living in a relationship, makes a clear difference in the propensity to accumulate welfare problems. Furthermore, immigrants characterize the factors with a high problem accumulation. Additionally, there is no general difference between the sexes in the problem accumulation itself, but experiences of threat or violence and having sleeping problems seem to be more often related to being a woman, whereas the lack of a close friend is most often related to being a man. To conclude, this thesis reveals several interesting facts concerning the accumulation of welfare problems and social exclusion in Sweden. Considering the implications for policy, the situations of immigrants and single parents need to be underlined. That is, the integration of immigrants should be given more emphasis and measures should be taken to support single parents as well as to promote a discussion on how to make relationships last.
7.
Boye, Katarina, 1975-
(author)
Happy hour? Studies on well-being and time spent on paid and unpaid work
2008
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The present thesis focuses on causes and consequences of paid working hours and housework hours among women and men in Sweden and Europe. It consists of four studies. Study I investigates changes in the division of housework in Swedish couples when they become parents. The study shows that women adjust their housework hours to the number and age of children in the household, whereas men do not. Longer parental leave periods among fathers have the potential to counteract this change towards a more traditional division of housework. Study II explores the associations between psychological distress and paid working hours, housework hours and total role time in Sweden. The results suggest that women’s psychological distress decreases with increasing paid working hours and housework hours, but that a long total role time is associated with high levels of distress. The gender difference in time spent on housework accounts for 40 per cent of the gender difference in psychological distress. Study III asks whether hours spent on paid work and housework account for the European gender difference in well-being, and whether the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework is influenced by gender attitudes and social comparison. The results indicate that gender differences in time spent on paid work and housework account for a third of the gender difference in well-being. Gender attitudes and social comparison do not to any great extent influence the associations between well-being and paid work and housework, respectively. Study IV examines possible differences between European family policy models in the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework. Some model differences are found, and they are accounted for by experiences of work-family conflict among men, but not among women. For both women and men, work-family conflict appears to suppress positive aspects of paid working hours.
8.
Forsberg Kankkunen, Tina, 1969-
(author)
Två kommunala rum : Ledningsarbete i genusmärkta tekniska respektive omsorgs- och utbildningsverksamheter
2009
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this study is to describe and partially explain how management is shaped in female-dominated social care and education services and male-dominated technical services, and how this contributes to creating and reproducing a gender system in municipal organizations. This was achieved by interviewing male and female operative managers in social care and education services and technical services. The managerial work of operative managers was also problematized in relation to activities at other organizational levels – the operational versus the strategic. The theoretical fields used in the study are primarily those having to do with organization and gender. I describe how power structures like sex and gender influence the construction of management; for example, genderized environments generate managerial action patterns, resources, and organizational prerequisites. The analytical results show that managerial work in social care and education services differs in practice from managerial work in technical services. Social care and education services have poorer organizational prerequisites for social interaction among organization levels than do technical services. The discrete prerequisites for managerial work make it more difficult for operative managers in social care and education services to support and interact with staff at the operative level than it is for operative managers in technical services. Operative managers in social care and education services also find it more difficult to actively influence the decision processes than do operative managers in technical services. When operative managers in social care and education services are cut off from strategic decisions and prevented from showing and explaining their needs and activities, the gender system in municipal organizations can be reproduced in the shadows.
9.
Heikkinen, Satu, 1969-
(author)
Att köra eller inte köra : Hur de äldre, åldrande och bilkörning har diskuterats i svensk transportpolitik
2008
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The objective of this study is to analyse the formation of older and ageing drivers in Swedish transportation policy. Documents from the Swedish Government, the Riksdag and, in a few cases, public authorities and newspapers are analysed. The discourse-analytical framework is inspired by Foucault’s archaeology, which is used as a tool box. The study identifies/constructs three periods in the formation of older and ageing drivers. In the first period (1934–1967) there is a discursive gap between statements about driver selection and traffic safety. Driving in ‘old age’ is a problem for medical expertise and mandatory tests are proposed. The proposals are rejected, as older people’s driving is not a problem in the discourse of traffic safety. In the second period (1967–1991) ‘older drivers’ is made up as a category of interest. ‘Older drivers’ become an accident population in the discourse of traffic safety due to changes in statistical practices. In the third period (1991–2006) a discourse of older peo-ple’s mobility is appearing alongside the discourses of traffic safety and driver selection. Moreover, the study traces how the statements of older and ageing drivers are ordered by more general ideas of the aged and ageing. Double discourses of ageing are followed by a dichotomisation in ‘healthy’ and ‘sick older drivers’ in the 1990s. The idea of an abrupt exit in old age alters to a more gradual exit, in its turn followed by challenging the very idea of exit.
10.
Jonsson, Gun
(author)
Tanter och representanter : en fråga om oligarki eller demokrati?
2006
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this thesis emanated from a discussion whether voluntary associations have a choice or not regarding their democratic development. Robert Michels (1911/1983), one of the classic sociological thinkers, says no. The path towards oligarchy is inevitable. Nevertheless, maybe there are certain points, where the organizations face a certain democratic “dilemma” (Merton, 1966), forcing them more or less easily towards the oligarchic path? Seven counterarguments deriving from modern perspectives on participatory democracy (Pateman 1985; 1989) where used to find a way to avoid the oligarchic path and by that develop democracy in organizations. Since democracy also requires equality, the dissertation explored the question of power and influence in democratic organisations by studying the use of (spoken) language. Inspired by sociolinguistic theory (Milles, 2004) the aim was to identify dominance of the conversation: Who are taking part of the conversation? Are there differences between women and men in democratic organisations?The main part of the study consists of group interviews. Members of the boards of six relatively small voluntary associations where chosen as units of analysis. Information around founding an association gathered from 75 homepages on Internet served as background data. The language as each one of the 27 board members where studied both separately and as conversation.The conclusion is that formal structures build in hierarchal levels already when voluntary organisations take form. The dilemmas seem to revolve around the two fundamental criteria of democratic government, namely effectiveness and responsiveness are more or less explicitly stated. Awareness of dilemmas seems to be a possible way to avoid the determinism of oligarchy. The need for reinterpretation of the goals now and then could make it easier to find alternative actions. The associations have to strike a balance between effectiveness in relation to their goals and effectiveness in a democratic sense, a balance not always held. By clarifying the work and development processes of the voluntary organisations it is possible to identify (the lack of) democratic work within the organisations – a useful instrument in practice. The elite that runs the organisations is almost exclusively male and is preventing the members, especially women, from voicing their opinion. Democracy obstructs by structures demanded by society, socialised gender structures and the need of efficiency. The representatives are not always carrying out their task as elected representatives; self-interest puts before the common good.
