1.
Ewertzon, Mats, 1956-
(author)
Familjemedlem till person med psykossjukdom : bemötande och utanförskap i psykiatrisk vård
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This thesis focused on the situation of family members of persons with psychotic illness, particular on their experience of the approach of the healthcare professionals and of their feelings of alienation regarding the professional care of their family member. A further aim was to explore how siblings who have participated in a support group for siblings experienced their situation.A questionnaire was developed that enabled the aims of this thesis to be investigated (I). Seventy family members from various parts of Sweden participated, and data were collected via the questionnaire developed in study I (II-III). Thirteen siblings who previously had participated in a support group participated in follow-up focus groups interviews (IV).The questionnaire developed was shown to be reliable and valid in these studies (I). In many cases, the participants had experienced an approach from professionals that indicated that they did not experience openness, confirmation and cooperation, and that they felt powerless and socially isolated in relation to the care. There was also found to be a certain degree of association between how the participants experienced the approach and whether they felt alienation (II). The majority of the participants considered openness, confirmation, and cooperation to be important aspects of professional’s approach. The result also identified a low level of agreement between the participants’ experience and what they considered to be significant in the professional’s approach (III). The findings revealed the complexity of being a sibling of an individual with psychotic illness. Participating in a support group for siblings can be of importance in gaining knowledge and minimizing feelings of being alone (IV).Although the psychiatric care services in Sweden have been aware of the importance of cooperating with family members, the results indicated that there is a need for further research in this area.
2.
Basic, Goran, 1972-
(author)
Samverkan blir kamp : En sociologisk analys av ett projekt i ungdomsvården
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
In this dissertation a collaboration project in Swedish youth care is analysed. The aim of the project was to enhance coordination between the Social Services and the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care in order to make the efforts more efficient. The project also employed a number of coordinators. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to analyse conflicts, alliances and comparisons identifiable in interviews and observations. The analytic findings are put into an overall “collaboration context” represented by earlier research on the social phenomenon of “collaboration”. In this way the dissertation tries to contribute to a sociological understanding of a contemporary widespread phenomenon. The empirical materials of the study consist of recorded conversational interviews with 147 project participants (youngsters, parents and various professional categories) as well as observations of meetings, informal get-togethers and visits to institutions, Social Services offices, the head office of the National Board of Institutional Care and coordinators. The material was analysed using the analytic perspectives of Georg Simmel (1950/1964), Theodore Caplow (1968) and Erving Goffman (1959/2004). The analysis shows that the project manifested and led to struggles between organizations involving representatives from the Social Services, the National Board of Institutional Care and the project, as well as to several interpersonal conflicts between representatives from various categories of involved professionals, and the youngsters and their parents. The study also shows that the client, in such human service organizations, faces a significant risk of being marginalized. Professionals who appreciated the collaboration often drew their conclusions based on their interaction with other professionals, but the collaboration did not guarantee a successful treatment of the client. Conflicts concerning the roles of the coordinators and their written documents (“the agreements”) emerged and were actualized through the creation of the project. The coordinators and their “agreements” can be seen as the project’s most visible representatives and symbols, which during the project become both themes for conflict and actualize already established conflict patterns. The youngsters and their parents appreciated the projects’ coordinators who appeared as personally involved and able to make concrete changes. However, many of youngsters and their parents criticized the coordinators and even portrayed a victim identity in relation to the project. The coordinator’s relationship with the youngsters and their parents was mostly characterized by passivity. This is clearly apparent in the analysis of the administrative and/or passive coordinator. Different alliance constellations became visible in these presentations. When the coordinator roles were altered in the description, the alliance constellations change. It is a common strategy for clients in human service organizations to try to enter into alliances with professionals involved in their cases and, in so doing, try to alter the situation to their own advantage. The fact that these alliances are often sought by the client indicates, among other things, the client’s will to fight against the situation in which he/she finds him/herself. I believe that this can be seen as something productive rather than problematic.
3.
Björktomta, Siv-Britt, 1962
(author)
Om patriarkat, motstånd och uppbrott – tjejers rörelse i sociala rum
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This dissertation focuses on some young girls and their family relations. My aim has been to investigate how some of those girls with foreign background who in media, government documents and project descriptions have come to be categorized as “vulnerable girls in patriarchal families” – what has come to be termed honour-related violence and oppression, HRV – describe their situation themselves. The selection consists of eleven girls between 16 and 20 years old who have expressed that they live with restrictions and control of their social life and their sexuality. This means that it is the girls’ subjective experiences that have defined their vulnerability and delimited the selection. The core of the study comprises (family) relations, with gender and generation as dimensions of power. The study moves within two fields of tension, one of which deals with generation and concerns the relation between parental authority and children’s dependence and vulnerability. The other field deals with gender and concerns conflicts between men’s domination and women’s subordination. The theoretical basis consists of theories of patriarchy together with Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and symbolic violence, which provide an understanding of the context that the interviewees found themselves in. Central for this understanding is how norms and values are transferred from the older to the younger generation. For a deepening of the habitus concept, theories are used from emotion sociology about the coupling between feelings, cognition and action, which become useful in the analysis of the girl’s self-reflections, their relations to their parents, and regarding their space for action. The experience described by the interviewees concerned areas such as gender and sexuality, generation, dominance and power, violence, ethnicity, culture and religion, but in the interviews there was also a bodily and emotional dimension. This dimension emerged during the analytical work as increasingly significant for understanding the whole. The families’ norms and values can be described as traditional values in three areas: (1) a strong sexual morality together with control of women’s sexuality; (2) norms of honour, meaning among other things that great emphasis was placed on the family’s honour, which was symbolized by the daughter’s virginity; (3) gendered practices that were concretized in the interviews through the fact that the man was seen primarily as the family provider while the household and children were the woman’s responsibility. The patriarchal family formations that the interviewees described I will understand as variations of patriarchy formed within transnational social spaces in a late modern society. The idea that a daughter’s virginity is the symbol of the family’s reputation and honour meant that the interviewees, in a special way, had to shoulder the burden of being cultural symbols and boundary markers – with moral implications – between the “Swedish” and the “non-Swedish”. Resistance against the boy-friend ban and the virginity requirement was presented by all the interviewees. They lived a double life. Through various strategies the girls tried increasing their space for action, and when the resistance became visible – when the boundary transgressions were discovered – the father made use of his resources of power. Patriarchy was manifested in different ways within the families, and how the power was exercised had importance for the resistance’s form and expression, but it also emerged that these factors relate to each other in a dynamically changing interaction. The resistance influenced the power in many ways as well. An important distinction between the families concerned violence. In five families, there were accounts of actual physical violence, and in another family there had been threats of physical violence. The interviewees found themselves at the intersection between a patriarchal field and a field characterized by a more free view of sexuality and with strong discourses of equality and children’s rights. It was within these frameworks that their movements and resistance played out. A result that has emerged during the analytical work is the father’s position and significant function as a point of reference in the girls’ narratives – the father’s authority and power were taken for granted in virtually all the families. Another result is that through the diverse expressions of patriarchy the emotional ties between father and daughter existed in the great majority of the families. Parallel with emotional dependence between father and daughter, most of the girls wanted more emotional closeness, a closeness that could also promote a dialogue and better communication. The relation between mother and daughter emerged as complex and contradictory.
4.
Sjölund, Maria, 1978-
(author)
Levd erfarenhet av ålder : Föreställningar om och erfarenheter av att vara och bli äldre
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Starting from the perspective that the ageing human body always is a situation and in a situation, the present thesis explores situations in which the meaning of age and ageing is negotiated. The analytical focus is on situations, and more specifically on experiences of age and ageing. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the lived experience of age and ageing. A hermeneutic understanding of experience and lived experience is fundamental to the thesis. Three studies are included.The first study is based on descriptions of situations in which older people felt “especially young” and "especially old". The analysis revealed that the same kinds of situations gave rise to experiences both of feeling “especially young” and of feeling “especially old”, but they differed in focus regarding social inclusion/exclusion.The second study is based on interviews with amateur dancers regarding their experiences of a dance project in which the artistic focus is on the aged body. Two themes emerged in the analysis: the dance project as a situation in which the meaning of age and ageing was both given new meanings and restated in stereotypical terms; and the aged and ageing person him-/herself as a situation for negotiating the meaning of age and ageing. The meaning of age was negotiated, as there were tensions between referring to age and ageing as resources and referring to them as a problem associated with restrictions. The situated experiences involved changes in the body, pointed out by other people or felt oneself. The dissociation from being old appeared as an internalized social norm, and one strategy for avoiding old age was to keep active, but not too active.The third study is based on a vignette dialogue with amateur dancers. Text excerpts from Simone de Beauvoir's book The Coming of Age (1970/1972) were used as vignettes to grasp notions about the aged in society as they appeared to the informants. Among the informants, notions of being and becoming old in a society are filled with fears of being dependent, becoming a social burden on society and being reduced to an aged person with standardized needs who is unable to live a worthy life. In sum, the lived experience of ageing is always situated as a complex interplay between the body, social norms, the available language and our notions about these phenomena. The present thesis shows that age and ageing can be filled with various inconsistent meanings that embrace social inclusion as well as social exclusion.
5.
Bennich, Maria, 1959-
(author)
Kompetens och kompetensutveckling i omsorgsarbete : Synen på kompetens och lärande – i spänningsfältet mellan samhälleliga förutsättningar och organisatoriska villkor
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Avhandlingen är en sammanläggningsavhandling med syfte att studera om synen på kompetens är relaterad till lärmiljön och strategier för kompetensutveckling. Parallellt med syftet har jag analyserat och diskuterat kompetensutveckling ur ett samhälleligt och interorganisatoriskt perspektiv. Fokus ligger här på styrprinciper, brukarinflytande och nationella utvecklingsprogram. Avhandlingen utgörs av en lokal studie som bygger på 22 intervjuer och 74 enkäter, en forskningsöversikt samt en studie som bygger på utvärderingar av det nationella utvecklingsprogrammet Kompetensstegen.Resultatet från den lokala studien – två vårdboenden och två hemtjänstverksamheter – visar att förutsättningarna för lärmiljön skiljer sig åt beroende på verksamhetstypen. Inom hemtjänstverksamheterna var stöd och engagemang från ledningen mer central för kompetensutveckling än inom vårdboendena. Samtidigt visar resultatet att i de verksamheter där det fanns en mer utvecklad lärmiljö och en integrerad strategi – dvs. en kombination av icke‐formella och formella läraktiviteter – för kompetensutveckling, var uppfattningarna om omsorgspersonalens kompetens mer utvecklade. Fokus låg här på att utveckla både kompetens och verksamhet. Det som förenade samtliga verksamheter var uppfattningen att personalen behöver en förmåga att utveckla relationer till brukaren.Analysen av Kompetensstegen – en stor nationell satsning – visar på en brist i samspel och jämlika relationer mellan arbetsplatserna och utbildningsanordnare. Denna brist hade implikationer för hur väl satsningen på kompetensutveckling lyckades. Inom de verksamheter där arbetsplats‐ och utbildningssystem samverkat, ledde detta samspel till att arbetsplatslärandet blev mer flexibelt, effektivt och användbart för deltagarna. Exemplet visar att kompetensfrågor behöver analyseras ur ett samhälleligt perspektiv.Den samhälleliga analysen visar att kompetensfrågor lätt kommer bort eftersom dessa inte är integrerade i styrprinciper som konkurrensutsättning, upphandlingsförfaranden och kundval. Kompetensutveckling inom äldreomsorgen är en komplex, svårbestämbar och krävande process som behöver synkroniseras på olika nivåer. De nationella satsningar, där formell utbildning dominerar, har sällan fått något genomslag i verksamheten. Perspektivet har oftast varit kortsiktigt och individinriktat. Tillfälliga resursförstärkningar och projektsatsningar leder inte heller till att frågan om kompetensutveckling prioriteras och att nödvändiga resurser avsätts lokalt. Nyckelord: omsorgspersonal, kompetens, kompetensutveckling, äldreomsorgen, interaktiv forskning, interorganisatorisk samverkan
6.
Enelo, Jan-Magnus, 1980-
(author)
Klass, åsikt och partisympati : det svenska konsumtionsfältet för politiska åsikter
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this thesis is to study political opinions and party voting in relation to class. The range of opinions studied consists of a socioeconomic dimension, dealing with issues of economic equality, and a socio-cultural dimension, dealing with questions of culture and morality.Following Pierre Bourdieu, the object of the study is conceptualised as a field of consumption of political opinions consisting of a space of political opinions or stances, a space of political party preferences, and a space of social positions or opinion holders defined by (among other things) their cultural and economic capital. The field of consumption is examined through multiple correspondence analysis and Euclidean classification.Overall, the field of consumption of political opinions is found to be relatively homologous to the social space. The field of consumption is found to be a two-dimensional space, with one dimension separating left-wing from rightwing opinions and the second distinguishing between socio economic and socio- cultural opinions. The tendency to vote left wing and to have left-leaning socio-economic opinions corresponds to a low total volume of capital and possessions dominated by cultural capital, whereas the tendency to vote right wing and to have right-leaning socio-economic opinions corresponds to a high total volume of capital. Liberal socio-cultural opinions correspond to a high level of possession cultural capital (and its relative weight in the structure of the total possession of capital), whereas the opposite is true for conservative opinions. Furthermore, the socio-cultural dimension is found to harbour two different aspects: liberalism or conservatism with regard to traditional morality and liberalism or conservatism with regard to the idea of a national culture.This thesis also studies how individuals tend to combine opinions from the two dimensions into tangible constellations of opinions.
7.
Fors, Filip, 1981-
(author)
Lycklig? : Sju studier om välbefinnandets och livstillfredsställelsens bestämningsfaktorer
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Quality of life is often defined in terms of happiness. Happiness can be divided into two components; a cognitive and evaluating form of happiness named life satisfaction and a more emotional form of happiness named affective well-being. The aim of empirical happiness studies is to survey which factors that influence life satisfaction and affective well-being. Despite the fact that the purpose of happiness studies is to understand which factors that impact these two forms of happiness, previous studies have, however, almost exclusively been focused on factors that impact life satisfaction. Whether determinants of life satisfaction and affective well-being are different and if there are factors that are especially important for affective well-being is hence uncertain on the basis of previous research. The first and main question of the dissertation revolves around the attempt to answer these questions. More specifically, this thesis examine the relationship between the two forms of happiness and socioeconomic status, social relationships, health, recreational activities, personality traits and context of society of an individual. These questions are analyzed using statistical data from the European Social Survey and the Swedish SOM-survey.The results of this dissertation indicate that the relationship between different determinants and the two forms of happiness, systematically differ. First and foremost, many important aspects of socioeconomic status, social relationships and societal factors are shown to be more related to life satisfaction than affective well-being. Some aspects of health and personality, on the other hand, show a stronger relation with affective well-being compared to life satisfaction.Besides investigating whether the determinants of life satisfaction and affective well-being diverge, the aim of the dissertation is also to answer whether peoples personality traits and personal values, affect what significance life circumstances have for life satisfaction and affective well-being of the individual. The results of the dissertation indicate that both personality traits, as well as values, affect the significance of a number of different living conditions.In conclusion, the results of the dissertation indicate that the study of people’s happiness should be balanced by studying life satisfaction and affective well-being separately. Furthermore, the study of individual differences in personality traits and personal values can extend the understanding of how living conditions influence life satisfaction and affective well-being of individuals. This knowledge can, in turn, contribute to important awareness about how people’s life satisfaction and affective well-being can be promoted both on a personal as well as on a social level.
8.
Kantelius, Hannes, 1973
(author)
Inhyrningens logik - konsekvenser för individ och organisation
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the consequences of the use of temporary agency work from an individual- and organisational perspective. The thesis is built upon a multidisciplinary theoretical framework including flexibility strategies, the organisation of work, psychosocial working environment, work-based learning, employability and flexicurity. The empirical data comes from qualitative case studies from both work agencies and user firms, encompassing some 65 interviews, and a survey study of white-collar agency workers’ perception of security (n=533). Based upon the empirical findings, some contributions are made. Firstly, the logic of using temporary agency workers has been identified. This logic may have profound consequences for both individuals and organisations. For agency workers it may lead to a lack of competence and skill development in their work. This will most likely result in a low perceived employability for agency workers. For user firm employees, a high turnover of agency worker may lead to increased levels of strain at work, if the turnover results in continuous training of newcomers. On an organisational level, the logic of using temporary agency workers has an impact on what potential for flexibility a certain staffing strategy entails. Secondly, the organisational mechanisms identified explain the risk displacement between the user firm and the work agency, and what actual forms of flexibility a certain staffing strategy entails. The risk displacement is in itself also dependent on whether the user firm is aware of the logic of using temporary agency workers. If not taken into consideration, this logic may instead lead to unforeseen and unwanted states of inflexibility and/or instability. However, when taken into consideration, the logic may be-come an incentive to the development of the staffing strategy and to organisational learning. Thirdly, the thesis has shown that the long-term strategic use of agency workers may lead to a user firm achieving a so-called double flexibility, including both numerical and functional flexibility. This strategy and its work organisational outcome may lead to the blurring of the border between core and peripheral workers. Thus, this thesis has also shown that Atkinson’s (1984) work still may be useful in understanding the consequences of agency work on both an individual and an organisational level. Fourthly, the thesis has shown how both temporary work agencies and user firms have a dual responsibility, and likely also dual gains, in providing agency workers with the security dimensions associated with flexicurity. However, employment security, or employability, seems to be the most important aspect of security in today’s labour market. Lastly, the thesis has shown the great impact user firms have on the temporary staffing industry market. The staffing strategies chosen by user firms has a major impact on the working conditions of the agency workers, with the risk of an increased segmentation either between agency workers and other forms of employment, or within the group of temporary agency workers.
9.
Larsson, Jörgen, 1966
(author)
Studier i tidsmässig välfärd - med fokus på tidsstrategier och tidspolitik för småbarnsfamiljer
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The experience of time pressure is widespread in Swedish society. The aim of this dissertation is to develop knowledge about the possibilities of increasing temporal welfare among families with small children. The dissertation consists of an introduction, with an analysis of time-related con-cepts and three different papers that pose different research questions using different data and thus illuminating the topic from various perspectives. During the last half-century, a large number of different words have emerged which pertain to the experience of a shortage of time. The meaning of these is, however, often unclear. There is also a lack of structurally relevant time-related concepts. The introduction of the dissertation de-velops and discusses the concepts of temporal welfare, time pressure, temporal satisfaction, time strategies and time politics. Paper I is a qualitative categorisation of advice on avoiding time pressure provided in six dif-ferent self-help books. Some advice can be related to different time management categories, like streamlining activities and buying services. Other identified categories focus on life management strategies, such as setting limits to time-consuming aspirations e.g. regarding career success. Questioning personal aspirations in areas such as work and consumption appears to be an ade-quate way of avoiding time pressure, but this is a challenging task since these areas are important for one’s identity and for social acceptance. Paper II is a quantitative analysis of time pressure, based on time use data from Statistics Swe-den covering 3400 respondents. Results show that 47 percent of all individuals, with children liv-ing at home, often experience difficulties managing everything that has to be done – the corre-sponding number is 31 percent for individuals without children. Based on an interpretation of the statistical analysis, it can be expected that the following changes would reduce time pressure: re-duced over-time work, use of a Swedish parent’s legal right to work part-time, moving from a detached house to an apartment, buying services and a strict time-based division between the par-ents over child responsibility. Paper III analyses part-time work among fathers. Quantitative analysis of data for 20 000 par-ents, with children of an age between 2-7 years, shows that 28 percent of mothers and 2 percent of fathers have chosen to work 30-36 hours per week because they have children. Thus gender im-balance is more severe for parental part-time work than for parental leave. The analysis also in-cludes 14 in-depth interviews with fathers working part-time. A father’s use of part-time rights within the Swedish welfare system can be understood as a way to reconcile identifications as a professional and as a present father. However, in order for fathers to choose to work part-time, they need to have sufficient prerequisites regarding e.g. income, individual reflexivity, partner support and acceptance in the workplace. The main finding in this dissertation is that paternal part-time work is often a powerful way to increase temporal welfare for families with small children. It also has the potential to be a gender progressive strategy. Today, paternal part-time work is mainly practised by well-educated profes-sionals and time politics is needed if this social innovation is to become more widespread in Swedish society.
10.
Lindström, Jonas, 1971-
(author)
Drömmen om den nya staden : Stadsförnyelse i det postsovjetiska Riga
2012
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The aim of this thesis is to shed light on Post-Soviet urban renewal and people’s perceptions of changes that recently occurred in both the city of Riga and Latvian society more generally since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. More specifically, this study examines how these perceptions are manifest in Riga’s ongoing renewal. Through applying aspects of continuity and discontinuity, I illustrate how the urban renewal of Post-Soviet Riga uncovers imaginary and emotional aspects of the city and how these are interpreted in relation to the past, present and the future. This study introduces the concept “urban postperestroika” and one important difference between this concept and the more common concepts post-socialist, post-communist or post-Soviet is that the former highlights a process while the latter ones largely highlight the state. The starting point is how urban phantasmagorias – contemporary dreams of the future of the city – elucidate urban renewal processes in general and urban postperestroika in particular. In Riga’s ongoing renewal processes I identify three main trajectories in relation to aspects of the past, present and the future: de-Sovietization, globalization and Lettification. Together, these three trajectories constitute an engine that produces urban phantasmagorias.The dissolution of the Soviet Union has given rise to notions that everything is “back to normal” again, and these notions of normalcy have influenced urban renewal processes. The dilemmas, as shown in this thesis, concern the Soviet period and its remaining psychical structure which give the impression of being too conspicuous to eliminate and too contradictory to assimilate. The study illustrates the difficulties of building new urban and societal structures on the remains of pre-existing orders. Such difficulties of course lead to contradictory and ambiguous world views and to new dysfunctional situations that have to be managed in the future.
