1.
Becevic, Zulmir
(författare)
Utsatthetens röster
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Den här avhandlingen handlar om ungdomar i samhäilsvård och deras livsberättelser, om erfarenheter av att växa upp under kaotiska livsvillkor som karaktäriseras av psykiska problem, trasiga relationer, och andra fotmer av social utsatthet. Syftet är att undersöka hur ungdomar som är placerade i samhällsvård använder sina erfarenheteter för att skapa mening och sammanhang kring sig själva och sina liv. Genom att fokusera på röster, interaktioner och emotioner synliggörs livsvillkor samtidigt som kunskapen om ungdomar i samhällsvård och deras livserfarenheter fördjupas. Ungdomarnas berättelser analyseras i relation till identitet, relationer och emotioner, och framtiden. Avhandlingen tar avstamp i en interaktionistisk och erfarenhetsorienterad ansats, som ger ontologiskt företräde åt den tolkande, meningsskapande, kännande och betiittande individen och individens upplevelse av den sociala verkligheten. Avhandlingen bygger på empiriskt material insamlat genom semistrukturerade livsberättelseintervjuer på fyra samhällsvårdande institutioner. Sammanlagt genomfördes 20 enskilda imervjuer med 13 deltagare, sex tjejer och sju killar i åldrarna 13-21. Analysen har fokuserat på tolkningar av interaktioner som berättelsernas grundläggande byggstenar, vilka på olika sätt spelat en viktig roll i berättarnas syn på sig själva i relation till en bredare social kontext. Analysen visar hur erfatenheter kopplade till problem och avvikelser görs till dominerande erfarenheter genom vilka berättarna förstår sig själva och sina liv. Dessa berättelsers övergripande funktion är att skapa ordning som väger upp mot den sociala oordning som berättarna på ett existentiellt plan upplever att de befinner sig i och behöver förklara och motivera. Resultaten tyder på att tillvaron i institutionell kontext tenderar all förstärka synen på en själv och ens liv som problematiskt och avvikande. Detta ses som en inbyggd motsättning i den problemhmterancle verksamhet vars övergripa nde syfte är att kompensera for och "arbeta bort" problem. Analysen visar att tillvaron i en institutionell kontext istället förstärker orinteringen mot erfarenheter av problematisk karaktär. Andra resultat är att berättelser om relationer får sin huvudsakliga karaktäristik från negativa, emotionella erfarenheter, vilket pekar på vikten av att etablera tillitsfulla relationer i utformningen av hjälpinsatser. Slutligen, berättelser om framtida planer och förväntningar handlar i huvudsak om anpassning till traditionella normer. Livet efter samhällsvården handlar om att passa in i vad som definierns som samtidens vedertagna syn på normalitet och ordning.
2.
Hultmann, Ole
(författare)
Child Psychiatric Patients Affected by Intimate Partner Violence and Child Abuse – Disclosure, Prevalence and Consequences
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The overall aims of this thesis were (1) to document the prevalence of child abuse and exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) among child and adolescent mental health care (CAM) patients, (2) to study the clinicians’ attitudes towards asking routinely about IPV, (3) to compare psychiatric symptoms between patients with (a) experience of family violence (child abuse and/or exposure to IPV) (b) experience of violence outside the family and (c) patients with no such experiences, and (4) compare psychiatric symptoms between patients who had both witnessed IPV and been subjected to child abuse with those either subjected to child abuse or those who had witnessed IPV, but not both. An additional aim in study IV was to explore the importance of concordance/discordance between children’s and parents’ reports of occurrence of IPV. Data for the studies were collected among 9- to 17-year-old patients, their parents, and clinicians (psychologists, social workers and nurses) in an outpatient CAM unit. Study I showed that routine questions identified many more IPV cases than expected from the known prevalence rate on the unit. Routine questions about IPV were difficult to implement, however. In study II clinicians were interviewed about their difficulties in asking routine questions about IPV using a written questionnaire. Their responses showed that they were anxious about damaging their relationship with the parent, anxious about putting the mother in danger of recurrent IPV and self-critical about their performance in this area. The questionnaire facilitates gathering information through asking routine questions about IPV as a matter of routine, but its implementation requires management support and family intakes complemented by meetings in private. In study III almost half of the consecutively enrolled patients reported exposure to family violence. Patients exposed to family violence in combination with exposure to violence outside the family had more general self-reported symptoms and more peer-problems and were more often assigned a PTSD diagnosis than those not exposed to violence either in or outside the family. Family violence was rated more negatively than exposure to violence outside the family. Patients affected by violence both in and outside the family rated the impact of violence more negatively than those affected by family violence only. The results indicate that experiences of violence outside the family are important to consider when assessing patients exposed to family violence. In study IV 14% of the patients reported abuse only, 14% reported exposure to IPV only, and 22% reported both (were doubly exposed). Patients exposed to IPV only or to child abuse only did not differ on psychiatric symptoms or diagnoses, with each other, or with patients with no such violent experiences. The doubly exposed patients, in contrast, had more self-reported general problems and conduct symptoms and rated the impact of those events as more negative than patients who were exposed only to IPV or to child abuse and patients with no experiences of violence. Doubly exposed patients were also more often assigned a diagnosis of PTSD compared to those abused only or exposed to IPV only. The negative impact of the events post trauma was rated as more severe when children and parents agreed on IPV. Children who reported IPV when their parent did not were more often assigned a mood disorder diagnosis. The results are discussed and implications for clinicians in CAM are offered.
3.
Jonsson, Björn
(författare)
Graffitins spänningsfält. En studie av graffitikultur och interventioner på en lokal arena
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The overall aim of the thesis is to explore and analyse graffiti in a translocal context, by asking questions about the actors' view on activity, meaning and interaction. The study has been located to a physical place, Jönköping, where actors with different interest perform graffiti-related activity. The study is based on qualitative data where participant observation and interviews form the two main methods. The study also utilizes other materials, such as newspaper articles and municipal documents. Central for the theoretical orientation is that empirical data has been collected that is first-hand information on how the actors themselves find meaning in graffiti. This implies a constructivist perspective on knowledge where meaning shifts depending on whose perspective is analysed. Theoretically, the study also is linked to Becker and his arguments that research in deviance must take notice of the interaction between actors who are perceived to deviate and those actors who respond to the deviant group.The actors consist of two main groups; graffiti writers and interveners. Graffiti writers mainly consist of young men who describe themselves as belonging to a global graffiti culture. The word “interveners” has bee selected as a generic name for actors who are involved in graffiti issues due to professional duties. Similar to the graffiti writers' interveners find the meaning in graffiti by actively select information from an “outside”, which corresponds with their professional commitment. The analysis links different approaches to perspectives of combating crime, confirming art and caring for the young men's socialisation. From those different understandings, three parallel patterns of interaction are observed. Interaction developed around graffiti as a crime has elements of a battle situation. From the graffiti writers' perspective, this fight is important when designing the local scene as an integral part of a global graffiti context. At the same time there are disadvantages managing an enemy. On a personal level, individual graffiti writers have to make an estimate how graffiti writing will affect life in the long term. Interaction developed around graffiti as an art form unites graffiti writers and interveners in an ideological consensus where graffiti can be seen as an art form that adds creative qualities to urban space. One significant difference is that the graffiti writers find the local arena as an important place. This local orientation is not necessary when actors from a cultural sector put attention on graffiti. Youth workers way of caring for graffiti writers follows a tradition of social work. This approach focuses the graffiti writers themselves and how to redirect them to accepted forms of artistic expression. The youth workers have good potential to make contact, but it seems difficult to establish long-term relations because graffiti writers themselves do not find it necessary to formalize graffiti as a scheduled activity.A conclusion made is that there is something locked up about graffiti issues because actors see graffiti from their "own" perspective, and at the same time they remain critical of alternative approaches. Somewhat contradictory to an interaction structured around distinctive perceptions, the study shows that actors express uncertainty about what they are doing. Such critical self-reflections seem to be perceived as personal objections and are not shared with others. This, together with the fact that interest in graffiti comes and goes in waves, adds ambivalence to the conflictual field of graffiti. The thesis ends with a hypothetical discussion of how the conflict level could change if graffiti would be met with a differentiated policy.
4.
Svensson, Malin, 1976
(författare)
Hoppet om en framtidsplats. Asylsökande barn i den svenska skolan
2017
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis explores how accompanied refugee and asylum-seeking children experience everyday life in Sweden. During the asylum process, as part of a policy for promoting ‘normal life’, these children have the same right to education as permanently resident children. An ethnographic approach brought out data from combining interviews with participant observation and visual material produced by children. Methodological inspiration was sought in the new sociology of childhood and in its potential to make an eclectic analysis of the empirical data. Study I explores how spatial and temporal dimensions theoretically may guide dialogue with refugee children and interpretation of their visual material. The findings point to how children negotiate opportunities for the future where everyday life takes place, and how conditions for education are perceived in relation to their future prospects. Inquiring into the meaning of school, Study II explores the sense of possibility as perceived by asylum-seeking children, and shows how school is a social place that provides structure, a sense of belonging and a learning environment. Paradoxically, schools’ limited attention to the children’s predicament risked accentuating the ambivalent social position of being an asylum seeker and thus weakening the benefits of their right to education. Study III examines the challenges teachers face, as street-level bureaucrats, in catering to the needs of asylumseeking pupils and demonstrates how conflicting goals of education policy and asylum policy conditioned teachers’ work and risked undermining the compensatory pedagogical task. In sum, through analyses that encompass how an unsecured residence permit does not prevent children aspiring to their futures, as envisioned in the present, creating a home can be understood in terms of hope. While the asylum process conditions ideas of the future, the thesis contributes to an understanding of how it also shapes how children and teachers, as social actors, construct what is considered to be ‘normal life’ during the asylum process.
5.
Svärd, Veronica, 1977
(författare)
Children at risk? Hospital social workers’ and their colleagues’ assessment and reporting experiences
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis explores factors that influence professional discretion in Swedish hospital professionals’ assessment of children who may be at risk of harm. It is based on two data samplings, interviews with fourteen hospital social workers and a questionnaire with 295 responding physicians, nurses, nurse assistants and hospital social workers. The theoretical frame consists of theories of professions, sociology of emotions and normativity. Although all professionals are mandated to report suspicions about children who may be at risk to social services, the findings show that a majority of the participants had never made a report. However, there were major differences between the professions: hospital social workers and physicians made most reports, while it was unusual for nurses and nurse assistants to report. This is explained by children at risk being everyone’s but no single profession’s responsibility within health care – which shapes an informal pattern of jurisdiction, split between physicians and hospital social workers. The professional group to which a person belongs was shown to affect how other factors influence assessment. The lower the status of the group, the less knowledge about the issue and the available organisational support its members have, and the more emotions influenced the decisions not to report. While hospital social workers are less strongly affected by emotions in decisions not to report, the deeper qualitative analysis shows that assessment tended to follow a ‘logic of normativity’ where their worries stuck to ‘warning signs’ associated with gender stereotypes or unprivileged groups of parents. Critical reflexivity could disturb this logic as well as the silence of normality, meaning that children from privileged groups may not be given enough attention. Hospital social workers were also found to take different positions in their inter-professional teams – active, reflective or passive – relating to three institutionalized norms of action – juridical, therapeutic and medical. A small number followed the medical norm, but that had the most dangerous consequences for children who sometimes were not dealt with appropriately despite severe signs of harm. The overall analysis in this thesis suggests that theories of professional discretion should take into account factors such as the context, inter-professional relations, emotions and normativity to enhance the understanding of what influences assessment and decisions.
6.
Alstam, Kristina
(författare)
Parents, Power, Poverty: On choice and responsibility on two parental communities
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This dissertation explores discourses about parenthood and subject ideals as they manifest in two Swedish parental web communities. The aim is to examine the perceived division of responsibility between the parents themselves and the institutions of the welfare state and furthermore to map out and deconstruct tensions between demands understood to be assigned to the parent and to society, respectively. The empirical material consists of extracts from web community conversations collected between 2006 and 2015. They are analysed using a deconstructive approach and by applying analytical tools stemming from discourse psychology. This means that the texts inserted in the parental web communities are investigated both for how they are rhetorically composed as well as for how the writer in question positions herself in relation to ‘facts’. Theoretically, the material is probed by three large concepts that have guided the analysis – those of discourse, power and distinctions. They are broken down to more delimitated concepts such as governmentality, discipline and technologies of the self, derived from the works of Michel Foucault, and distinction and misrecognition, which originate from Pierre Bourdieu. Perspectives of class and gender are intertwined in the analysis. The analysis reveals a core metaphor about parenthood that seems to organise the content: Parenthood is conceptualized as work. The notion about parenthood as work is a residue from a more comprehensive ideal of the citizen-subject as morally upright, self-interested and hard-working, and from a view point about the world that emphasises the mental capacities of the subject and downplays structural inequalities or maldistribution of resources. In the web community conversations the parent appears to have a particular task assignment: To deliver human raw material (in the shape of the child) to a society full of demands. Hence, there is a bond established between the parent and the state/the society. In community conversations a notion of a particular societal promise manifests: If the subjects receive equal possibilities of refining themselves they now have the responsibility of transforming the possibilities into a good life. The ideals for how to achieve the proper moral refinement are visible in the interpretative repertoires of the communities. The repertoires are versions of the world and prescriptions for how the world idealistically ought to function. The core repertoire was labelled Mind over matter. It summarises community opinions about the relation between interior qualities of the subject and external factors of the world and it stipulates that things that take place inside of the human being (in the psyche or the soul) affect the material world, not the other way around. Three other repertoires regulate conceptions about the ideal subject. The first, Morality comes first, regulates the preferred constitution of the subject (who should focus on becoming morally sound and self-interested instead of formulating demands directed at the welfare state). The second, You should reap what you sow, revolves around expectations (the subject should expect returns that relate precisely to the amount of time or work that she invested in a particular venture). The third repertoire, Don’t take the easy way out governs the discursively preferred work ethic of the subject (when working on one’s refinement and when wanting to achieve something one cannot allow oneself any type of short-cuts). In the empiric material no repertoires are found that regulate society’s tasks or responsibilities. Municipalities, political parties, boards and committees, law enforcement or taxes are absent as perceived prime movers of a subject. This discursive soil is the foundation of the prevailing community contempt for poor subjects, long-term ill, or unemployed, who are considered manifesting defect subjectivity and having neglected the duty to work with oneself. Economic situation is disentangled from the structural position of class and class is instead read as culture and behaviour, which is thought of as possible to modify. The dissertation finds analytical connections between the preferred ideals and the transfer of a societal crisis embodied in neoliberal austerity programmes to a sense of uneasiness amongst the parents in community conversation, who imagine society falling apart, not because of austerity regimes but because of the people depending on them.
7.
Bjereld, Ylva, 1984
(författare)
If they only knew. Bullying victimization among children and youth in the Nordic countries
2017
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Bullying is a social and public health problem recognized across the globe. The aim with this thesis is to describe and understand bullying victimization of children and youth in a social-ecological perspective with the focus on prevalence, mental health, social relations and disclosing bullying victimization. This thesis includes four studies based on three different data sources: the parent-reported Nordic Study of Children’s Health and Wellbeing (NordChild, Studies I-II), interviews with Swedish youth (Study III) and the child-reported Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey (HBSC, Study IV). As well as descriptive statistics, the data from NordChild was analysed with logistic regression (Studies I, II) and the HBCS data was analysed in a multi-level logistic regression. The interview study was based on grounded theory, analysed by two-step coding. The results of this thesis showed that parent-reported bullying victimization had decreased from 1996 (21.7 percent) to 2011 (19.2 percent) in the combined Nordic countries, but immigrant children were bullied more often than native children. Between 29.2–44.3 percent of the bullied children had mental health problems, varying between age and gender. A protective factor that gave higher odds of bullied children being mentally healthy was having several close friends. Not all parents knew whether their child was being bullied, and children with unclear status regarding whether they were being bullied had higher levels of mental health problems than non-victims. When bullied children disclosed victimization it was not simply a matter of telling or not telling, it was a circular process in transition between hidden and open victimization. Victims withheld disclosure of victimization for reasons associated with personal identity and/or reasons originating in distrust of adults. Bullied children, especially frequent victims, had higher odds of having poor relations with their parents and teachers than non-victims. The social-ecological perspective is used to understand the interplay between individual factors and the social context where the bullying exists. The results from the four studies is understood at different system levels; in the interaction with and between peers, family and school, and in interplay with norms and attitudes about victimization and bullying in the broader society.
8.
Björk, Sofia, 1979
(författare)
Gender and Emotions in Family Care – Understanding masculinity and gender equality in Sweden
2017
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis addresses care responsibilities in families as an arena for gender reproduction and change, primarily in the Swedish context, which includes a long history of gender equality policies, and broad public support for ideals of gender equality. The overall aim is to contribute to understanding of how gender continues to be given relevance in family caregiving when caregivers, in their efforts to form liveable and emotionally sustainable lives, make them-selves intelligible in relation to sometimes conflicting norms and ideals of care, work and gender equality. The analysis draws on interviews with working parents and middle-aged sons and daughters caring for their elderly parents in Sweden. The theoretical framework outlines how gender is done, both in general terms and specifically for caregivers, to become intelligible in relation to gen-dered norms. As caregiving is a gendered practice with salient moral and emotional dimensions, negotiations of intelligibility in relation to caregiving also have emotional consequences. Emotions are understood as shaped by norms, while norms simultaneously gain influence through the emotions they evoke and prescribe, thereby connecting micro-level feelings with macro-level structures. The notion of liveability is used to link the concept of intelligibility to emotions. A liveable life is understood as a life supported by norms. The thesis is based on three studies, designated Studies I-III. Study I fo-cused on fathers’ part-time work and negotiations of moral intelligibility in relation to gendered norms. In Study II, sons’ involvement in the care for their aging parents was analysed with a focus on masculinities. In study III, working parents were studied to analyse how norms of parenthood, work, and gender equality were made relevant through emotions and how these norms could be negotiated through emotion work. By examining how gender continues to be made relevant in family care ar-rangements, despite widely shared gender equality ideals, this thesis contrib-utes to the understanding of stability and change in normative structures. Although ideals of gender equality are widely shared in Sweden, conflicting norms also remain. These norms continue to have impact through the emo-tions they evoke – even for those who want to liberate themselves from them. The interviewed caregivers had to manage ambivalence between emotionally powerful norms regarding work and caregiving. The ideals of gender equality did not always reduce this ambivalence, and could even amplify it. To cope with their everyday prioritizations the caregivers needed to manage emotions when failing to live up to some norms and ideals. Transgressions of norms had to be made intelligible to make life liveable. The concept of empathic imagination was used to explore how caregivers, by managing their imagina-tions of the situations and emotions of those they cared for, could also man-age their own emotions to make their care arrangements and lives feel livea-ble. Ideals of gender equality did not herald the end of gendered expectations. Instead gendered understandings of family care could be reproduced through the doing of gender equality. The notions of doing, re-doing, and undoing gender were useful for analysing the complexity of gender accomplishment and how reproduction and change sometimes occurred at the same time. Ideals of gender equality also included gendered emotion regimes which, in combination with ideals of individualization regarding child care and career, generated different emotional situations for mothers and fathers. Since ideals of gender equality are rooted in certain normative positions, they were not as available or as relevant in all positions or contexts.
9.
Borelius, Ulf, 1961
(författare)
Om befrielseteologins uppkomst i Latinamerika. En sociologisk analys av religiös förändring. : On the Rise of Liberation Theology in Latin America. A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change.
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The overall purpose of the present study is to contribute to our understanding of religious change and to an explanation of the phenomenon. The emergence of the theology of liberation is an important case of religious change in Latin America during the 1960s. Hence, the focus of this study is on how and why the theology of liberation emerged. The theoretical framework is primarily based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s key concepts of field, habitus and capital. This framework is used as an alternative to the dominant theories of religious change, that is, the secularization theory and the theory of religious economies. The data come from a variety of sources, including interviews, electronic and conventional letters, archives, books and articles. The most important conclusion is that Liberation Theology emerged within the Catholic Student Movement, as a product of collective work. More specifically, it arose as part of a reproduction strategy, aimed at defending the Church’s position in the national fields of power and at strengthening the Catholic Student Movement in the struggle for symbolic power at the universities. In the early 1960s, the Catholic Student Movement thought that the primary threat to the Church came from Marxism and Marxist groups. This threat was fought by means of involvement in the struggle for social change and development. Later, the commitment to development became a commitment to liberation. This commitment was shared with Marxist groups, but the Student Movement members simultaneously distinguished themselves from these groups as militant Catholics. The theology of liberation emerged when the Catholic Student Movement discovered new aspects of the Gospel as a result of its commitment to liberation, of its efforts to mobilize more Christians in the struggle for liberation, and of its pastoral care for radical Catholic students.
10.
Corin, Linda
(författare)
Job Demands, Job Resources, and Consequences for Managerial Sustainability in the Public Sector – A Contextual Approach
2016
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
ABSTRACT The aims of this thesis were threefold: to explore and increase knowledge of managerial working conditions in Swedish municipalities, to extend the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, and to provide information that public sector decision-makers and human resources departments can use and apply in promoting sustainable managerial working conditions. The argument in this thesis is that a contextual perspective on managerial work is needed, entailing a shift in focus from managers and their individual differences, to the conditions that public sector managers work under. In order to address these questions, a strategic sample of organizations and managers that allowed for comparison and examined systematic differences and similarities among them was used, accompanied by contextual quantitative and qualitative methods that included both subjective appraisals and more objective assessments and data on several levels. The main theoretical framework was based on the latest development in the work stress field, where theoretical and empirical insights from several decades have been developed into the JD-R model. The model takes a balanced approach in explaining negative as well as positive aspects of occupational well-being. Unlike previous models, the JD-R model can be adapted and tailored to the specific context and study group. This thesis comprises four empirical studies with specific aims. In the first study, the main aim was to explore different types of naturally occurring psychosocial work situations for municipal managers, based on the combination of job demands and job resources, by means of cluster analysis. Certain focus was also given to investigating how the work situations could be differentiated regarding sustainability indicators for managerial health, motivation, and performance. In the second study, these psychosocial work situations were followed up 2 years later, and the main aim was to investigate how the situations longitudinally predict managerial turnover using logistic regression and thereby identify groups that are at a high risk or a low risk for turnover, actual as well as intended. The main aim of the third study was to establish how the span of control – that is, the number of subordinates per manager as one of several possible organizational determinants of psychosocial working conditions – affects operational public sector managers’ job demands, using multilevel regression analysis. In the fourth and final study, the main aim was to deepen the understanding of first-line human service managers’ work assignment and psychosocial working conditions by qualitatively and externally assessing the job demands and job resources as well as the balance between them, through work content analysis, in order to provide explanations of the current work strain of this group of managers. The first overall conclusion of this thesis is that public sector managers work in a wide array of diverse situations, including balanced as well as unbalanced psychosocial working conditions in terms of job demands and job resources. An unbalanced work situation, characterized by a lack of correspondence between the job demands posed and the job resources provided, was found to be a reality for a large number of the managers, especially within human services. The psychosocial working conditions were found to be related to consequences for managerial sustainability in terms of health, performance, motivation, and turnover. In addition, the contextual approach applied contributed to identifying organizational and structuring factors – in other words, the type of service the manager works in and the manager’s span of control, managerial position, gender, age, and managerial experience – that provide reasons for the variation in psychosocial working conditions and their consequences. Taken together, the results can provide guidance for actions to be taken in order to promote sustainable psychosocial working conditions for public sector managers, thus reducing both significant individual and organizational costs.
