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Andersson, Berit
(author)
Att förstå drogmissbruk : Praktiken, situationen, processen
1991
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
While the purpuse of the study is to understand drug abuse through experiences told by individuals in life history interviews, the analyses moves beyond the level of descriptive life history. The interview material is interpreted within a theoretical framework, where the multidimensional character of drug abuse is considered. Three perspectives are applied in the analyses: (1) Practise: Different forms of drug use are seen as socially constructed activity spheres, practises, to which individuals are reqruited and in which they qualify. 2) Context: Drug abuse is also determined by a special life situation, i.e. a combination of physical, social and psykological cirkumstances. (3) Process: Individual drug abuse is finally seen in relation to the individual´s life course, where new life conditions bring about changes in drug use, and where life conditions are constantly affected by drug use.
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Ericsson, Thomas, 1946-
(author)
Systematisk arbetsvärdering : ett lönesättningsinstrument i närbild
1991
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The subject of the thesis is systematic job evaluation for purposes of local wage determination for blue-collar jobs within the Swedish industry. The method is examined from a general wage-determination as well as from a gender equality perspective. The thesis is based on e.g. documents from the parties, on interviews with representatives of employers and unions at the central and local level, and on interviews with persons participating in job evaluation work in some companies. An analysis is made of one of the most common job evaluation systems, including the changes it has undergone since the 1950s.The use of a job evaluation system implies that a linkage is made between /certain/job demands and wages. It also means that this linkage is made in a systematic way. Systematics might, in its turn, imply consistency, rigidity and explicity. The thesis examines the significance of a linkage demands-wages and of consistency, rigidity and explicity for the parties' attitudes towards the method; as a purpose or as a means to achieve other goals. It demonstrates that the employers' problems to recruit labour and a desire for an increased wage differentiation has constituted a major reason for using the systems.The job evaluation system examined does not consider, or gives low weight to, certain demands which are common in female-dominated jobs.Various circumstances in the evaluation work process which provide it with scope for consideration are identified. This scope for consideration may disfavour female-dominated jobs. The thesis claims that the scope for consideration yet is less than in an unsystematic overall assessment of différencies in job demands between various jobs.A completed systematic job evaluation offers a basis for speaking of "work of equal value" in the sense of the Swedish Equal Opportunities Act, and forces the employer to explain possible différencies in the terms of employment when the points allotted are equal. It is unclear whether the court has to accept the application of the system made by the parties, or whether it could make its own evaluation with the same system. So far, no case concerning work of equal value has been settled in court.
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Halleröd, Björn, 1960-
(author)
Den svenska fattigdomen : en studie av fattigdom och socialbidragstagande
1991
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
In the thesis three main questions are analyzed: (a) How should poverty be defined? (b) What are the empirical implications of the choice of definition? (c) Why did the number of people, receiving social assistance increase during the first half of the 1980s?The development of social assistance in Sweden during the twentieth century and some of the more important studies of social assistance in Sweden are presented. The presentation is followed by a theoretical exposition of Swedish and international poverty research. The focus of attention is on how poverty is defined and measured and a classification of different approaches in poverty research is made. It is also emphasized that it is impossible to give an objective definition of poverty.Thereafter an empirical analysis that compares three different poverty definitions is made. The first definition defines the poor as those whose disposal income falls under the standard norm for social assistance. In the second definition the poor are defined as those who experience 'multiple deprivation'. The final definition regards those who receive social assistance as the poor. The data-set used was the Survey of Living Conditions conducted by Statistics Sweden in 1986 and 1987. It is shown that about 21 percent of the Swedish population between the ages 18 and 84 are poor in accordance with one of these definitions. Some 3.4 percent are poor according to at least two definitions, while only half a percent of the population is poor according to all three definitions. The results demonstrate that the choice of poverty definition is crucial in determining which section of the population is going to be classified as poor. An analysis of the causes of poverty reveals that the causal explanation of poverty is also dependent upon which definition is used. Thus, the concept of poverty does not refer to a single social phenomenon. Poverty is a heterogeneous concept and the choice of definition will decide which social phenomenon that is studied.The thesis closes with an emphasis on those who receive social assistance. First time recipients from 1980 are compared with first time recipients from 1985. There was no indication that the increase in social assistance during the first half of the 1980s is connected with any radically new patterns in the distribution of recipients. Unemployment seems to have been the primary explanation for the occurrence of social assistance for both these groups. It must, nevertheless be pointed out that a recipience of social assistance was usually connected with a complex situation in the individual case.
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Kristinsdóttir, Guðrún
(author)
Child welfare and professionalization
1991
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This study deals with the qualities of professionalization of public child welfare. Its relationto general social policy is emphasized. The potentials of welfarism are explored as a part ofthe study of crisis of legitimacy and rationality prevalent in welfare systems.The special situation of child welfare in Iceland with a large variation in local socialservices forms an important background of the work. This is related to sociologicaltheorizing and a position taken turns against viewing professionalization as an accumulatingprocess of power as well as the opposite, the blindness of belief in extensive professionalismas a means for creation of "the good life". The line of "family-state-individual" is traced inrelation to the emergence of social work. Child welfare is found to be imprisoned bytradition, since the idea behind children's placement is not thoroughly explored. The issueof a noted technifying and expansive tendency of professional action in cases of child abuseand custodial disputes is treated. A biased treatment of the family is here called "the childwelfare trap". The search for qualities in what traditionally is identified as "bad parenting" infoster care is suggested to be a potential to transcend central dilemmas of the field.A documentation study of poor relief and the support of mothers in the capital of Iceland,Reykjavik of th e 1930's showed an early coexistence of administrative and client-centeredapproaches. In a survey of records on children's placements in the capital of Icela nd,Reykjavik, it was confirmed that this work in an organization with professional employeeswas predominantly bureaucratic and not child-centered, also other results were similar asfound in Nordic studies. In an interview study of two small towns a passivity was shown toprevail in a laymen dominated child welfare practice at the cost of c hildren's needs, whileschool and day care provided support for families. Three significant achievements emergingin interplay with professionalization of social child care, found valid for the Icelandic çase,are seen as having lead to an increased societal sensitivity to deal with human problems.This has created a new acknowledgement of children's right to well-being despite seriouspractical limitations. Due to coexistent conflicting professional practices, a relative absenceof reg ulation and modernizing of services occurring simultaneously with the revision ofwelfarism, a space of action is presumed to exist for shaping of an outline of new practices.Theoretically opposing views on professionalization act as a kind of negative dialectic, onecentered on reproduction of existing practice, the other by presenting a gloominess of anempty-handed doctrine. The analyses of societal changes and child welfare are seen asfrequently ignoring the search for potentials to hand over power to children, not only bygender-blinaness, but by an age-neutrality which excludes children. The "deepening ofwelfare state crisis" is presumed to constitute a required possibility of a new kind of selfreflectionamong professionals. It is suggested that qualitative aspects of commonlyaccepted societal dichotomies will be challenged by the revision of welfare systems and thatthis creates a potential of a reshaping of pr actices, including the support-control dilemmaof c hild welfare.
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