1.
Scarpa, Simone, 1976-
(författare)
The spatial manifestation of inequality : residential segregation in Sweden and its causes
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis examines the relationship between income inequality and residential segregation in Swedish cities. In recent years, in Sweden, much attention has been given to the direction of causality from residential segregation to income inequality. Residential segregation is considered to lead to a differentiation of opportunities between neighbourhoods and, therefore, to be a contributing factor to or even a major cause of income inequality in cities. The thesis focuses on the opposite direction of causality, from income inequality to residential segregation. In fact, residential segregation can also be seen as the spatial manifestation of existing disparities in income distribution, since residential location choices are always (although not exclusively) made within a predetermined framework of economic constraints.Specifically, two research questions are addressed in this thesis. What institutional factors, in the Swedish context, favour the transformation of the social divide between specific population subgroups into a spatial divide between those groups? To what extent and in what ways does income inequality contribute to the development of residential segregation in Swedish cities?The first part of the thesis explains why Swedish cities are characterized by higher levels of residential segregation than cities of other countries characterized by higher levels of income inequality. The historical and comparative analyses developed in the first two studies indicate that it is not so much the magnitude of immigration that accounts for this difference between Swedish cities and their more unequal counterparts in other countries but, rather, the institutional factors influencing the modes of incorporation of immigrants into cities.The second part of the thesis analyses how, in recent decades, the increase in income inequality has influenced residential segregation patterns in Malmö and in the three major Swedish metropolitan areas. The third and the fourth study show that, during the studied period, the widening of income disparities between neighbourhoods mirrored the general upward trend in income inequality in the population. The growth of the immigrant population contributed only slightly to this trend and income inequality was primarily driven by changes in the distribution of market incomes. During the late study period, however, income sorting processes have played a steadily more important role in contributing to economic residential segregation. Therefore, neighbourhood-based urban policies have not succeeded to reverse, or even just impede, the trend towards an increased spatial clustering of poverty and wealth in Swedish cities.
2.
Wesolowski, Katharina
(författare)
Maybe Baby? : Reproductive Behaviour, Fertility Intentions, and Family Policies in Post-communist Countries, with a Special Focus on Ukraine
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis studies different aspects of reproductive behaviour on the international, national, and local levels in post-communist countries. The main focus is Ukraine, where fertility rates are very low and the population is in severe decline. The studies contribute new knowledge about the applicability of a family policy typology developed on the basis of Western countries’ experience for post-communist countries, and about the influence of family policies on fertility levels in these countries. Moreover, the studies investigate whether and how macro-level influences impact on individuals’ reproductive behaviour. Four articles are included in the thesis:Family policies in Ukraine and Russia in comparative perspective analyses the institutional set-up of family policies in both countries and compares the findings to 31 other countries. The results show that Ukrainian family policies support a male-breadwinner type of family, while the benefit levels of Russian family policies are low, compelling families to rely on relatives or the childcare market.Family policies and fertility - Examining the link between family policy institutions and fertility rates in 33 countries 1995-2010 comparatively explores whether family policies have an effect on fertility rates across the case-countries. Pooled time-series regression analysis demonstrates that gender-egalitarian family policies are connected to higher fertility rates, but that this effect is smaller at higher rates of female labour force participation.To have or not to have a child? Perceived constraints on childbearing in a lowest-low fertility context investigates the influence of the perception of postmodern values, childcare availability and environmental pollution on individuals’ fertility intentions in a city in Eastern Ukraine. It is shown that women who already have a child perceive environmental pollution as a constraint on their fertility intentions.Prevalence and correlates of the use of contraceptive methods by women in Ukraine in 1999 and 2007 examines changes in the prevalence and the correlates of the use of contraceptive methods. The use of modern contraceptive methods increased during the period and the use of traditional methods decreased, while the overall prevalence did not change. Higher exposure to messages about family planning in the media is correlated with the use of modern contraceptive methods.
3.
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.
4.
Görtz, Daniel
(författare)
Etnifierade polispraktiker : Hur etnicitet görs i polisers vardag
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis analyzes how ethnicity is accomplished in the work of Swedish police officers. It draws on ethnographic data from participant observations and field interviews in Malmö and its theoretical framework is primarily based on ethnomethodology. Police officers – and others in their environment – are found to employ ethnicity and invoke it into interactions in a variety of ways: 1) redefining police-citizen interactions in friendly directions, 2) ethnic profiling, 3) strengthening police control over citizens, 4) questioning police legitimacy, 5) offering accounts for deviant behavior, 6) creating in-group solidarity among police officers by way of distancing oneself from norms of “anti-racist political correctness”. These and other uses of ethnicity vary between the ‘frontstage’, where police officers encounter other people, and the ‘backstage’, where police officers interact with their peers. Police officers treat ethnicity with a great deal of sensitivity in the frontstage region, but they speak more freely about it, and adopt an ironic attitude towards “political correctness”, in the back stage region. Ethnicity is found to hold a certain form of social tension that requires the participants of a police interaction to manage and respond to it, sometimes in a postponed fashion where events are discussed at a later time. The study also highlights ethnicity’s place within police culture and police organization in a more general sense. The police adopt a social code that the study calls “ironic knighthood”, where they maintain various heraldic, authoritative and militaristic aspects of their culture and organization but add a humorous and ironic twist. Actively using ethnicity is integral to the interests and incentives of this code. It is argued that ethnicity cannot be removed from the everyday practices of the police, and that a more viable goal of a critical sociology is to seek to carefully describe ethnified police practices so that they can be reflected upon, problematized and developed.
5.
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.
6.
Boethius, Susanne
(författare)
Män, våld och moralarbete : Rapporter från män som sökt behandling för våld i nära relationer
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
Men, violence and moral work- Reports from help-seeking men at treatment centers working with violence in close relationships Men’s violence against women is an extensive social problem. In the 1970s, a new kind of centers were established in the US and UK, focusing on treating men who had been violent against their wives or girlfriends, the aim which is to end the men’s violent behavior. In the 1980s the first center where violent men could seek help was established in Sweden. Even though these treatment programs have been around for almost 30 years, they have received limited attention from researchers and evaluators. Research in the field on domestic violence is less frequently studied from the perspective of men rather than from the female perspective. This thesis explores how men, who voluntarily sought help at men´s centers report their experiences of violence and treatment. The study is based on two types of data; responses given on a questionnaire collected primarily for an evaluation study, and analyses of qualitative interviews conducted for this thesis only. The results from the questionnaire shows that, the men who seek help at a treatment center do not constitute a heterogeneous group. Some men report frequent unilateral psychological, physical and sexual violence use against their partners. Other men report no physical or sexual violence use at all. Many men report being exposed to their partner’s violence. The motives for seeking help are not always to end the violent behavior. The possibility to assert whether the treatment was effective is also discussed. There was no control group, meaning that there is no way to compare the results with those men who did not participate in the treatment. However, the men report less violence use one year after the first contact was made with the treatment center. The main part of the analysis explores how the interviewed men present themselves. In other words, the thesis highlights the men’s explanations and portrayals of their own retold experiences. The analysis shows that all the men construct a morally decent description of their selves. Inspired by Scott & Lyman’s (1968) sociological concept ‘accounts’ and Goffman’s (1971) ‘presentation of self’, the moral work, made by presenting the retold violent acts and their relationships, are identified. Furthermore, the men switch between denying and claiming responsibility. At times they deny responsibility for the violence used and place it with the women (“it’s her fault”), their background, or specific situations. At other times they claim responsibility, and do this on three different levels; 1) in the situation, 2) by explaining that they have been trying to end the relationship and 3) by arguing that they has been trying to seek help. The men also negotiate the concepts of ‘violence’ and ‘women abuser’, making efforts to make distinctions between themselves and “real” women abusers.
7.
Esholdt, Henriette frees
(författare)
Når humor, leg og lyst er på spil : Social interaktion på en multietnisk arbejdsplads
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
How can we understand the multi-ethnic workplace as a social meeting place? And what happens if we do not 'frame' in advance the social meeting in the widespread anti-racist frame of understanding? These are the questions that are central to this thesis. Starting from a phenomenological methodology, it is the ambition of the thesis to challenge our usual preconceptions and not pre-define how inter-ethnic relations are to be understood, which is why the thesis - expressed in Goffman's terms - asks: ”What is it that’s going on here?” (Goffman 1974), as a way of finding which framework of understanding should be applied. Based on the part of the lifeworld that unfolds in a multi-ethnic workplace, the thesis examines the social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships as it spontaneously arises and develops in the inter-ethnic collegial relationships in everyday working life. The thesis is based on fieldwork (consisting of participant observation and interviews) at the Food Factory ("Madfabrikken"), a multi-ethnic workplace in the hospitality sector in Denmark. With an auto-ethnographic point of departure, the researcher brings herself into play in the relationships under study, and makes herself an object of observation, reflection and study. In addition to the life at the Food Factory, the thesis is also concerned with the research process, and experiments with different methods of grasping and conveying the life lived in the Food Factory in all its complexity and ambiguity. The thesis explores empirical observations of social interactions, where humour, play and pleasure are on the line. As much as the interplay in the collegial relationships at the Food Factory can be pleasurable and fun, it does, however, bring the risk of danger. It is this duality that is illuminated in this thesis. In the first instance, the humour, play and pleasure are continually on line in the collegial interaction and this contributes to a range of humour-based and sexualized forms of social interaction, where "ethnicity" is defused and enjoyed as an aesthetic and sexualised surface. Secondly, it is true in the sense that humour, play and pleasure risk being on the line or jeopardized, if the rules for the interaction are not mastered or respected. What was previously 'framed' as being pleasurable, sexualized play and teasing at work, or what was set in a humorous frame, is suddenly in danger of being replaced or overtaken by a new 'framing' of the situation as sexual harassment or racism. The thesis does not end up with definitive answers as to how social interaction in a multi-ethnic workplace should be understood and how we can understand it as a social meeting place, but contributes with the knowledge that social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships is vulnerable, ambiguous, fragile, undecidable, manipulable and redefinable. With an object-sensitive eye, the thesis contributes to other, more nuanced narratives about the social meeting of the inter-ethnic relationships - namely the narratives about the life lived and its forms.
8.
Kap, Hrvoje, 1980-
(författare)
Comparative Studies of Vocational Education and Training
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
The thesis consists of an introduction and three studies, which are comparative sociological and institutional analyses of a number of countries' publicly regulated vocational education and training systems at upper secondary and post-secondary level. Official regulation of programme content and curricula - the main empirical material - is interpreted, and focus is directed on aspects which distinguish between, among others, general and vocational elements of teaching, learning and training. The analyses employ concepts from educational studies, historical sociology and institutional sociology with the aim of conceptual elaboration and illumination of similarities and differences between cases.Study I compares upper secondary vocational education and training programmes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The programmes are analysed and compared with respect to scope, sequence and selection of curricular units of subject matter and periods of training. Programmes combine general and vocational elements in various ways, thereby offering choices for obtaining both the occupation-related qualification, as well as higher education eligibility. The combination of curricular units with additional subject matter seems to, in some cases, lead to emerging learning aims.Study II focuses on vocational education and training systems at upper secondary level in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and seeks to identify differences and similarities by conceptualising features of ideal types along different dimensions. It furthermore develops a method of analysis and visualisation which enables more accurate understanding of how various learning aims are designed within educational programmes. Some of the results indicate that the resources necessary for attaining the full, intended educational qualification are not guaranteed in any of the three cases; however, this applies particularly to apprenticeship-based programmes, where it can be attained only after training contracts with status-like features, resembling parts of occupational jurisdictions, are seized within sheltered circumstances. In the school-based programmes, a larger proportion of resources are guaranteed, but training is shorter and less vocationally oriented. Vocational education and training programmes in all three systems orient learning not only towards vocational, but also general learning aims.Study III compares admission criteria to post-secondary vocational education and training programmes in Denmark and Sweden, focusing on the Danish erhvervsakademi and the Swedish yrkeshögskola. Options, as elements of life chances, for individuals holding upper secondary vocational education qualifications who wish to apply for admission to these programmes, differ in terms of scope between the two cases. In the Swedish case, options are wide and mostly structured by course-based admission criteria; while in the Danish case, options are more narrow and structured by qualification-based admission criteria.
9.
10.
Melldahl, Andreas, 1982-
(författare)
Utbildningens värde : Fördelning, avkastning och social reproduktion under 1900-talet
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis focuses on changes in the value of educational capital over time. Taking as a point of departure Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of a multidimensional social space, the thesis examines how this value is affected when educational assets—through the democratization of education—are becoming more widespread across this space (i.e. the population).The studies are based on datasets from Statistics Sweden, comprising the complete censuses of 1960 to 1990, LISA-registers, and registers of wealth and income. Different approaches are employed: the use of the Gini-coefficient to catch changes in the distribution of education; comparative models to investigate cohorts at different points in time; and specific multiple correspondence analysis to study the distribution of several assets simultaneously. Three aspects are explored: the distributions, returns, and uses of education. Firstly, while there is a steady increase in the average number of years of schooling, there is a different pattern in the development of the distribution of education. Three phases were distinguished: one of increasing levels of inequality, one of decreasing inequality, and one in which the inequality levelled out. Secondly, the returns of education have diminished as far as economic gains are concerned, causing a fracture between different social generations, at the same time as the returns in a wider social sense have remained relatively stable. However, the relative stability hides crucial discrepancies. Groups with the lowest level of education are further marginalized and distances between ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ groups are growing. Thirdly, in their modes of using the educational system, there are glaring differences between the economic elite and the cultural elite, although both utilize prestigious educational institutions as sites of social reproduction. The fundamental difference consists in that exclusive educational strategies are not as necessary to the dominant fraction of the economic elite. Their children are able to choose more freely among the offers of higher education. The paradoxical development of the value of education is that while the absolute value of educational capital has decreased in general, the differences in relative value persist.
