Pioneers, renegades and heretics

• My paper in honour of professor emeritus Staf Callewaert is based on my dissertation Medicinens lyskraft och skuggor. (The glow and shadows of the Medicine). The dissertation examines, with a framework of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, the formation of specific groups, their interests and positions related to children with disabilities and their education and care in Sweden developed during 1960―1980. The paper focuses one finding in the dissertation which was quite surprising and it is probably the most important conclusion. It was the impressive strength and power of the social space and its opportunities to be a “shield” for its agents. By leaving the "home-field" and work in another, one could got “out in the cold”. This “structural gap” could mean that the pioneers in “new areas” in other fields were treated by their former colleagues as renegades or as pariahs, which had themselves to blame if they experienced difficulties. Consequently, leaving the “home-field" mean loosing a particular esteem from the eyes of the dominant positions in one’s own field as a deserter. But it is also a matter of obstinacy expressed by pioneers, renegades and heretics who wouldn't subordinate themselves to the dominant doxa.My contribution to the anthology in honour of professor emeritus Staf Callewaert is based on my dissertation Medicinens lyskraft och skuggor. (The glow and shadows of the Medicine). The dissertation examines, with a framework of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, the formation of specific groups, their interests and positions related to children with disabilities and their education and care in Sweden developed during 1960―1980. The text in the anthology focuses one finding in the dissertation which was quite surprising and it is probably the most important conclusion. It was the impressive strength and power of the social space and its opportunities to be a “shield” for its agents. By leaving the "home-field" and work in another, one could got “out in the cold”. This “structural gap” could mean that the pioneers in “new areas” in other fields were treated by their former colleagues as renegades or as pariahs, which had themselves to blame if they experienced difficulties. Consequently, leaving the “home-field" mean loosing a particular esteem from the eyes of the dominant positions in one’s own field as a deserter. But it is also a matter of obstinacy expressed by pioneers, renegades and heretics who wouldn't subordinate themselves to the dominant doxa.

Nyckelord

habilitation

children

handicap

disability

medicine

social workers

counsellors

pre-school teachers

psychologists

occupational therapists

physiotherapists

parent organizations

handicap organizations

symbolic power

sociology

SOCIAL SCIENCES

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

Utbildningssociologi

Sociology of Education

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)