| 1. |
- Rauch, Dietmar, 1969-
(author)
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Institutional fragmentation and social service variations : A Scandinavian comparison
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Scandinavian welfare states – Denmark, Norway, and Sweden – are usually assumed to constitute a coherent and unique social service model, characterized among other things by a high level of universalism. This thesis questions the existence of such a model. It presents cross-country data, which demonstrate that only Denmark complies with the image of the Scandinavian social service model, while Norway and Sweden deviate significantly. Norwegian childcare services and Swedish elderlycare services do not stand out as particularly universalistic in comparison with other Western European countries. Altogether it seems that the Scandinavian countries in terms of social service universalism form a less coherent group than often believed. The main aim of this thesis is to explain this lack of coherence among the Scandinavian social service systems and to understand variations between different service fields. Two main questions are raised: First, why do the Scandinavian countries display different levels of social service universalism? Second, why are there different developments in the Swedish welfare state as to the level of social service universalism between the two major social service fields of childcare and elderlycare? In order to answer these questions, an institutionalist approach is chosen, focusing on the impact of institutional fragmentation in the implementation process between the central government level on one hand and local governments and NGOs on the other. It is hypothesized that a low level of institutional fragmentation implying a concentration of policy-specific authority on the central state level is a positive precondition for the achievement of social service universalism, whereas a high level of institutional fragmentation providing municipalities and/or NGOs with veto points against universalistic social service policies instead has a detrimental impact on the prospects of social service universalism. Empirical data drawing on public documents and national statistics support this hypothesis: In those countries and in those social service fields where a strong concentration of implementative decision making exists, a stronger level of social service universalism has been accomplished than in those where the implementative decision making is heavily fragmented between the central government on one hand and municipalities and/or NGOs on the other. This finding tentatively indicates that the intra-Scandinavian variations of social service universalism across countries and across policy fields are indeed related to different levels of institutional fragmentation in the implementation process.
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| 2. |
- Almqvist, Anna-Lena, 1963-
(author)
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The care of children : A cross-national comparison of parents’ expectations and experiences
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- As a point of departure, this thesis is motivated by the big changes which have taken place in most Western European countries since the 1970s, with an increase in female labour market participation and, to some extent, men’s increased share of the domestic work. There is also a debate as to whether France, having a fairly extensive family support,should be categorised as closer to the Scandinavian countries or together with countries with more restrictive family policy such as Italy and Germany, and thus belonging to the conservative regime cluster as defined by Gösta Esping-Andersen. The major topic of this thesis concerns what expectations parents have on childcare and how they experience the combination of care of children and participation in paid work. Two studies, based on quantitative macro-data, analyse and compare differences in primarily women’s employment in relation to family policy measures. The studies concern in addition to France and Sweden, also Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom. The results indicate that the extensive family support system brings France closer to the Scandinavian countries. However, results based on 80 interviews made with 40 French and 40 Swedish families in the three following studies indicate that this may not be the case concerning factors like attitudes and values about the care of children and the reconciliation of work and family. Results indicate that values expressed in the French families point to a strong connection with values significant for countries in the conservative regime cluster. Major findings are that in the reconciliation of work and family, Swedes experience role stress more than French people, and in particular Swedish fathers. In France, on the other hand, mothers strongly express a feeling of dissatisfaction with their partner’s lack of participation in the household work. Regarding the attitudes to the paid parental leave (allocation parentale d’éducation- APE), French families’ arguments reflect that the policy does not promote fathers’ use of paid parental leave, and French mothers more than Swedish mothers refer to the weaker labour market situation as a reason for their use of the leave. Concerning expectations on childcare, French families more than Swedish families stress the importance of ‘upbringing,’ ‘learning’ and ‘socialisation,’ whereas Swedish families emphasise ‘pedagogy’ and that the staff recognises the individual child.
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| 3. |
- Augustsson, Gunnar
(author)
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Etniska relationer i arbetslivet : teknik, arbetsorganisation och etnisk diskriminering i svensk bilindustri
- 1996
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The goal of this study is to understanding ethnic discrimination by employing a complex theoretical approach which allows for an understanding of ethnic relations and ethnic discrimination as a social process. The study includes a case study at Volvo Torslandaverken in Gothenburg, and focuses on ethnic discrimination against the background of both structural conditions and situational factors. The analysis results from studying personnel statistics and interviews with salaried employees, union elected representatives, and workers.The study includes two technical and organizational environments. The first environment, manual systems, demands loyalty of individuals to the technical and organizational system. The other environment, integrated mechanization, has a decentralized group organizational structure. Both environments are studied with consideration taken to recruiting, leadership, and solidarity among workers.The results show that ethnic discrimination appears to be a very complicated phenomena, the expression of which is a consequence of dynamic interplay between structure and action. New forms of work have meant that workers' professional skills are now organized to compliment one another and they work more in groups. This has resulted in an increased need for familiar cultural and social skills within the groups. Such a development risks encouraging varying degrees of negligence, aversion, and exclusion of ethnic views.
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| 4. |
- Bask, Miia, 1977-
(author)
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A longitudinal approach to social exclusion in Sweden
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four papers, and has as its central theme the accumulation of welfare problems and social exclusion. We use Swedish data and all analyses are based on individuals of working age. We perform longitudinal analyses to scrutinize the accumulation of disadvantages over the individual life courses as well as to detect the general trends in social exclusion occurrence in Swedish society during the past two decades. In Paper I, in an analysis of social exclusion among immigrants in Sweden, we find that immigrants suffer more often from social exclusion than native Swedes do. We also find that even if the accumulation of welfare problems is more common among immigrants than native Swedes, the connections between welfare disadvantages are stronger among Swedes. Furthermore, a logistic regression analysis revealed that time spent in Sweden decreases the risk of social exclusion among immigrants. However, even though we control for several demographic variables, human capital indicators and socio-economic class, the odds for social exclusion are still greater for immigrants than for native Swedes. Some form of discrimination can therefore not be excluded. Paper II is co-written with Björn Halleröd. This paper involves a longitudinal analysis of the accumulation of closely related welfare disadvantages, showing that the initial deprivation increases over time. Latent growth curve models reveal that a high initial deprivation is related to low socio-economic class and being single. It is also shown that a high initial deprivation decreases the probability of upward class-mobility as well as the probability of deprived singles becoming cohabiting. Moreover, a high initial deprivation increases the risk that couples will experience a household break-up. In Paper III, we perform a longitudinal analysis of social exclusion in Sweden during the period 1979-2003, in which several logistic regression models for panel data are fitted to our data. We find no support that immigrants have been better integrated into Swedish society over time from the perspective of social exclusion risk. Instead, there are weak signs that integration has become worse. We also find weak signs that the higher social exclusion risk that men have relative to women has decreased during the past two decades. Furthermore, comparing with couples without children, the odds for social exclusion among singles with children have increased and the odds for couples with children have decreased during the period 1979-2003. Paper IV utilizes latent class factor models to scrutinize the connections between welfare problems and a set of demographic variables, human capital indicators and socio-economic class. We find that welfare problems do cluster. Our results also support several of the findings in the previous paper. Family type, especially being single or living in a relationship, makes a clear difference in the propensity to accumulate welfare problems. Furthermore, immigrants characterize the factors with a high problem accumulation. Additionally, there is no general difference between the sexes in the problem accumulation itself, but experiences of threat or violence and having sleeping problems seem to be more often related to being a woman, whereas the lack of a close friend is most often related to being a man. To conclude, this thesis reveals several interesting facts concerning the accumulation of welfare problems and social exclusion in Sweden. Considering the implications for policy, the situations of immigrants and single parents need to be underlined. That is, the integration of immigrants should be given more emphasis and measures should be taken to support single parents as well as to promote a discussion on how to make relationships last.
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| 5. |
- Bergman, Jonny, 1973-
(author)
-
Seeking empowerment : asylum-seeking refugees from Afghanistan in Sweden
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how asylum-seeking refugees manage their lives in the situation they are in, a situation in which they are dependent and have to wait for decisions on whether or not they will get to stay in the country in which they have made their application for asylum. The elaboration upon these questions and the purpose of the study is approached through a field study of asylum-seeking refugees from Afghanistan in Sweden. The thesis presents a background of international migration, refugee migration, refugee migration from Afghanistan and the reception of asylum seekers and refugees in the EU and Sweden, which tells us both that asylum seekers and refugees are not welcome in the countries of the ‘North’, where policies of containment and repatriation are the most common features of treating the refugee ‘problem’ and that the long period of waiting and uncertainty creates a situation of passivity and ill-health among the asylum seekers. Employing grounded theory methodology in different forms based in data from fieldwork, including participant observations and informal conversations, the study applies a constructionist grounded theory approach in the analyses of the situation and the management thereof. Steered by this constructionist grounded theory approach, strengthened by a situational analysis, the thesis presents a situational frame pointing to the situation for the asylum-seeking refugees as temporal and dependent on Swedish national discourse, racism and paternalism. With this background and frame and generated by data from the field study, the thesis goes on to present the situation as disempowering. The disempowering processes are illustrated through looking at dependence and inhospitality, and are characterised by the asylum-seeking refugees’ oscillation between feelings of hope and despair. It becomes, however, also evident that the asylum-seeking refugees take action and that they are supported by latent empowering processes. The actions taken are categorised as actions of empowering in opposition to the processes presented as disempowering. The actions of empowering are connected to keeping oneself occupied, searching for and maintaining social contacts and in the asylum-seeking refugees’ representations of themselves. From the presentation of the situation as disempowering and the actions taken by the asylum-seeking refugees in response to this situation as actions of empowering, a process characterised as seeking empowerment is presented. In this process empowerment is discussed as the establishment of power to resist. During the discussion of the concept of seeking empowerment it is shown how the asylum-seeking refugees in this study, through their actions of empowering, try to resist the disempowering situation. By seeking to establish power to resist, they are seeking empowerment.
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| 6. |
- Biström, Elin, 1980-
(author)
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Creating sustainable citizens? : constructions of sustainable development in textbooks
- 2022
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- There is a general consensus that education is crucial for achieving sustainable development. Education for sustainable development aims to foster citizens capable of participating independently and actively in creating a sustainable future. The overarching aim of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge on the relationship between education and sustainability. Specifically, the objective is to analyse how content on sustainable development is constructed in educational materials. Theoretically, the thesis is guided by sociological perspectives on environmental problems, knowledge, education and individualisation. The empirical data consists of textbooks in biology, civics, geography, home and consumer studies, and religion for Swedish lower secondary schools. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the empirical material. The thesis examines how textbook content on sustainable development is organised and constructed. A key focus of the analysis relates to how multidimensionality and relationships between the dimensions of sustainable development are constructed in textbooks. The social dimension of sustainability is analysed in particular detail. Further attention is directed to how conflicts and the politics of sustainable development are constructed in textbooks. Constructions of change and historical contextualisation of sustainable development are also highlighted. A key result is that textbooks put a disproportionate focus on the ecological dimension of sustainable development. Parts of the social dimension of sustainable development, such as sexuality and gender equality, are generally not presented as sustainability issues. Another relevant result is that textbooks tend to obscure the complexities of sustainable development. Political conflicts, which are crucial for understanding sustainability challenges, are often rendered invisible. Both androcentric and anthropocentric perspectives also characterise textbook content about sustainability. Furthermore, the analysis shows that teleological and utopian narratives are dominant in the textbooks’ content about change and historical contextualisation of sustainable development. These conditions might challenge the potential role of education as part of sustainable development.
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| 7. |
- Bohman, Andrea, 1983-
(author)
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Anti-immigrant attitudes in context : The role of rhetoric, religion and political representation
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background. This thesis directs attention to how attitudes towards immigrants evolve under different contextual circumstances. Unlike previous research that primarily focuses on contextual factors related to the availability of material resources, the included studies explore the influence of less tangible aspects of our surroundings, brought together under the term immaterial contexts. Three kinds of immaterial contexts are in focus: political representatives’ use of nationalistic rhetoric, the parliamentary presence of the extreme right, and the religious context. The studies examine the direct effects of these contexts, but also how individuals’ beliefs, loyalties, and experiences interact with the contextual factors to shape peoples’ attitudes.Methods. The thesis takes a comparative approach where countries serve as the main contextual unit. Data on attitudes and other individual features are gathered from the European Social Survey 2002-2012. To be able to analyze these data in the same model as used for country-level data, the thesis applies multi-level models.Results. The findings support a theoretical expectation that immaterial contexts influence anti-immigrant attitudes. How people perceive immigrants and immigration can be traced to political and religious aspects of their surroundings. Also, it is found that individuals are not passive recipients of contextual influences as their reactions depend on their preferences and experiences. While political representatives influence anti-immigrant attitudes, these effects are strongly conditional both on features of the representatives themselves, and on characteristics and experiences of individuals. For example, individuals respond to political rhetoric by traditional political parties but are not influenced by the same kind of message if conveyed by a party belonging to the extreme right.Conclusion. The thesis is an attempt to widen the very notion of contexts in empirical research, and as such, it is a contribution to the literature on anti-immigrant attitudes. It shows that anti-immigrant attitudes depend not only on material circumstances, but also on immaterial circumstances tied to the political and religious arena. Further, the thesis demonstrates how combining the theoretical perspectives of group threat theory and framing theory implies greater possibilities to conceive of the link between contexts and attitudes, as well as improved theoretical tools to understand when and why such effects do not occur. It signals that research on immaterial contexts is necessary to further advance the comparative scholarship on anti-immigrant attitudes and reach a deeper understanding of how such attitudes emerge and evolve.
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| 8. |
- Bolinder, Margareta, 1962-
(author)
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Handlingsutrymmets betydelse för arbetslösas upplevelser, handlingsstrategier och jobbchanser
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main research problem in this thesis is how unemployed individuals experience and handle the situation of unemployment and how their actions are related to their action possibilities. These are determined by factors like level of education, vocational training, age, citizenship, handicap and level of unemployment on the local labour market. A common assumption is that search behaviour of unemployed individuals strongly affects their possibility to find a job. A central question in this thesis is if individuals’ behaviour has been overemphasised at the expense of real employment opportunities. The empirical part of this thesis is based on longitudinal data collected during a period of high unemployment. The sample is a national random sample existing of 3 500 Swedes interviewed by telephone in the beginning of 1996 and in the end of 1997. The results show that the expectations of the unemployed to find a job as well as their actual search behaviour are shaped by the situation they are in. The unemployed have job expectations that co-vary with their action possibilities, but as many as 31.3 per cent overestimate their chances and 10.5 per cent underestimate them. This result is based on questions about expectations to obtain a job related to the actual employment situation nearly two years later. Unemployed individuals’ job expectations co-vary with their experiences of the unemployment situation. Those who believe that their job chances are bad have a low mental sense of well-being, while the opposite is found among those who believe that their job chances are good. The sense of having control over the situation is important for an individual’s mental sense of well-being. Both strategies of activity and adaptation occur among the unemployed. Strategies that are meant to change the situation in an objective are most common, only a minority of the unemployed seem to have adapted to the situation of unemployment.
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| 9. |
- Brännlund, Annica, 1963-
(author)
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Non-market outcomes of education : the long-term impact of education on individuals' social participation and health in Sweden
- 2014
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In research, it is typical to analyse and discuss the utility of education in economic terms—specifically the market value of a particular degree or the financial returns associated with additional years in higher education. However, education may also generate outcomes that belong to the non-market sphere, such as open-mindedness, societal cohesion, community involvement, better health, and gender equality; yet these outcomes have received little scholarly attention. The main objective of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate the relationship between education and four non-market outcomes: agency, voice, health behaviour and psychological distress. By utilizing two longitudinal data sets, the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions and the Northern Swedish Cohort, it is possible to assess the long-term effects of education on each of these four non-market outcomes.Results clearly demonstrate that education has a critical impact on each of the outcomes of interest. Having a higher education—and in particular a university degree–enhances individuals’ agency and voice, reduces psychological distress, and improves individuals’ health behaviour. Further, results show that different academic subjects generate field-specific resources. In contrast to a market perspective, where the value of the specific field of study is assessed only in economic terms, results indicate that fields that are commonly viewed as having low market value may actually yield non-economic rewards that benefit individuals in critically important ways.Analyses also show that individual and social factors shape the extent to which education leads to positive outcomes. In terms of agency and voice, results indicate that education can compensate for social differences. Among those with a working class background, earning a university degree contributes to increasing levels of agency and voice, while no significant effects of education exist for those with a white-collar background. Results also demonstrate that the impact of education on psychological well-being differs for men and women. For men, labour market resources (i.e., being employed) was important for reducing psychological distress, while for women social resources (i.e., having a partner) was more important.Due to its use of high quality, longitudinal data, this thesis makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature and to what we know about the impact of education attainment. A limitation of cross-sectional analyses is that it is difficult to separate causal effects from selection effects. By adopting a longitudinal approach, it is possible to control for earlier (baseline) circumstances and therefore assess the causal impact of education on individual outcomes. This strategy yields robust results that make clear the long-term effects of educational attainment on individuals.
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| 10. |
- Coe, Anna-Britt, 1967-
(author)
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How social movements influence policies : Advocacy, framing, emotions and outcomes among reproductive rights coalitions in Peru.
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- With its origins in the early 1990s, feminist advocacy directed at influencing public policies is a relatively new phenomenon in Latin America that is commonly studied at the national level. The aim of this thesis was to study feminist advocacy on reproductive rights at the sub-national level in Peru. Specifically, it explored two research questions: how do feminist movements carry out advocacy to intervene with government agencies and what effects does their advocacy have on policies. This aim ties in with the body of literature that seeks to explain how and what outcomes are produced by social movements. Grounded Theory was used to collect and analyze empirical materials on two reproductive rights coalitions and their members in Arequipa and Cusco, Peru. Empirical materials consisted of focus group discussions, individual interviews and participant observation. Data analysis resulted in two core categories: Coalition-Government Interactions and Policy Outcomes. Linked to the core categories are thirteen categories, which constitute factors that the reproductive rights coalitions “deal with” or “strategize about” in order to interact with government officials and attain policy outcomes. The coalitions maneuver those factors they have immediate control over - tactics, organization, framing and emotions - as a means to deal with those factors they do not have immediate control over - relationships with other policy actors as well as political, cultural and social contexts. The findings help refine existing theories on how and what outcomes are attained by social movements. The coalitions and their members influence policies through various channels by developing an array of interactions with government officials. This allows the coalitions to handle potential constraints on their ability to be a critical voice. Political, cultural and social contexts are not the only external factors affecting the coalitions’ influence on policies. Another key external factor is their relationships with other policy actors comprised of a range of organized political and social groups. Concerning internal factors, the coalitions and their members rely on framing activities and emotion work in addition to organization and tactics. Indeed, the coalitions and their members engage in framing activities and emotion work by means of their relationships with other policy actors to influence policies. Finally, the coalitions perceive effects of their advocacy including, but not limited to, the modification of laws and policies. Instead, outcomes were identified along different stages of the policy process, including the impact of coalition frames on policy positions.
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| 11. |
- Colliander, Cristian, 1980-
(author)
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Science mapping and research evaluation : a novel methodology for creating normalized citation indicators and estimating their stability
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the methodology at the intersection of relational and evaluative bibliometrics. Experimental investigations are presented that address the question of how we can most successfully produce estimates of the subject similarity between documents. The results from these investigations are then explored in the context of citation-based research evaluations in an effort to enhance existing citation normalization methods that are used to enable comparisons of subject-disparate documents with respect to their relative impact or perceived utility. This thesis also suggests and explores an approach for revealing the uncertainty and stability (or lack thereof) coupled with different kinds of citation indicators.This suggestion is motivated by the specific nature of the bibliographic data and the data collection process utilized in citation-based evaluation studies.The results of these investigations suggest that similarity-detection methods that take a global view of the problem of identifying similar documents are more successful in solving the problem than conventional methods that are more local in scope. These results are important for all applications that require subject similarity estimates between documents. Here these insights are specifically adopted in an effort to create a novel citation normalization approach that – compared to current best practice – is more in tune with the idea of controlling for subject matter when thematically different documents are assessed with respect to impact or perceived utility. The normalization approach is flexible with respect to the size of the normalization baseline and enables a fuzzy partition of the scientific literature. It is shown that this approach is more successful than currently applied normalization approaches in reducing the variability in the observed citation distribution that stems from the variability in the articles’ addressed subject matter. In addition, the suggested approach can enhance the interpretability of normalized citation counts. Finally, the proposed method for assessing the stability of citation indicators stresses that small alterations that could be artifacts from the data collection and preparation steps can have a significant influence on the picture that is painted by the citationindicator. Therefore, providing stability intervals around derived indicators prevents unfounded conclusions that otherwise could have unwanted policy implications.Together, the new normalization approach and the method for assessing the stability of citation indicators have the potential to enable fairer bibliometric evaluative exercises and more cautious interpretations of citation indicators.
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| 12. |
- Dahlberg-Grundberg, Michael, 1983-
(author)
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Digital media and the transnationalization of protests
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Recent developments in communications technology have transformed how social movements might mobilize, and how they can organize their activities. This thesis explores some of the geographical consequences of the use of digital media for political activism. It does this by focusing on the transnationalization of protests. The aim is to analyse how movements with different organizational structures and political scopes are affected by their use of digital media. This is done with a specific focus on how digital media use influences or enables transnational modes of organization and activism. The thesis comprises four different case studies where each study examines a social movement with a specific organizational structure. There are, however, also important similarities between the movements. In each study, somewhat different perspectives and methodological approaches are used. Some of the methods used are semi-structured interviews, content analysis of written data (retrieved from Facebook as well as Twitter), and social network analysis.The analysis indicates that digital media do have a role in the transnationalization of protest. This role, however, differs depending on what type of social movement one studies. The organizational structure of social movements, together with their specific forms of digital media use, influences how the transnationalization of protests and movements is articulated and formed. In cases where a social movement has a hierarchical organizational structure, there is less transnationalization, whereas in social movements with a more non-hierarchical organizational structure one sees more transnationalization. The thesis concludes that the transnationalization of protests is affected by social movements’ organizational structure. The more decentralized the social movement, the more vibrant the transnational public. In order to explain how transnational social movements, using digital media, can emerge in cases where geographical distances might make such coalitions unlikely, the thesis introduces the notion of affectual proximity. This concept helps us understand how transnational social movements, connecting actors from all over the world, can emerge through digital media.
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| 13. |
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| 14. |
- Droppe, Adam, 1969-
(author)
-
Konstitueringen av ett vetenskapligt begrepp : Exemplet - det manliga klimakteriet
- 2010
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- How are new scientific concepts of illnesses and disorder formed? The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase in new diagnoses incorporated into medical manuals. The concept of the male menopause, or the andropause diagnosis, is suitable for studying how medical knowledge is produced, since it has alternated between being and not being part of the acknowledged medical knowledge since the beginning of the 19th century, when it was originally launched. After being rather unnoticed during the 20th century, the concept of the male menopause had a renaissance in the 1990s’. The andropause then became a specific research area, articles about the male menopause were widely published in medical journals, specific therapies were developed, and andropause clinics opened around the world.The thesis explores what combination of circumstances lay behind the establishment of the andropause as a scientific object in the 1990s’. The purpose was to find out what the institutionalization of the (concept of the) andropause shows about the production of science, specifically medical knowledge.Methodologically, the study can be described as an analysis of ideas, where the ideas contained in the concept of a male menopause are in focus. Accordingly, the research materials were scientific literature, media, and other documents where the idea of a male menopause was expressed. The analysis was structured in four divisions.First, the andropause theory was studied to find any obvious scientific explanations, such as new knowledge or discoveries. “Pure science” could not explain the breakthrough of the andropause diagnosis, since the andropause theory is laden with uncertainties according to the scientific principles of evaluation that the medical science itself supports.Second, the social organization of the medical knowledge production was inquired with focus on the medical profession, and the andropause theory was found to offer new professional arenas.Third, factors outside profession and science were found, the extra scientific dimensions, primarily cultural conditions and social structures. The emergence of feminist theory was found to change the perception of men in the culture, where the male norm no longer is self-evident. Fourth, in the social structure, pharmaceutical companies were found to engage strongly in the andropause concept.Together these factors constituted the andopause as a scientific object. The thesis demonstrates: the advantage of a multi perspective analysis: the complexity of the development of concepts of disease: the weakness of the epistemology of evidence-based medicine: and the social and cultural foundation of science.
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| 15. |
- Droppe, Adam, 1969-
(author)
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Konstitueringen av ett vetenskapligt objekt : Exemplet - det manliga klimakteriet
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- How are new scientific concepts of illnesses and disorder formed? The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase in new diagnoses incorporated into medical manuals. The concept of the male menopause, or the andropause diagnosis, is suitable for studying how medical knowledge is produced, since it has alternated between being and not being part of the acknowledged medical knowledge since the beginning of the 19th century, when it was originally launched. After being rather unnoticed during the 20th century, the concept of the male menopause had a renaissance in the 1990s’. The andropause then became a specific research area, articles about the male menopause were widely published in medical journals, specific therapies were developed, and andropause clinics opened around the world. The thesis explores what combination of circumstances lay behind the establishment of the andropause as a scientific object in the 1990s’. The purpose was to find out what the institutionalization of the (concept of the) andropause shows about the production of science, specifically medical knowledge. Methodologically, the study can be described as an analysis of ideas, where the ideas contained in the concept of a male menopause are in focus. Accordingly, the research materials were scientific literature, media, and other documents where the idea of a male menopause was expressed. The analysis was structured in four divisions. First, the andropause theory was studied to find any obvious scientific explanations, such as new knowledge or discoveries. “Pure science” could not explain the breakthrough of the andropause diagnosis, since the andropause theory is laden with uncertainties according to the scientific principles of evaluation that the medical science itself supports. Second, the social organization of the medical knowledge production was inquired with focus on the medical profession, and the andropause theory was found to offer new professional arenas. Third, factors outside profession and science were found, the extra scientific dimensions, primarily cultural conditions and social structures. The emergence of feminist theory was found to change the perception of men in the culture, where the male norm no longer is self-evident. Fourth, in the social structure, pharmaceutical companies were found to engage strongly in the andropause concept. Together these factors constituted the andopause as a scientific object. The thesis demonstrates: the advantage of a multi perspective analysis: the complexity of the development of concepts of disease: the weakness of the epistemology of evidence-based medicine: and the social and cultural foundation of science.
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| 16. |
- Eman, Josefin, 1983-
(author)
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Growing old and still practising competitive sports : An exploration of acting-space and sense-making processes among old women and men
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis explores how the way athletically active old men and women make sense of their acting-space affects their participation in competitive sports and conversely how their participation in competitive sports affect their sense-making process and acting-space. It puts emphasis on the sociological point of intersection of three different research fields; sports science, critical gerontology and gender studies. Concretely, it is inspired by grounded theory research design and based on interviews with twenty-two athletically active men and women over the age of 65. The thesis consists of four articles, and together these show that men and women experience certain constraints of acting-space in the context of competitive sports, which primarily seem to be related to norms of age and gender. At the same time, the thesis shows that by practising sports old adults, especially old women, are able to transgress these constraints and possibly challenge dominant constructions of age and gender.
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| 17. |
- Evertsson, Lars, 1964-
(author)
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Välfärdspolitik och kvinnoyrken : organisation, välfärdsstat och professionaliseringens villkor
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The relationship between the Swedish state’s welfare political commitments and the emergence and development of three female-dominated welfare state occupational groups - nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists - is at the heart of this thesis. The primary aim is to study the professional possibilities and limitations created by the state’s welfare political commitments in health care, family policy and rehabilitation. The thesis emphasises the importance of regarding the state as a historically conditioned actor and as an organisation of organisations. The state is not a unified and static actor and this makes it difficult to speak of the state’s relationship to different welfare occupations in general terms. Nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have encountered the state in different historical contexts and established ties to different parts of the state. Abbott’s (1988) term jurisdiction is used to characterise the area within welfare politics that nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have made claims on or been allotted. The struggle for jurisdiction takes place on three, analytically separate but in reality interconnected arenas. These arenas are the workplace, the media arena and the legal arena. The thesis limits itself to the legal arena, that is, the state’s administrative, planning and legislative structures. At the centre of the analysis of the legal arena are the Swedish Government Commission and the welfare political reform work that to a large degree has been formed by these institutions’ function and work. An important conclusion from these three case studies is that the state’s welfare political commitments have been central for the emergence of nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists and their development into welfare state occupational groups. The state’s welfare political ambitions have contributed considerably to the transformation of nurse, home relief helpers and occupational therapists into modern occupational groups. Dependency on the state has not always been easy to handle however. The state’s welfare political interests have often contradicted the wishes of the professions regarding the content, length and organisation of training programmes, as well as regarding continuing education and licensing. The state has been unwilling to provide more training than deemed necessary from a welfare political perspective. An important conclusion from this study is that it is difficult for welfare state occupational groups to steer their professional project in a direction that falls outside of the state’s welfare political commitments.
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| 18. |
- 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.
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| 19. |
- Groglopo, Adrián, 1967-
(author)
-
Appropriation by Coloniality : TNCs, land, hegemony and resistance. The case of Botnia/UPM in Uruguay.
- 2012
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to analyse the social consequences of a transnational corporation(TNC) from the global North investing capital in the global South, and the communal processes that evolve in response. The study highlights the TNC’s construction of leadership and domination in the areas in which it settles, as well as the forces of popular resistance to the TNC’s exploitation of the region’s natural resources and the resulting socio-environmental conditions.The study is based on empirical fieldwork (including 22 interviews) carried out in Uruguay and Argentina related to the establishment of a pulp mill by Botnia/UPM. The analyses focus on discursive processes whereby the TNC establishes itself in the community. The found patterns are discussed in the thesis based on the following themes: “Making the TNC indispensible” ; “Dominating the spaces of communication” ; “Controlling the narratives” ; “Contradictions of external and internal colonialism” and “Establishing and maintaining hegemony”. All of these have to do with socio-political and discursive strategies and circumstances whereby the TNC—symbolically and materially— becomes a powerful force in the country and community where it establishes itself. This creates certain social positions, and gives rise to tensions within a number of areas.In relation to these processes, the thesis also highlights the formation and mobilization of resistance against the changing social, cultural and economic conditions created through the arrival of the TNC. What appears to be crucial for the deployment of a successful counter-force is the creation of spaces for organisation, for practices of resistance and to sustain democratic values and practices. This makes the social movement an autonomous voice that incarnates disobedience against thestate, the juridical international apparatus and the hegemonic practices of TNCs.
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| 20. |
- Grosse, Ingrid, 1971-
(author)
-
Political parties and welfare associations
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Scandinavian countries are usually assumed to be less disposed than other countries to involve associations as welfare producers. They are assumed to be so disinclined due to their strong statutory welfare involvement, which “crowds-out” associational welfare production; their ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity, which leads to a lack of minority interests in associational welfare production; and to their strong working-class organisations, which are supposed to prefer statutory welfare solutions. These assumptions are questioned here, because they cannot account for salient associational welfare production in the welfare areas of housing and child-care in two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway.In order to approach an explanation for the phenomena of associational welfare production in Sweden and Norway, some refinements of current theories are suggested. First, it is argued that welfare associations usually depend on statutory support in order to produce welfare on a salient level. Second, it is supposed that any form of particularistic interest in welfare production, not only ethnic, cultural or religious minority interests, can lead to associational welfare.With respect to these assumptions, this thesis supposes that political parties are organisations that, on one hand, influence statutory decisions regarding associational welfare production, and, on the other hand, pursue particularistic interests in associational welfare production. It is hypothesised that political parties attempt to mould statutory decisions on associational welfare provision in accordance with the interests of associations with “congruent constituencies.”The aim of this thesis is to examine whether political party preferences for certain welfare associations might help to explain variations in statutory support for associational welfare provision. Two questions are raised: First, do parties differ in their attempts to influence statutory subventions and regulations of associational welfare provision, resulting in more or less favourable conditions for associational welfare? Second, do parties systematically differ in their policies with regard to more or less “congruent” associations?In order to investigate these questions, a comparison is made between political parties’ attempts to influence statutory regulation and subvention of Norwegian and Swedish associations active in the areas of day-care and housing. For this purpose, information is drawn from public documents and official statistics in order to identify more or less favourable policies and related partisan policies. In addition, supportive parties and favoured associations are compared with regard to their “constituencies.”The findings partly support the hypothesis. Although political parties partly pursued consensually association-friendly policies, they often varied their support for welfare associations, whereby both right-wing and left-wing parties partly advocated and partly rejected association-friendly policies in a conflicting way, resulting in varied degrees of statutory support. Furthermore, supportive parties shared “congruent constituencies” with those associations supported by respective parties’ policies. These findings indicate that partisan policies indeed make a difference for associational welfare production, whereby parties of any political colour can support associational solutions. Furthermore, partisan policies vary according to the involved associations’ more or less “congruent constituencies,” which can pursue welfare production out of various particularistic interests, be they religious-cultural or socio-economic in nature.
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| 21. |
- Gustafson, Åsa, 1968-
(author)
-
Sköra livsmönster : Om integrations- och normaliseringsprocesser bland bosniska flyktingar
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this study is to illustrate and unfold the dynamic interaction between conditions of integration and patterns of integration, in other words the structural conditions related to processes of integration and normalization of every day life. This is done with concrete reference to Bosnian refugees living in Malmö and Umeå during 1996-1997, having received permanent permission to stay in Sweden during 1992-1995. How do refugees under different conditions arrange their lives, perceive their own life situation, manage the course of daily life and develop individual life patterns? The study shows that processes of integration and normalisation depend on and has an impact on involvement and participation in social, economic, political and cultural life in general. Background statistics, official documents and local daily press material together with intense interviews with Bosnian refugees and key-informants constitute the empirical base of the study. The theoretical base consists of a holistic perspective on integration, including aspects of ethnicity, culture and gender. The focus is on the double-sided processes of integration among refugees in relation to the established population. Refugees’ processes of integration and normalization are described and discussed with reference to patterns of living conditions, patterns of integration, patterns of action and patterns of attitudes. The general conclusion is that refugees’ life patterns are very fragile. Processes of integration and normalization depend on conditions of involvement and of participation as well as the openness of the society at large and specifically on how civil, political and social rights are supplied for. This in turn raises the question of the importance of not only formal but also substantial citizenship rights. Integration is also closely related to possible changes towards more flexible gendered spaces of action. The more equal gender relations in the family become the more it opens up for possibilities of integration and normalization for both women and men. Encompassing possibilities to integration into the society at large combined with increased potentials of altering conventional power relations between women and men are vital for the processes of integration and normalization among refugees.
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| 22. |
- Hult, Carl, 1953-
(author)
-
The way we conform to paid labour : Commitment to employment and organization from a comparative perspective
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis compares work orientations in six Western countries (the USA, Great Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Norway, and Sweden), using data from the 1997 International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The main issue examined is whether different ‘production regimes’ correspond to levels and patterns of employment and organizational commitment among the working population. It is concluded that the country levels of employment commitment varies depending on the institutional set-ups, with respect to production and welfare regimes, being highest in the Scandinavian countries and lowest in Great Britain and the USA. Organizational commitment varies in a more complex manner, with the strongest commitment being found in the USA and the lowest in Sweden. In all countries, the most important factor determining the level of an individual’s organizational commitment is whether the person finds his or her job interesting. This effect is independent of job satisfaction. Organizational commitment was also found to be positively and strongly correlated with right-wing political values in five of the six countries. When it comes to employment commitment, it was found that women display, often significantly, higher commitment than do men. The results suggest that the most important motivator for employment commitment is the desire for interesting work. The concluding discussion summarises and presents the main findings in schematic figures, and includes interpretative discussions focusing on future research.
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| 23. |
- Höckertin, Chatrine, 1964-
(author)
-
Organisational characteristics and psychosocial working conditions in different forms of ownership
- 2007
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main aim of this thesis has been to compare psychosocial working conditions in workplaces with different forms of ownership, i.e. public, private and cooperative. A second aim has been to study how organisational characteristics of relevance for psychosocial working conditions (in terms of management control strategies and prerequisites for management) are manifested in these ownership forms. The empirical data is based on structured interviews with managers at 60 workplaces within the service sector and on a questionnaire to all employees working in the participating workplaces, resulting in a set of 1384 individuals. An additional seven interviews with first-line managers within geriatric care were also conducted for the last study. The results show that employees in cooperatives perceived that they had better opportunities to influence decisions concerning the workplace as a whole, although there were also results showing advantages for public and private employees. Regarding opportunities for employees to influence their own work situation, there were no differences between the ownership forms. Differences were found in the prerequisites for first-line geriatric care managers. As a result of an earlier organisational change, the public managers were now further away from the strategic level and had to focus on daily, operative work tasks, while simultaneously also being responsible for keeping within the budget. The private managers, on the other hand, having group leaders to deal with the daily work concerning personnel and operations, could focus more on strategic work related to financial results in terms of planning and follow-up of the budget. One conclusion is that there are certain differences in both psychosocial working conditions and organisational characteristics between the ownership forms, but when the comparisons were restricted to only one type of service, in this case the provision of care, it is rather the similarities within the care organisations, regardless of ownership form, that are most pronounced.
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| 24. |
- Jakobsson, Mats, et al.
(author)
-
'Att blifva sin egen' : ungdomars väg in i vuxenlivet i 1700- och 1800-talens övre Norrland
- 2000
-
In: Sociologisk forskning. - Umeå : Umeå universitet. ; 37:3-4, s. 134-141
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The background to this study is that there is no studies on youth and their transition to adulthood in preindustrial Sweden. The main objective of this thesis has therefore been to analyze young peoples transition to adulthood during the late 18th and 19th centuries in a region of the northern part of Sweden. The social context of the region was mainly agrarian during the investigated period despite the fact that in the later part of the 19th and beginning of 20th century, a development of a growing forest industry had started. The main questions is: How and when in life did different social categories of young people establish an independent and adult life? Where there any changes in transitional patterns and was the establishment smoother or more troublesome at different times during the investigated period ? Where there any changes regarding social norms related to the establishment of adult life?The transition to adult life is studied from a life-course approach and four key-transitions; The First Holy communion, leaving home, marriage and parenthood are regarded as significant steps within the process to a independent social position. Individual data related to keytransitions is mainly collected from cathectical examination records and comprised 2206 individuals born in six different cohorts between 1770 and 1900. The selected cohorts represents individuals that had to deal with different social conditions during their youth and transition to adult life.The main results regarding the transition to adult life can be summarized in two words, complexity and variance. Usually it was a "long" transition but the number of accomplished keytransitions and the order between them varied, as well as ages when taking the first Holy Communion, leaving home, marriage and entering parenthood varied. Transitional patterns varied between different categories of youth. A dividing line existed between the sexes, those from households strongly rooted in the agricultural structure and those with background in social categories that didn't own or was in possession of land. Social norms related to keytransitons changed along this dividing line during the investigated period of time, and became less permissive within landowning or land-possessing categories and less prescriptive in other categories.Transitional patterns were also influenced by the social situation at different historical times. The need for labor, war and years of famine directly intervened in timing and sequencing of keytransitions. A long term development was that the transition to adult life became more problematic in the later part of the 19th century, especially among young people who were less integrated in the social context and among socially stigmatized youth. Finally, young people were active and reflexive in seeking social space to make the transition to adult life, actions that sometimes caused tensions and conflicts between generations.
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| 25. |
- Johansson, Gun-Britt, 1956-
(author)
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Synderskan och lagen: Barnamord i tre Norrlandslän 1830-1870
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- ABSTRACTMany studies have been conducted on infanticide and child homicide. Researchers have approached the subject with different theoretical frameworks and explored it from different dimensions, geographical areas, and time periods. As much as the questions have varied so have the answers. This study contributes to greater clarity on the causes of infanticide. Despite numerous studies on the subject, there is still no consensus its causes. My aim has been to combine different strategies for understanding the subject. I have used material both from an aggregated level and from an individual level. The main question I sought to answer was whether social causes rather than individual factors force or trigger women to kill their newborn child? Court material also provides for an in-depth understanding of our history. The social sciences have frequently drawn sketches of the social world with big lines. These lines have been necessary and useful to point at large-scale transformations of civilisation and modernisation but, in terms of understanding real life, they can provide us with a foggy and even mistaken picture. When social scientists enter the historical archives and similar sources, we often blunder in its richness and variation. Society may, in any case, have always been complicated and the every day life for each person as well.My findings show that infanticide signals low tolerance. In general, the women did not want to kill their own children. Moreover, my findings, like the results of other studies before mine, demonstrate that women who carry out infanticide represent normal women. To my knowledge, there isn’t one study on infanticide that claims the women were not normal. Women who committed infanticide did so out of fear: fear of losing their social bonds. They killed their children if the existence of the bonds was endangered or threatened. Often social bonds were related to their work situation as maids in farming households. If they couldn’t stay in the household after having the baby, many women had no where else to go. Their parents – poor, elderly or deceased – were unable to help. Sometimes the social bonds were threatened by other factors, often related to the child’s father. If he was already married or had a close relation with the woman’s family, their relationship could in fact, break her bonds to her own family and other relatives. Some women already had an illegitimate child. With a child out of wedlock, they had a difficult time getting work and housing. If they got pregnant again and the father to the new child refused to marry her or to support the child, she could in fact lack any resources for handling the situation.Finally: the findings talk about honour and infanticide. It was always shameful to get a child out of wedlock. But demographic research from North of Sweden has shown that these children had almost the same chances of survival during their first year as legitimate children. Sexuality outside marriage was not respected but much discussion around honour was more related to how the women would manage with the child. In my findings, shame seems to be related to having no support. Extramarital relations were not accepted but people probably didn’t care to much about it as far as they managed on their own. Being rejected, helpless, not able to work and not able to take care of the child that was what shame was about.Keywords: Infanticide, child homicide, illegitimacy, social bonds, shame
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| 26. |
- Johansson Sevä, Ingemar, 1965-
(author)
-
Welfare state attitudes in context : local contexts and attitude formation in Sweden
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Welfare state attitudes are often studied from the perspective of the individual's characteristics and/or national or regime-type contexts. This thesis instead seeks explanations for individuals' varying attitudes towards the welfare state at the level of local contexts (municipalities). Sweden is used as a case for testing whether there are such contextual effects. The general aim is to find out whether social, political, and institutional aspects of local context influence the attitudes of individuals. Since the general aim of this thesis is to examine how background characteristics of individuals and characteristics of local contexts simultaneously act in shaping individuals' attitudes, I use multilevel modelling in order to handle individual-level and contextual-level data simultaneously. Latent-class analysis (LCA) is also employed in the analyses to explore the patterning of variables. This is mainly done in order to create dependent variables and to distinguish between categories of municipalities sharing similar characteristics. The data consist of Swedish survey data, which have been complemented by municipal-level data. The findings indicate that the social and political context of municipalities can matter for individuals' attitude formation. Variation across municipalities in terms of the prevalence of social problems and risks seems to influence how individuals view the welfare state. Local municipal contexts characterized by many social problems and risks tend to be associated with more welfare state friendly attitudes among the local inhabitants, after taking individual-level determinants into account. Support for high social spending is greater in such milieus as is the tendency to view welfare beneficiaries with less suspicion regarding the potential abuse of welfare policies. Regarding the influence of local public service provision on attitudes, no evidence was found for feedback effects on individuals' attitudes toward public service privatization. In their attitudes towards the welfare state, individuals are to some extent influenced by their local environment. There seems to be a 'built in' thermostat in the Swedish welfare state. Local circumstances characterized by social problems and risks tend to be associated with a local citizenry having more welfare state-friendly attitudes.
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| 27. |
- Jonsson, Gun
(author)
-
Tanter och representanter : en fråga om oligarki eller demokrati?
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis emanated from a discussion whether voluntary associations have a choice or not regarding their democratic development. Robert Michels (1911/1983), one of the classic sociological thinkers, says no. The path towards oligarchy is inevitable. Nevertheless, maybe there are certain points, where the organizations face a certain democratic “dilemma” (Merton, 1966), forcing them more or less easily towards the oligarchic path? Seven counterarguments deriving from modern perspectives on participatory democracy (Pateman 1985; 1989) where used to find a way to avoid the oligarchic path and by that develop democracy in organizations. Since democracy also requires equality, the dissertation explored the question of power and influence in democratic organisations by studying the use of (spoken) language. Inspired by sociolinguistic theory (Milles, 2004) the aim was to identify dominance of the conversation: Who are taking part of the conversation? Are there differences between women and men in democratic organisations?The main part of the study consists of group interviews. Members of the boards of six relatively small voluntary associations where chosen as units of analysis. Information around founding an association gathered from 75 homepages on Internet served as background data. The language as each one of the 27 board members where studied both separately and as conversation.The conclusion is that formal structures build in hierarchal levels already when voluntary organisations take form. The dilemmas seem to revolve around the two fundamental criteria of democratic government, namely effectiveness and responsiveness are more or less explicitly stated. Awareness of dilemmas seems to be a possible way to avoid the determinism of oligarchy. The need for reinterpretation of the goals now and then could make it easier to find alternative actions. The associations have to strike a balance between effectiveness in relation to their goals and effectiveness in a democratic sense, a balance not always held. By clarifying the work and development processes of the voluntary organisations it is possible to identify (the lack of) democratic work within the organisations – a useful instrument in practice. The elite that runs the organisations is almost exclusively male and is preventing the members, especially women, from voicing their opinion. Democracy obstructs by structures demanded by society, socialised gender structures and the need of efficiency. The representatives are not always carrying out their task as elected representatives; self-interest puts before the common good.
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| 28. |
- Kalucza, Sara, 1987-
(author)
-
Who becomes a teenage parent? : life course perspectives on selection into teenage motherhood and fatherhood trajectories in Sweden
- 2017
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background. The aim of the research described in thesis is to study processes of selection leading to teenage parenthood in contemporary Sweden. I ask how factors related to socio-economic position, mental health issues in youth, and family formation behaviour of previous generations directs young individuals into teenage parent trajectories. Having children as a teenager is often seen as a burden and a failure, and framed as a public health concern. This is true, even as mounting evidence points to the fact that the connections between teenage parenthood and future adverse outcomes are muddled by selection effects. This research makes a contribution to the body of knowledge by looking at how several factors influence selection processes, namely socio-economic background factors, mental health issues in adolescence and family formation patterns of the teenage parent’s own parents. Both teenage mothers and teenage fathers are considered from a life course perspective. The theoretical framework also draws on the literature relating to opportunity costs and competing alternatives.Method. Two longitudinal data sources are utilized: register population data accessed through the Umeå SIMSAM lab and the Northern Swedish Cohort survey. In order to answer questions about both selection leading into events and trajectories, random intercept models for longitudinal data as well as sequence analysis are applied.Results. The results show that, apart from confirming the continued importance of socio-economic factors selecting young men and women to become teenage parents and embark on teenage parenthood trajectories, mental health issues in youth are also important. Through this route, both teenage girls and boys enter into teenage parenthood in a way that does not happen with on-time parenthood. Furthermore, the results show that selection not only affects the chances of becoming a teenage parent, but also which type of teenage parent trajectory the individual follows. Moreover, the results reveal that these trajectories, and not only the event of becoming a teenage parent, are repeated over generations. The results illustrate that teenage parents are a heterogeneous group with diverse backgrounds and selection processes, and hence policy measures aimed at teenage parents should not try to offer blanket solutions.
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| 29. |
- Karlsson, Lena, 1973-
(author)
-
Klasstillhörighetens subjektiva dimension : klassidentitet, sociala attityder och fritidsvanor
- 2005
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main objective of this dissertation is to study the subjective class identification and the importance of this identification for social attitudes and leisure habits. Class identification is a significant, yet often neglected, area of research in the study of social class and stratification. The aim of this thesis has been to explore in what way the Swedish citizens perceive their own place in the structure of stratification. This thesis is based on three Swedish surveys, collected between 1993 and 2000. The results show that a vast majority of the citizens think that Sweden is still a class society and can place themselves in this structure. The most important sources for this identification are the objective class position and the class position of the father during childhood and adolescence. Identification with the working class is to a higher extent connected with a view that the differences in living conditions are too high, that the differences in the possibility to advance in the Swedish society are unequal and that the gap in income should decrease. This standpoint is nearly as common for people who identify with the working class irrespective of a socialistic or non- socialistic position. The results also show that class identification is related to the level of participation in different leisure activities. Identification with the middle class is connected with a higher degree of participation in a variety of activities, especially in highbrow culture such as theatre and opera. In the conclusion it is discussed that the relevance of class identification in the future is highly dependent on how class in the political and ideological sphere is formulated and attached with different attitudes, and if class is expressed as a positive source in the construction of the social identity.
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| 30. |
- Karlsson, Peder, 1963-
(author)
-
Forskares socialisation : Kunskapssociologisk visit i doktoranders livsvärldar
- 2004
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is an exploration into the socialization of researchers as it takes place in various research practices. Using a lifeworld-perspective, a qualitative interview-study with doctoral students from different academic milieus is conducted. The organizational context of the study is the academic department as it is experienced, apprehended and constructed by the doctoral student.The “societal” context is described and discussed in a brief analytical exposé of Swedish science policy in the last decade of the twentieth century. Questioning the political reliance on a systems-perspective, and the shortcomings of system theory for the understanding of research practices in different academic milieus, a lifeworld-theoretical turn is suggested.A lifeworld-perspective is formulated in a meta-theoretical discussion focusing on the concepts of practice, time and language. Jürgen Habermas’ critique of phenomenological lifeworld-perspectives is the point of departure and theoretical inputs are derived from the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of scientific knowledge and phenomenological sociology. The solution is found in an integrative model of socialization as continual synchronization of subjective systems of coordinates and socio-cultural networks. Mediating between subjective consciousness and inter-subjective knowledge is language, and this is manifested in concrete practices observed in “real-time”.The empirical study reveals some influences of the system on the lifeworld. “Inside” the lifeworld, however, the interviewees mostly use their departments as frames of reference in their descriptions and discussions. A more elaborate exploration of the life-world results in an understanding of socialization in terms of positioning. This concept denotes the ways in which the interviewees describe themselves, their socio-cultural surroundings and themselves in relation to these milieus. At any given moment, positioning can be understood as a “co-construction” of subjective position and socio-cultural milieu. Positioning is thereby the empirical correlate to synchronization, and socialization can be “read off” from the ways in which doctoral students position themselves “here and now”. Problematic, though, is that “doctoral student”, and especially “female doctoral student”, are found to be vague and vulnerable categories with no clear meanings for the socialised nor for the socio-cultural environment. In a more speculative manner, these difficulties of positioning are put in relation to “scientist” as a vague category. If “scientist” cannot be defined, how then can we know what “scientists in the making” are?This thesis offers an insight into the plural “realities” of doctoral students in different academic milieus. It offers a lifeworld-perspective on socialization and is thereby relevant for discussions of post-graduate education among scholars as well as among policy makers.
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| 31. |
- Keisu, Britt-Inger, 1968-
(author)
-
Att peka med hela handen : Om arbetsvillkor och kön bland första linjens chefer
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Historically, leadership research has focused on managers’ characteristics and behavior, their leadership style and its implications for a business’s success. In contrast, this dissertation examines how working conditions in the workplace affect first-level managers’ everyday work, their possibilities to practice leadership, and consequently their leadership style. The theoretical framework guiding the dissertation is a gender analysis with a doing gender perspective and the methodology is a case study. Two workplace organizations in a Swedish municipality are studied: a male-dominated manufacturing industry and a female-dominated elderly care service. The empirical materials consist of twenty-six semi-structured interviews, primarily with male and female first-level managers, but also with their immediate supervisors. In addition, the materials include a questionnaire and organizational documents. The results show that organizational structure and culture have implications for managers’ working conditions and consequently the leadership style they are willing and able to implement. The sex ratio among employees did not have any implications for which type of leadership informants described in their everyday practices. The ideal leadership and the everyday leadership practices portrayed by informants entail being explicit, controlling and rational managers who are able to make decisions and carry forth extensive structural changes. Their narratives reveal an authoritarian and task-oriented leadership style that has its roots in early industrialism. Leadership is strongly marked by masculinity, and even though women and men describe practicing the same type of leadership in their everyday work, their ideas about gender depict two complete opposites in which women and femininity is subordinated to men and masculinity. This indicates a divergence between the gender we think and the gender we do. Nonetheless, sex ratio among employees has implications for the level of sexism. While informants in both workplace organizations described gender discrimination, only those in the manufacturing industry described experiencing sexual harassment.
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| 32. |
- Kulin, Joakim, 1975-
(author)
-
Values and welfare state attitudes : The interplay between human values, attitudes and redistributive institutions across national contexts
- 2011
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- While there is much research aiming to assess the determinants of welfare state attitudes, there are not many studies focussing on how human values influence attitude formation. This thesis explores the relationship between values and welfare state attitudes across national contexts. In doing so, it focuses on the moderating influence of contextual factors on the values-attitudes link.In order to measure values properly, and to study their effects on welfare state attitudes, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and multi-group structural equation modelling (MGSEM) is used. These methods enable testing for measurement equivalence across groups, a prerequisite for comparing the effects of human values across countries. The individual-level data used in this thesis comes from the European Social Survey (ESS) between 2002-08.The findings show that values can play an important role in welfare state attitude formation, but that the impact of values on attitudes differs considerably across national contexts. Several country-specific contextual factors such as the generosity of redistributive institutions, their framing and their distributive outcomes moderates the values-attitudes link. In more generous welfare states and where redistributive issues are more articulated in the political debate, the impact of, for instance, egalitarian values on redistributive attitudes is comparably strong. Moreover, in countries where lower social classes are more exposed to risks and lack resources to meet these risks, class differences in the values-attitudes link are greater. Finally, the results show that the particular values that underlie welfare state attitudes in Eastern Europe are fundamentally different to those in Western Europe.The results imply that the impact of values on welfare state attitudes mainly depends on (i) whether people perceive welfare state institutions to have important consequences for the extent to which their values are attained, and (ii) the presence of competing motives. Hence, it is not necessarily the case that people who support the welfare state do so, for example, due to holding egalitarian values. In contrast to previous research, which has been quite unsuccessful in confirming direct relationships between institutions and attitudes, the results in this thesis suggest that there are indeed clear and consistent macro-micro relationships, but that these are more complex. Rather, it is in the interplay between values, attitudes and institutions that this relationship can be found.
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| 33. |
- Kvist, Elin, 1972-
(author)
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Stormarknadens nya maktordningar : Från kassörskor och butikschefer till (o)demokratiska arbetslag
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The empirical basis of this thesis is made up of interviews with men and women working at a supermarket, both with and without managerial responsibilities. The supermarket is an example of a working place where they use modern information technologies, and where there have been reorganisations pointing towards more flexibility, lesser hierarchies and higher autonomy for the workers. Such a working place is therefore a good example of an organisation on the new labour market.The aim of this thesis is to study how everyday work is affected by the new labour market’s working conditions and to relate these findings to established theories on society’s transformations. Four concepts are in focus; technology,flexibility, hierarchy and control. These are often emphasised as important in the debate on changed work organisations. According to the post industrial and information society perspective, knowledge and technology will play an important role on today’s labour market.The development of technology and knowledge at the supermarket points in many different directions at the same time. They use technology on a daily basis. The work rotation has raised the qualification levels for some of the employees, but at the same time others feel that the more qualified parts of their work are moved away from them, into computer systems or to a national level. The development of work rotation and partly self-governing work teams has given the employees more control over their everyday work but at the same time their resources are limited. They can decide when to do a task, but are often understaffed and have too many jobs to do. The work tasks are often heavy; the tempo is high, often with high noise.The work situation appears in many ways more industrial than service oriented. Workers are controlled through hierarchy but also by group norms, information technology, customers and by service-mindedness. The control mechanism has become more diverse, diffuse and harder to recognise. The changed work situation can be seen as two-fold. On the one hand there has been a humanisation of work, more autonomy, more opportunities to develop and many more interesting work tasks but on the other hand work density has risen while personnel resources have stayed the same in spite of increased opening hours and lager turnovers. The supermarket employees identify with their work tasks and take great responsibility for the work, even if their work conditions are hard. The work conditions that are now emphasised as flexible have long been the everyday reality for many employees, above all for many women in retail. Now these flexible work conditions have come to include both men and women in the working classes.
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| 34. |
- Larsson, Daniel, 1976-
(author)
-
Exposure to crime as a consequence of poverty : five investigations about relative deprivation, poverty and exposure to crime
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis contains five studies that in different ways investigate poverty and the relation between poverty and exposure to crime. The basis of the thesis has been the question of how poverty is related to other welfare problems such as unemployment and health problems, focusing on exposure to crime and fear of crime. The thesis also has a comparative element. In one article, the conditions in Britain, Finland and Sweden are compared, and two articles compare conditions in Britain and Sweden.Poverty has been measured as relative deprivation. This is done by measuring consumption of socially perceived necessities, both goods and activities. For poverty to be at hand, not consuming some of the goods or not engaging in some of the activities must be a consequence of lack of economic resources, not of personal preference. The relation between poverty and exposure to crime has been understood from an interactionist perspective, where the possible interaction between and intersection of potential offender and potential victim constitute the determinant factor for the risk of being exposed to crime. In this perspective, the poor are more exposed because their situation of being poor places them in situations where the risks of being exposed are high. Fear of crime stems from different sources. The significance of earlier victimization, the characteristics of the geographical unit where one lives and vulnerability in the event of actual exposure have been investigated.It was found that poverty measured as relative deprivation is related to other welfare problems, primarily other economic problems, unemployment, health impairments, anxiety, sleeping problems and headaches. But it was also found that poverty is related to exposure to crime and fear of crime. Furthermore, poverty based on an income measure did not correlate especially well with other welfare problems. It was also found that the extent of poverty measured as relative deprivation is equal in Britain and Sweden, while it is more extensive in Finland. This result contradicts earlier studies based on income measurements of poverty, which show that poverty is about equally common in Sweden and Finland and more extensive in Britain. It was found that the reason why relative deprivation is more extensive in Finland is that the level of unemployment is higher there and that the unemployed are worse off in Finland than in Britain and Sweden.Regarding the relation between poverty and exposure to property crime, it was found that the poor are more exposed than are the non-poor with regard to the property crime that violates personal integrity most: property crime related to the residence. Exposure to crime was found to be more of a poverty problem in Sweden than in Britain. Because crime rates are about equal in Britain and Sweden, the result indicates that the risk of being exposed to crime in Britain is more equally distributed across the population. Furthermore, it was found that fear of crime in Sweden is related to poverty, while fear of crime in Britain is more related to vulnerability in general, particularly vulnerability on the labour market. One reason for this may be that fear of crime is more common in Britain than in Sweden. Fear of crime may be such a general problem in Britain that the poor cannot be differentiated from the non-poor.
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| 35. |
- Larsson, Magnus, 1983-
(author)
-
National environmental evaluation systems : guiding towards sustainability?
- 2018
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: Dealing with environmental threats is one of the largest, if not the largest, challenge contemporary societies face. One way to better deal with this challenge would be to produce knowledge that can be used to improve environmental work and environmental policy and thus ultimately contribute to sustainable development. National environmental evaluations, which this thesis explores, could potentially fill this function because they are supposed to generate applicable and useful knowledge for improving environmental policy and practice for a sustainable transition. However, what different environmental actors view as useful knowledge varies, and needs to be empirically investigated. Against this background, the aim of this thesis is to investigate whether, and how, national environmental evaluation systems contribute to key actors’ environmental work and sustainable development. The thesis explores two national environmental evaluation systems in Sweden.Method: A mixed methods approach is applied that combines three methods. Firstly, a narrative synthesis is developed and applied to compile a list of sustainable development effects from national environmental evaluations. Secondly, a critical program theory is used to investigate the evaluation system’s underlying logic and to assess the likelihood of it achieving its intended effects. Thirdly, a directed content analysis is used to explore the usability and use of environmental evaluations and evaluation systems. The methods are applied to various documents, interviews with key actors, and observations at two environmental seminars.Results: The results show that, to contribute to sustainable development in the context of evaluation systems and network governance, environmental evaluations need to be of sufficient quality and meet different stakeholders’ knowledge needs. However, only some evaluations meet this demand. The main value of national environmental evaluations and evaluation systems is that they reinforce the national objectives, provide a recurrent report on achievement of objectives, and push actors to take responsibility to improve their environmental work.
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| 36. |
- Lindahl, Jonas, 1978-
(author)
-
In search of future excellence : bibliometric indicators, gender differences, and predicting research performance in the early career
- 2020
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The governance of higher education institutions and science have endured significant changes during the last decades, emphasizing competitiveness, performance, and excellence. Embedded in this development is an increased use of bibliometric indicators as decision support tools in contexts of e.g., employment, appointment, and funding. These changes have gradually extended to the early career phase and the doctoral education.The aim of this thesis is to make a contribution to an ongoing discussion about the predictability of research performance and the reasonability of using bibliometric indicators in the early career, with a focus on gender differences. The thesis revolves around three overarching research questions focusing the early career and the doctoral education: (1) the degree to which research performance, as operationalized with bibliometric indicators, is predictable; (2) the degree to which gender differences in early career performance can be explained by research performance during the doctoral education; and (3) to what degree factors such as collaboration and supervisor behaviour, might affect gender differences in research performance.The main results suggests that research performance in the early career, as operationalized by bibliometric indicators, is predictable. Individuals who publish larger volumes, publish more in high prestige journals, and more excellent research early in their career, are more likely to attain excellence later on. The results also indicates that gender differences in performance can be observed as early asduring doctor education and that these differences partly explain the observed performance differences between males and females in the early career.Finally, the results suggests that gender differences in performance during doctoral education can largely be explained by the doctoral student’s collaborative networks and supervisor behaviour. It is concluded that while research performance, as operationalized by bibliometric indicators, duringthe early career is predictable, there are gender differences in performance that have to be taken into consideration. If they are not, the use of these types of performance indicators in science policy and management might increase the gender gap in science.
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| 37. |
- Lindh, Arvid, 1982-
(author)
-
Attitudes towards the Market and the Welfare State : Incorporating attitudes towards the market into welfare state research
- 2014
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Social policy and its associated institutions are central political arenas for societal compromise and conflict. The capacity to attract strong support from a wide constituency of citizens is, therefore, a defining feature of welfare policy legitimacy. While there is much research measuring attitudes towards state-organized welfare, the overall aim of this thesis is to incorporate attitudes towards the market into this research field. This aim is carried out through four empirical studies that add a market component to the analysis of different topics covered in current welfare state research. The articles in this thesis either compare attitudes across countries or deploy Swedish public opinion as a test case. Newly designed or previously underutilized survey measures are used that explicitly cover attitudes towards the market. Latent class analysis, structural equation modeling, and multilevel analysis are used to study how attitudes vary both within and across countries. Citizens’ perceptions and evaluations of the market are found to be shaped by their everyday life experiences within the market structure. Moreover, citizens’ trust in the performance of market institutions is found to be important in structuring their welfare policy preferences. In addition, attitudes towards the market appear to be influenced by the institutional context: citizens living in countries with more ambitious welfare states are less inclined to support market distribution of social services, and class differences in political welfare attitudes tend to be larger in countries with more encompassing welfare states. Collected findings thus suggest that citizens living in countries with more generous welfare states are more inclined to think that the legitimate scope of the market nexus should be negotiated and calibrated via social policy. By incorporating attitudes towards the market in relation to welfare state support, this thesis contributes to increasing our understanding of the political and moral mindset of citizens in advanced political economies. Public attitudes towards the welfare state are to a significant degree formed by perceptions and evaluations of the market and its actors. In order to further our knowledge about preferences regarding the role of the state in modern society, and to stay in tune with ongoing policy developments, future socio-political research is well advised to bring the main alternative to the state – the market and its actors – into the analytical framework.
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| 38. |
- Lundström, Ragnar, 1975-
(author)
-
Den kalkylerande medborgaren : Bidragsfusk i svensk välfärdsdebatt 1990-2010
- 2011
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation analyses discourse on benefit fraud in Sweden between 1990 and 2010. First, it maps general trends in public discourse about benefit fraud. This is done through a content analysis of news reporting about benefit fraud in four Swedish newspapers. This part of the dissertation shows that the number of published news articles about benefit fraud have increased significantly since 1990. Particularly large numbers of articles were published during the middle of the 1990s, and between 2002 and 2006. Second, a qualitative discourse analysis of talk about benefit fraud in news texts, political debates and government reports is conducted. During periods of intense news coverage about fraud, reporting is often clearly marked by traits generally associated with moral panics; constructing the phenomenon as seemingly more common than it in reality is, constructing cheaters as a threat to the moral fiber of society, and also claiming the need for counter-measures. The qualitative analysis furthermore focuses on how the relation-ships between different subject positions are constructed in the collected material. This part of the analysis shows that fraud discourse in Sweden during the past twenty years have shifted from a dominant focus on alleged cheating among immigrants in the early 1990s, to claims of abuse within the sickness insurance program after 2002. The analysis also shows that benefit fraud is constructed as a political problem using neoliberal discursive strategies that [1] reduce welfare policies to financial costs, [2] constitute benefit claimants as individually responsible for their inability to support themselves through regular work, and [3] articulate the welfare state as an instrument for the moral regulation of citizens.
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| 39. |
- Mitchell, Jeffrey, 1986-
(author)
-
Prejudice in context over time : how demographic, economic and social conditions influence anti-immigrant attitudes in adolescents and adults
- 2020
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background Thesis explores the contexts that influence anti-immigrant attitudes in both adolescents and adults, and how contexts influence changes anti-immigrant attitudes in societies over time. Whereas previous research into anti-immigrant attitudes has either focused on micro socialization factors in adolescence, or threat inducing factors in adulthood; this thesis forwards an approach that synthesizes these two ideas. This approach includes four aspects: 1) Macro level contexts influence of prejudice during adolescence 2) Macro contextual factors, not strictly limited to direct competition over resources are important for prejudicial attitudes 3) These contexts are potentially changing over time, and changes in conditions should be related to changes in attitudes, and 4) The effects of these macro contexts on prejudicial attitudes during adolescence cast a long shadow over the rest of people’s lives.Methods The methods used in this thesis employ a diverse range of datasets from Sweden (YeS), Germany (CILS4EU), the United States (GSS) and Europe (ESS) to measure attitudes towards immigrants. Each of these datasets allow for both comparative and longitudinal analysis with multi-level models, and contextual indicators that expand with each study from classrooms to regions, and finally countries.Results The findings support the proposed approach. Demographic, economic and attitudinal contexts in adolescence influence attitudes about immigrants. Similarly, changes in contexts over time are also important. In contrast, only historic demographic and economic conditions experienced in adolescence, and contemporary levels of social trust influence attitudes in adults.Conclusion This thesis makes both a theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature on anti-immigrant attitudes. By combining previous approaches it draws attention to both different types of contexts and when they should be important in relation to anti-immigrant attitudes. It also shows empirical evidence for each aspect of this approach with longitudinal analyses.
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| 40. |
- Mählck, Paula, 1972-
(author)
-
Mapping Gender in Academic Workplaces : Ways of reproducing gender inequality within the discourse of equality
- 2003
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Sweden is often described as one of the best countries in the world for women to live in. Despite this and despite a number of equal opportunity interventions within the area of higher education from the mid 1990s and on, Sweden follows the international pattern of the "leaking pipeline" when it comes to gender distribution in academia. The higher up in the academic hierarchy the more men and the fewer women. The topic of this thesis is mapping gender in academic workplaces. The aim is to explore ways in which the social relations of researchers everyday working lives are gendered. This involves studing ways in which gender inequality is produced, maintained or ignored within the discource of gender equality in Swedish academic workplaces and in Swedish society at large.
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| 41. |
- Ngeh, Jonathan, 1979-
(author)
-
Conflict, marginalisation and transformation : African migrants in Sweden
- 2011
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Migrants from the Global South, coming to Sweden predominantly since the 1980s, have become a major focus of public discussions about immigration. The fears of and resentments toward the migrant ‘other’ appear to have shifted from European migrants to migrants of the Global South. Numerous studies (and official reports) showing the marginalisation of these migrants confirm their spotlight position. The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain the kind of challenges which African migrants face in their local Swedish context and to find out if they undergo any significant transformations affecting their identities and/or ways of life. This objective was pursued through a field study of African migrants from Cameroon and Somalia living in the city of Malmö. The empirical material consisted of semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups and participant observations at migrant cultural associations. The analysis utilised two main theoretical frameworks: theory of conflict transformation and theories of discrimination (racism). The choice of the former was made to illuminate the agency of migrants by highlighting their capacity to act in their own interests within the host society. A major strength of this approach is that it draws attention to the (re)actions of both ‘natives’ and migrants towards each other. Theories of discrimination address the important issue of unequal power relations working against migrants, which tend to be neglected in conflict theory. The advantage of using these different theoretical approaches is that they complement each other and thus strengthen the theoretical discussion in the thesis. Analysis of the empirical material indicated that established practices in major institutions, as well as individual actions at the micro level of society, contribute to the marginalisation of migrants. A major finding was that both migrants and ‘natives’ are involved in practices that produce experiences of marginalisation and discrimination for the former. Actions that produced conflicts, material deprivation and exclusion were identified with both migrants and ‘natives’. However, actions by ‘natives’ had a more negative impact than those by migrants. This was seen as the result of the fact that ‘natives’ have greater influence in society because of their relative position of power. Finally, the thesis showed that migrants perceive the challenges confronting them in Sweden in different ways, due to the specific experiences they face in Sweden but also by reason of their experiences in their countries of origins and their different migration histories. Some of them saw the practices that produced their marginalisation as infringements on their basic rights and responded by actively fighting back. Others were less critical of similar practices and did little or nothing about them. Important differences between migrants were also noted in relation to their transformations in Sweden affecting important aspects of their lives: their identities, power relations among them and between them and the host society, gender relations, and their ways of dealing with the challenges with which they were confronted. These differences were seen as a result of the heterogeneity of the migrants under study, who nevertheless are often homogenised as the African ‘other’. This heterogeneity consisted of hierarchical gender relations, varying access to material resources, and membership in exclusive networks of belonging based on particularistic national and regional identities.
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| 42. |
- Nilsson Ranta, Daniel, 1968-
(author)
-
Nödhjälp på villovägar : implementering av en filantropisk välfärdsidé, Norrbottens arbetsstugor 1903-1954
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis examines the implementation of a philanthropically project called Norrbottens arbetsstugor which were launched during the famine of 1903. The project initially aimed to hinder starvation among children to poor families and was arranged in a similar way as boarding-out schools. Children to poor families were offered this temporary solution and during their stay they received board and lodging as well as schooling and work practice. However, the project continues until 1954 although the threat of famine is hindered fairly promptly which indicates that new policies were introduced. Therefore, the inquiry focuses on how actors on different levels in the implementation structure adapt and transform the philanthropically policy to suit their respective needs and goals. The study is divided into two phases, a so called initial phase and an expansion phase. The implementation is investigated via archive material from the philanthropically organisation itself, Stiftelsen Norrbottens Läns arbetsstugor, as well as from local governments (kommunala skolråd) and representatives of the Swedish government (folkskoleinspektörer). The study shows how policies of childcare becomes blurry or difficult to fulfil due to insufficient means, lack of control or because of absence of recognized tools to evaluate the activity. Commonly, implementation studies sought to show how well or misused the policy has been obeyed after its introduction. This study shows rather how a policy can work fruitfully even though, or thanks to, its intentions are reformulated by different actors. This of course, awakes questions of moral characters. The study also highlights the importance to investigate, in this case a philanthropically case, not only as such, but as a project that is ongoing on several levels. This gives us the opportunity to see what, for example, the conception of ‘good childcare’ means and how it is defined depending on the level studied. To put it short: when studied in different levels, we may unveil the different meanings of a concept. Keywords: Norrbotten, early 20th century, childcare, boarding-school, philanthropy, assimilation, implementation.
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| 43. |
- Norberg, Anna, 1972-
(author)
-
Samkönad tvåsamhet : vardagsliv och heteronormativa praktiker
- 2009
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study explores how same sex couples in Sweden, a country with strong gender equality policies and discourses understand their lives and relationships. Central to the study is the analysis of the tensions between a public discourse favoring openness for lesbians, gays, and bisexuals and a lack of acknowledgment of non-heterosexual family practices; as well as the tensions between gender equality policies and discourses and the specific construction of same sex couples. The study is grounded in a feminist and queer perspective and inspired by narrative analysis. Furthermore, it uses an intersectional perspective in which different axes of power are seen as mutually constituted. Interviews were conducted with same sex couples, both individually and together, in which the following topics were addressed: intimacy, division of household labor, domestic decision-making, conflict resolution, and the social context in which the couples live. One part of the study analyzes the economic foundations upon which the couples live and how income and possessions are organized within their relationship. This study shows that income and status are key questions for studying equality within same sex couples. The analysis is concerned with the tensions generated by the partners' class position as well as the negotiations which occur between the couple. It becomes apparent that the equality as an ideal is difficult to attain in practice. Even same sex partners are forced to relate to household labor as gendered practices. The interviewees describe their couple relationship and everyday life within heteronormative discourses. Through their stories, the interviewed couples give a view of the way in which everyday experiences of heteronormative confrontations affect the construction of their relationship. This study also indicates that same sex couples are neither more equal nor less conflict laden than heterosexual couples, even if they position themselves in relation to heterosexual couples as anti-role models. When the interviewees position themselves in relation to heterosexual couples they simultaneously embody the ideal of the gender equality discourse and the norms of being an ideal couple.
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| 44. |
- Nordenmark, Mikael
(author)
-
Unemployment, Employment Commitment and Well-being : The Psychosocial Meaning of (Un)employment among Women and Men
- 1999
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The general aim of this thesis is to study the psychosocial meaning of (un)employment among women and men. This is mainly done by analysing employment commitment, or non-financial employment motivation, and mental well-being among a random sample of 3 500 Swedes that were interviewed in the beginning of 1996, when all were unemployed, and then again in the end of 1997, when the labour market situation varied. In general, the results from this study support the unemployment studies that have emphasised the importance of employment for the possibility to create and maintain a satisfactory life situation.
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| 45. |
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| 46. |
- Nordlund, Madelene, 1969-
(author)
-
Long-term unemployment scarring and the role of labour market policies : The case of Sweden in the 1990s
- 2010
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The experience of unemployment puts individuals at risk of long-term negative scarring and the longer the unemployment spell, the greater the risk of negative scarring. In Sweden, labour market policies aim at reducing such risks in the form of unemployment benefits, active matching and active labour market policy programmes (ALMPs). However, there is frequent discussion regarding the extent to which these kinds of policies actually reduce the risk of negative scarring. It is often argued that the programmes are of poor quality, particularly during economic downturns, and participants are often not motivated for the task. Likewise, it is claimed that unemployment insurance tends to counteract a quick return to the regular labour market. One problem related to labour market policies is that it has been difficult to examine the impact of such policies. Studies often present results that appear scattered due to differences in what is actually being measured and methodological problems. The uniqueness of this thesis is that it is based on a large-scale longitudinal register of data that has provided important empirical information regarding the long-term effects of labour market policy investments. The quality of data has also enabled the use of evaluation techniques which largely can help to reduce the uncertainty of the findings. More precisely, the research questions examine (1) in what way the level of unemployment benefit functions as protection against unemployment scarring, (2) in what way the ALMPs protect long-term unemployed people from long-term unemployment scarring, (3) at what point in a business cycle the ALMPs are efficient and finally, (4) for whom do the ALMPs function to reduce the risk of negative scarring. In this thesis, scarring effects are measured as the risk of labour market exit, the risk of labour market instability and the risk of future negative wage trajectories. The methods used in most studies are Cox regressions in combination with instrumental variable analysis (the Heckman two-step procedure). The empirical findings indicate that ALMPs worked well to reduce such negative effects both in times of booms (1999) and recessions (1993) and particularly among the youngest and oldest actors on the labour market. They also function particularly well for people with a low level of education. However, it is important not to exclude unemployed people who have a high level of education, in the belief that ALMPs have nothing to offer them, since such people are particularly helped by ALMPs as regards reducing the risk of future labour market instability. It was also found that generous unemployment benefit helped to reduce the risk of future negative wage scarring. In addition to these findings, some mechanisms were identified which proved to be important tools for transforming policies into valuable resources for the unemployed. In this thesis, the value of the findings of these mechanisms is discussed from the perspective of the capability approach. Even if the same investments were made in all unemployed persons, the participants would respond differently to the investment. Some reasons for the inequality in outcomes were found within the programmes and were due to heterogeneity in the unemployment group but some reasons can actually be explained by the converters (mechanisms) that were identified in the studies. Thus, the results emphasise the importance of investing in labour market policies, particularly during economic downturns. This is the time when cuts in unemployment benefit do not help the unemployed back to the labour market since there are very few available jobs to apply for. It is also the time when the long-term unemployed should participate in ALMP-training in order to be prepared for new challenges when the labour market improves again. As a matter of fact, the results show that skills from ALMP-training have a bridging effect which indicates that these skills will be valuable on the labour market for at least another five years after the year of investment. The findings in this thesis are controversial since they differ from most research findings from the beginning of the 1990s which point to poor micro level outcomes. However, the long-term approach of this thesis is the main explanation for these new and different results. It is argued here that a long-term approach is needed to find out the long-term effects because ALMP participation, particularly ALMP-training, is meant to be a long-term investment in human capital. A long period of time needs to pass between ALMP-investment and evaluation before the effects can show. Reported effects from ALMP investments at the beginning of the 1990s have often been measured on a short-term basis. It is not suggested that short-term effects should be ignored but it is argued that a short-term analysis provides only a fragmental description of reality, and long-term effects should be given greater priority than is usually the case since they affect the labour market prospects of the individuals over a long period of time. This thesis dispels the “myth” about the negative effects generated from ALMPs during the 1990s.
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| 47. |
- Nyman, Charlott, 1962-
(author)
-
Mine, yours or ours? : sharing in Swedish couples
- 2002
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The topic of this thesis is the sharing of resources in families. Equal sharing has often been taken for granted by policy makers as well as researchers. However, a considerable body of research has now shown that unequal sharing can and does occur in families. The aim of this thesis has been to study sharing in Swedish couples and the degree to which equality can be said to exist in these. The outcomes of sharing, i e partners’ access to money and consumption have been a major focus, as has the negotiations that take place regarding sharing. The processes and mechanisms that are at play in discussions and negotiations about sharing have also been a major focus. Money and consumption are in focus, however other resources such as leisure time and housework are also addressed. The studies are based on an in-depth interview study with ten Swedish couples where each spouse was interviewed separately; in addition, a survey study of Swedish couples is also utilized. The results of all of the four studies support earlier studies that show that unequal sharing in couples does in fact exist; women seem to experience less access to money and consumption more often than their partners. Several mechanisms were found to be at work shaping patterns of sharing. Pooling money was a common way of regarding the family economy, however it seemed this was not necessarily accompanied by an organization of money that facilitated pooling. Pooling was not necessarily a reflection of equal sharing as it is often assumed to be; instead, it could conceal inequality in that negotiations about sharing were kept off of the agenda. The gendered division of labor that still exists in Swedish society as well as in Swedish families means that women seem to have more knowledge of the needs of the family. This knowledge, which is often lacked by their spouses, also seems to mean that women take on the responsibility of seeing to it that ends are met. This could result in women sacrificing their own personal spending and using money meant for themselves as an economic buffer for the benefit of the family, something that was not found regarding men. In addition, details of the system of financial management used can sometimes act as an obstacle for women’s job of making ends meet and for their personal spending. Another important aspect of sharing in families is how money is defined. Different money can be defined differently and its definition will influence how it is shared and used. The continuous re-defining of money that takes place in families means that money’s meaning can change over time. Money was found to be relational; how it is understood and defined is influenced by its social context; how it is used can also give meaning to actions and influence the balance of power in couples. Several of the studies found support for the resource theory of marital power, however this alone could not explain women’s poorer access to money and consumption. Cultural aspects such as notions about gender and family must also be considered.
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| 48. |
- Samuelsson, Jenny
(author)
-
På väg från ingenstans : kritik och emancipation av kunskapsorganisation för feministisk forskning
- 2008
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study deals with knowledge organization of feminist research, in bibliographic catalogues and in a Swedish context. The thesis develops a definition of feminist discourse which incorporates but is not limited to feminist research. Feminist research, in turn, is understood as articulating a critical approach aimed at critiquing and changing inequitable gender relations. The thesis analyzes the meaning of a range of feminist perspectives through a close text analysis of feminist PhD-dissertations. Two universal knowledge organization systems: Svenska ämnesord and Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek; and one subject-specific system: Kvinnohistoriska samlingarnas ämnesord, are studied in order to discuss the extent to which they are able to articulate feminist perspectives, as well as how they actually articulate such perspectives in practice. The two universal systems studied tend to marginalize feminist perspectives as forms of knowledge. This thesis interprets this marginalization in the light of these systems’ putative objectivistic and universalistic epistemology and ontology. It is suggested that they privilege disciplinary knowledge over interdisciplinary knowledge forms, and substantive topics over conceptual perspectives. Guidelines for knowledge organizatory practice tend to encourage indexers and classifiers to search for central substantive themes. In this schema, feminism is understood as a field relating to socio-political women’s issues. Feminist knowledge qua knowledge is marginalized by the systems studied, and is at times given a plain wrong classifycation. further, this thesis suggests that the subject-specific knowledge organization system studied: Kvinnohistoriska samlingarnas ämnesord, is only able to deal with feminist research in an incomplete and inadequate way. Although this index is designed to classify texts within the broad subject field of: women’s studies, masculinity studies and gender research, as well as other material relevant to the field, the structure of the index is too simple and does not allow for associative relationships between terms; nor does it define feminist discourse. The premises and guidelines for knowledge organization practice are also under-developed or not well defined. Successful organization of feminist knowledge needs instead to be based on a particular understanding of knowledge and knowledge organization as contextually shaped (and shaping). Feminist literature is first and foremost about expressing feminist discourse qua theme, perspective, and part of the feminist tradition (such as critical, women-centring, and reflexive feminisms) – an observation that needs to be reflected in the knowledge organization.
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| 49. |
- Schmauch, Ulrika
(author)
-
Den osynliga vardagsrasismens realitet
- 2006
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main objective of the thesis is to study how people of African decent experience and deal with everyday discrimination and racism in a context where such racism is to a large degree concealed and/or denied. Everyday racism affecting people with an African background in Sweden is expressed in a number of different, often subtle and obscure, ways. It is experienced in a context of structural inequality between those who are racialized and those who are seen as the norm in society. The mystification that takes place in the public debate highly restricts the opportunities for resistance in an open and articulated manner. This is partly because silence leads to an insecurity about how to understand the racism experienced, for example, should it be defined as “racism” or as a “misunderstanding”? In addition, people who openly resist and protest tend to be discredited as exaggerating or being too sensitive. Consequently, resistance against structural discrimination in Sweden today is difficult. The findings demonstrate that interviewees deal with everyday racism in a variety of ways that can be categorized in to three broad strategies: mystifying the experiences of racism in one’s everyday life, longing for a place or context far away from Swedish racism and finally, keeping racism at a distance, including resisting and protesting within the existing limitations.
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| 50. |
- Sehlin, Staffan, 1950-
(author)
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Förebygger medling återfall i brott bland unga gärningsmän : En återfallsstudie av medlingsverksamheterna i Hudiksvall & Örnsköldsvik
- 2009
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to investigate mediation’s crime prevention effects. The question that has been answered is: which crime prevention effects mediation has had on young criminals who have participated in mediation programs? The investigation was made in relation to a comparable control group and included a reoffence analysis based on a multivariate analysis. This reoffence study mainly focuses on that the mediation prevents crime through the feelings of shame that the young perpetrator has due to the fact that the crime has been made clear and reinforced at the mediation meeting. The following hypothesis is addressed in this study: Mediation involves the trust between the young perpetrator and his/her parents and has a conflict-solving and crime-prevention effect. By committing a crime, the youth has broken the trust with his/her parents, who have condemned the action. The parents feel the shame from those around them, and because of this resume their position against the youth. The main conclusion is that the total population of youths who participated in mediation programs relapsed into crime to a lesser extent than the youths who did not participate in mediation. The risk for a relapse was twice as high for the youths who did not participate in mediation. A statistically significant relationship emerged between mediation and relapse with regard to party and person plaintiff status, but it is not possible to draw any conclusions whether mediation has a better or worse effect between plaintiff status. The significant effect of relapse for respective gender showed that girls relapsed to a lesser extent than boys. It was not possible to statistically determine whether the youths who were born abroad respective born i Sweden have relapsed to a greater extent. Regarding the age groups there was no statistically significant relationship as to whether youths relapsed to a greater or lesser extent depending on whether they were under or over fifteen years of age. Furthermore, it has not been possible to statistically determine whether group mediation has had a different outcome in relapse frequency as compared to individual mediation, and it has not been possible to distinguish whether compensation at mediation has had any effect. There emerged significant relationships between mediation and relapse for the crime categories ‘crime against life and health’, ‘crime against freedom and peace’, ‘burglary, robbery and other theft crimes’ and ‘vandalism’.
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