| 1. |
- Anving, Terese
(author)
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Måltidens paradoxer : Om klass och kön i vardagens familjepraktiker
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis the relation between the everyday meal, the doings of family and the reproduction of difference in Swedish everyday family life is explored. The thesis has a qualitative approach and interviews with parents from different class and ethnic backgrounds and family constellations, but all with children under the age of 8 years old, is the empirical basis. Using sociological and feminist theories that focus on peoples’ experiences and doings and how they are related to relations of ruling, the analysis aims to understand how family is done in Sweden. Taking the point of departure in questions such as how can the practice of feeding be understood as a central hub for how family is done? What does the work of feeding imply in relation to assumptions of the gender equal Sweden? How do the parents interviewed relate to norms about feeding and parenting and what importance do these attitudes have for how class is experienced and reproduced? In the thesis it is argued that the practice of feeding is fundamental for how family is established in today’s Sweden. It is also an important point of departure to understand how relations of class and gender are being reproduced in everyday life. It is also argued that children play a central part in what is considered as “family” in Sweden. The practice of feeding is at the same time a unifying and separating practice where communion between family members, generations, friends and others is established but also a practice where difference is recreated and manifested. Even though Sweden has a long history of approaching gender equality women still continues to have the main responsibility for housework and care of children and a significant relationship between gender and feeding work is identified. Here it is argued that there is a need of an expanded work-concept that also includes the emotional and caring work. The work is not only about performing certain tasks but also how (mainly) the women live with and keep the family and its needs “in their head”. It is also argued that certain types of food, products and ingredients (such as sugar) are fundamental for how a division of class is recreated on a level of everyday life in Swedish families and that there is a strong relationship between “good” meals and “good” and respectable parenting. By taking the point of departure in the practice of feeding the dissertation contributes to the understanding of how family is done in today’s Sweden and how unequal relationships are recreated in one of the most central practices of everyday life.
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| 2. |
- Apelmo, Elisabet
(author)
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Som vem som helst : Kön, funktionalitet och idrottande kroppar
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main aim of this thesis is to explore young women’s lived experience of the body, which, on one hand, is viewed as deviant – the disabled body – and, on the other hand, is viewed as accomplished – the sporting body. The questions posed in the thesis are the following: how do the young women handle the two subject positions that emerge as a result of the perception of them as respectively deviant and accomplished, which forms of femininity are available to them and what are the strategies of resistance they develop. Based on the work of philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir, phenomenologies create in this thesis a sociological theoretical framework that includes the body. Participant observation was conducted at a disability sports camp for young disabled people and at four disability sports contests. The participants were recruited from both the sports camp and disability sports clubs. Ten semi-structured interviews were done with young women ages 15 to 28. Three of the participants were asked to keep video diaries: they were lent a small camcorder and a lightweight tripod for two months. In this study a polarization paradoxically is apparent between the weak, which is expressed through the expression of belonging as ”we”, and the strong individual. The subject position as capable and positive – as a reaction towards the weak, the negative – is one of the few positions that are available to them. With the positive and strong attitude, as with distancing from the victim position, the consequence is the difficulty, not only to complain but also to express pain, despair or discomfort in one’s everyday life. In this study many critical voices are raised. They also tell about stumbling and incontinence. At the same time the answer ”no, it’s fine” is given in many different forms. In this thesis this is interpreted as an unwillingness to express negative emotions. The phrase ”I am like everyone else” and the many variations on the same theme in the empirical material are interpreted as a wish for normality. Using the same logic – that attributed weakness leads to the expression of strength – the deviance that is attributed leads to a nearly extreme expression of normality. The lack of gender attributed to disabled people appears to imply that if functionality is not ”normal”, there is no room for another categorization. One interpretation of the material is that disability is seen in the family and in society as a different landscape, in which vulnerability needs to be compensated for by normality, which in turn results in the interview persons’ socialization into a compensatory normalcy.
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| 3. |
- Basic, Goran, 1972-
(author)
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Samverkan blir kamp : En sociologisk analys av ett projekt i ungdomsvården
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this dissertation a collaboration project in Swedish youth care is analysed. The aim of the project was to enhance coordination between the Social Services and the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care in order to make the efforts more efficient. The project also employed a number of coordinators. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to analyse conflicts, alliances and comparisons identifiable in interviews and observations. The analytic findings are put into an overall “collaboration context” represented by earlier research on the social phenomenon of “collaboration”. In this way the dissertation tries to contribute to a sociological understanding of a contemporary widespread phenomenon. The empirical materials of the study consist of recorded conversational interviews with 147 project participants (youngsters, parents and various professional categories) as well as observations of meetings, informal get-togethers and visits to institutions, Social Services offices, the head office of the National Board of Institutional Care and coordinators. The material was analysed using the analytic perspectives of Georg Simmel (1950/1964), Theodore Caplow (1968) and Erving Goffman (1959/2004). The analysis shows that the project manifested and led to struggles between organizations involving representatives from the Social Services, the National Board of Institutional Care and the project, as well as to several interpersonal conflicts between representatives from various categories of involved professionals, and the youngsters and their parents. The study also shows that the client, in such human service organizations, faces a significant risk of being marginalized. Professionals who appreciated the collaboration often drew their conclusions based on their interaction with other professionals, but the collaboration did not guarantee a successful treatment of the client. Conflicts concerning the roles of the coordinators and their written documents (“the agreements”) emerged and were actualized through the creation of the project. The coordinators and their “agreements” can be seen as the project’s most visible representatives and symbols, which during the project become both themes for conflict and actualize already established conflict patterns. The youngsters and their parents appreciated the projects’ coordinators who appeared as personally involved and able to make concrete changes. However, many of youngsters and their parents criticized the coordinators and even portrayed a victim identity in relation to the project. The coordinator’s relationship with the youngsters and their parents was mostly characterized by passivity. This is clearly apparent in the analysis of the administrative and/or passive coordinator. Different alliance constellations became visible in these presentations. When the coordinator roles were altered in the description, the alliance constellations change. It is a common strategy for clients in human service organizations to try to enter into alliances with professionals involved in their cases and, in so doing, try to alter the situation to their own advantage. The fact that these alliances are often sought by the client indicates, among other things, the client’s will to fight against the situation in which he/she finds him/herself. I believe that this can be seen as something productive rather than problematic.
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| 4. |
- Berg, Pernille
(author)
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The Reluctant Change Agent : Change, Chance and Choice among Teachers, Educational Change in the City
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation critically analyses the discourse on educational change. By placing educational change in the context of globalisation and innovation the author argues that the current discourse on educational change is un-nuanced and omits the important perspectives on change. The author has analysed an educational district in Sweden and one of its projects on competence development, named 'Striving for Action Teachers' in the dissertation. The project has involved 75 teachers and both pre-school, primary, secondary and special ed. schools. By interviewing some of the participating teachers and analysing their reflections on the competence development programme the author is able to develop four different types of categories of teachers and their perception on change and teaching. The four categories consist of the change agent, the reformer, the passionate pioneer and the dedicated teachers. These four different types of teachers are placed in the spectrum of top-down initiatives and focus areas encompassing teaching to the school as an educational organisation. By providing this research the author is thus able to elaborate on the research regarding educational change. By analysing the proposed four categories the author critically assesses the way in which top-down change initiatives may fallaciously assume that change can be brought about. The author presents different explanations to why change initiatives may be rejected and argues that when change is represented in a physical manifestation in one teacher supposed to be the vector of change, the teachers expected to assume this role of change end up rejecting this responsibility. In critically discussing the research on educational change and innovation the author situates the discourse on educational change in the growing research and discourse on innovation, especially public and social innovation. The author addresses similar concern when it pertains to innovation as previously purported in relation to educational change. The discussion illustrates the problematic tendency that the ambiguity inhibiting these debates leads to obfuscation. This obfuscation manifests itself in the way in which educational organisations address and respond to these demands. With the four categories of teachers the author argues for a further debate and nuanced perspective on innovation and educational change in order to continuously ascertain and critically assess the why’s, the who’s and the how’s behind each innovation and change. The dissertation is based in a cross-disciplinary field of theories: innovation, globalisation, sociology of education and organisational theories. Methodologically the dissertation is based within qualitative methods: observations, interviews and written materials.
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| 5. |
- Eklund, Lisa
(author)
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Rethinking Son Preference : Gender, Population Dynamics and Social Change in the People’s Republic of China
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation explores how son preference is constructed and renegotiated in light of social change in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Based on secondary sources and interviews with women and men in rural Anhui Province as well as key informants, it addresses son preference from conceptual, methodological, empirical and ideological perspectives. The analysis centres around son preference understood as a social institution that is both gendered/sexed and has intergenerational characteristics. The dissertation suggests that in the PRC, son preference is a “double sensitive” issue to study as it has become politically incorrect due to the Care for Girls Campaign, and as it is often perceived by government officials as easily leading to criticising the population policy. It proposes that there are two main approaches to studying son preference, namely the outcome approach, which focuses on how son preference manifests itself, and the causal approach, which zooms in on different factors underpinning the institution of son preference. It argues that accounts about the scope and prevalence of son preference are often informed by an outcome approach, where sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalance is typically regarded as a proxy indicator of son preference. However, the dissertation challenges the usefulness of using SRB as a proxy indicator and suggests that when put in relation to fertility rates, SRB can be used to model “son compulsion”, which denotes that parents want to give birth to at least one son and take action in order to meet that goal. However, as demonstrated, there is no direct link between son compulsion and the institution of son preference, since son compulsion can be triggered by what is termed the “supply-factor”, i.e. that prenatal sex-selection is becoming more available and morally and socially acceptable. When adopting a causal approach, it becomes clear that the institution of son preference is being renegotiated through a dynamic process of individual and structural factors, which are anchored in a society that is becoming increasingly commercialised and individualised, and which is marked by low fertility levels, an ageing population and large flows of rural-urban migration. Still, due to ideological reasons related to the population policy, the role of the Chinese Communist Party in disciplining social order and ideas about modernity, son preference is often depicted in both official and popular discourses as something essentially “traditional”, “rural”, “backward” and “feudal”. In reality, however, son preference is becoming renegotiated in ways which blur the divide between “rural” and “urban”, and “traditional” and “modern”.
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Helena
(author)
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Befolkning, samhälle och förändring : Dynamik i Halmstad under fyra decennier
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Changes in society are often discussed on an aggregated level and it is argued that society is changing from a modern industrial society to a post-industrial society. Through studying changes on a local level it is possible to study the complexity and variations of the general and aggregated theories of societal changes, and place changes in a context of time and place. The main object of this study is to analyse change in a locality. The study is a case study which studies Halmstad, a municipality on the west coast of Sweden, between the years of 1968 and 2006. The empirical material consists of analysis of demographic statistics and labour market statistics, using official statistical databases. The empirical material also consists of an analysis of official and historical documents as well as interviews with persons active in Halmstad. Three time periods are identified in the analyses which are characterised by different patterns in the population. The periods are also characterised by changes in the labour market and the employment of the population. These changes are analysed through the interplay between actors in the locality and actors and influences from outside the locality. Through the analysis of reflexivity it is shown how change and stability are interrelated through the interplay between the new and existing or innovation and tradition.
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| 7. |
- Gustavsson, Klas
(author)
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Det vardagliga och det vetenskapliga : Om sociologins begrepp
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation concerns the relationship between sociology and everyday life and aims primarily to critically evaluate the positions taken in the theoretical discussion on sociological concept formation and its relation to everyday life and social sciences. The main theoretical positions in the debate are summarized in two ideal typological models: (1) The rationalist theory of an epistemological break between everyday life and social science, here represented by the scholarships of Émile Durkheim, Louis Althusser and Pierre Bourdieu; (2) the everyday-life-oriented theory of continuity between everyday life and social science, represented by Peter Winch, Harold Garfinkel and Dorothy E. Smith. By means of an explorative theoretical reconstruction and synthesis, another aim is to propose a pragmatic theory of the break between the everyday and science. This position can be found in an undeveloped version in Herbert Blumer’s idea of sensitizing concepts, but in a more advanced elaboration in Max Weber’s introduction of the ideal type, and in Alfred Schutz’ phenomenological reformulation of Weber’s interpretative sociology. The dissertation develops the pragmatic theory of break between everyday life and social science with insights from the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein.
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| 8. |
- Hilding, Lars-Olof, 1963-
(author)
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"Är det så här vi är" : Om utbildning som normalitet och om produktionen av studenter
- 2011
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Avhandlingen, baserad på intervjuer med 58 studenter vid tre olika program vid Högskolan i Halmstad, behandlar de skäl olika studentgrupper beskriver för att börja studera, deras upplevelser av mötet med högskolemiljön, och vilken betydelse de en lokal högskola kan ha. Trots olika åtgärder var den sociala snedrekryteringen till högre utbildning i stort sett oförändrad mellan 1960 och 1990. Under 1990-talet skedde en utjämning, men 1999 kom fortfarande bara 24% av studenterna vid svenska universitet från arbetarklasshem, trots att de utgjorde 35% av hela befolkningen. Studenter med högutbildade föräldrar uppger att de egentligen inte träffar ett aktivt val att börja högre studier, det uppfattas snarare som en naturlig del av vuxenblivandet. Barn från hem utan utbildningstraditioner ger en annan beskrivning. De beskriver valet att utbilda sig som ett val bland flera andra, och att de fått stöd från föräldrarna oavsett vad de valt. För barn till lågutbildade var det ofta fråga om en särskild händelse som gjorde att utbildning blev ett aktuellt alternativ. I studien har det varit möjligt att jämföra hur både klassresenärer och arvtagare beskriver mötet med och vistelsen på högskolan. Båda grupperna beskriver hur de upplever miljön som förvirrande och otrygg. Arvtagarna utvecklar emellertid strategier för att hantera situationen, eftersom den är svårare att ifrågasätta för dessa - utbildningen är ju en naturlig del av vuxenblivandet. Klassresenärerna är däremot mer benägna att ifrågasätta studierna. Klassresenärerna beskriver hur de upplever att de förändras ifråga om språk och förhållningssätt under studierna, männen i mer positiva ordalag, kvinnor med en viss tvehågsenhet.
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| 9. |
- Isaksson, Anna
(author)
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Att utmana förändringens gränser : En studie om förändringsarbete, partnerskap och kön med Equal-programmet som exempel
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis the overall aim is to analyse conceptions of change with the point of departure being texts developed within the framework of three development partnerships financed by the European Social Fund's Equal Programme 2001-2007. The development partnerships, consisting of collaborating parties from both the public and private sector, aimed at developing new methods and ideas in order to counteract discrimination and all kinds of inequality in working life. The thesis poses the following research questions: How are the problems that the development partnerships intended to counteract described? What appears as important to change in order for discrimination in working life to decrease? In what ways are changes aimed at combating discrimination and contributing to increased gender equality and diversity in working life deemed possible? What motives emerge behind the visions of creating a working life without discrimination? How are gender and other social categories constructed and how do these constructions impact on the conceptions of change that emerge? The ideas, perspectives and interests that characterise the understanding of changes in working life in the studied texts, are illustrated with the aid of theories on how society's forms of rule have changed from government to governance and theories on how gender is done. Furthermore, why certain perspectives and ideas emerge and the consequences of them is analysed based on institutional ethnography and concepts such as social relations and ruling relations. The thesis' analysis points to how the consensus-based organisational form of partnership and the politics and principles that are reflected in the Equal Programme together with notions on growth, leadership and gender create limits for the conceptions of change. Limits that in certain respects entail that society's relations of power and inequality, instead of being challenged, are reproduced. Based on the results of the study, the importance is emphasised of continuously taking one's point of departure in identifying and challenging the limits to how one can speak of change, since the dominant conceptions of change may be an expression of the ruling relations.
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| 10. |
- Sandgren, Mikael
(author)
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Europa som nation : En ny stil i nationalismens genre
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The vantage point for this thesis is the passport as it was understood and used in the European Union from 1999 to 2001, as a requirement to cross the external borders of the EU and as a symbol of a united Europe free from a spectacular nationalism of the member states. According to nationalism, every nation should have its own state, and every state should be legitimized by a nation. If the modern passport has been a banal link between nation and state, the EU and its Europeanization of passports have mostly been considered as a separation of nation and state. Given that the symbols of the EU, which as well as a passport include a flag, a day, an anthem, a currency, and a motto, are strongly reminiscent of national symbols it could also be worth considering that the EU framed Europe as a nation. The aim of this thesis has been to understand how the EU could be legitimized by a vague idea of Europe as if it was a nation. This thesis is based on observations from two border controls—Tarajal in Ceuta at the periphery of the EU, and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam at its centre—and from the immigration museum at Ellis Island in New York City, which is a contrast both as a tourist destination and as a historical border control. In combination with discourses on the EU compared with discourses on different nations, these observations have been understood in relation to theories of nationalism from a sociological point of view. According to the interpretation presented in this thesis the EU is legitimized by a new national style through a reformulation of assumptions inherent in the genre of nationalism. This national style would imply that the member states’ Gemeinschaft should be realised within the EU’s widening Gesellschaft. The interpretation put forward here serves as a reminder of the assumptions historically connected with the passport. At the same time the interpretation considers the reformulation of these assumptions in relation to undeniable social and cultural changes.
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