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- Dahlberg-Grundberg, Michael, 1983-
(författare)
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Digital media and the transnationalization of protests
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)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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| 2. |
- Kalucza, Sara, 1987-
(författare)
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Who becomes a teenage parent? : life course perspectives on selection into teenage motherhood and fatherhood trajectories in Sweden
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)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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| 3. |
- Larsson, Magnus, 1983-
(författare)
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National environmental evaluation systems : guiding towards sustainability?
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)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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| 4. |
- Sjöberg, Magdalena, 1983-
(författare)
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Young mothers’ identity work : life course, risk, and good motherhood
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: Most studies about young motherhood have focused on identifying how young mothers can be supported or on how notions of young motherhood are produced. However, there is still limited knowledge about the maternal identity work of young mothers. The overarching aim of this thesis was to explore the maternal identity work of young mothers and, as part of this, to study young motherhood in relation to different forms of parenting support.Method: For the first three papers, 17 young Swedish mothers aged 13–25 were interviewed 1 or 2 times each (in total 31 interviews). The interview conversations were analysed from the perspective of discursive psychology. For the fourth paper, three Facebook groups that offered parenting support online to young mothers were studied. Data from the three Facebook groups were analysed through network analysis, online ethnography, and telephone interviews with two administrators. The ethnographical data and interviews in this particular substudy were analysed through thematic content analysis.Theoretical perspectives: The identity work of the interviewed young mothers was analysed in relation to theories and debates about parenting and the life course, the risk society, and the notion of “good motherhood”.Findings: The findings of the thesis suggest (Papers 1, 2, and 3) that whether the interviewed young mothers followed or deviated from their expected life course seemed to have an impact on the degree to which their mothering was seen as “risky”. Furthermore (Paper 2), the mothers appeared to be discursively divided into three different levels of riskiness in their social contexts: less risky mothers, high risk mothers, and mothers seen as too risky for mothering. The mothers’ level of presumed riskiness seemed in turn to have meanings for which dominant and/or alternative motherhood discourses they could access and draw upon in a trustworthy way (or which motherhood discourses they lacked access to) when presenting their maternal positions and making sense of their maternal identity in relation to the world around them. Two emerging motherhood discourses were identified: youthful motherhood (Paper 1) and common-sense motherhood (Paper 2). Support from the young mothers’ own mothers (Paper 3) had contradictory meanings for their identities and functioned as a form of guidance into motherhood while at the same time limiting the young mothers’ possibilities to take on the position as the “main-mother” of her child. Young mothers seemed to prefer peer-parenting support online (Paper 4) in closed Facebook groups above participating in governmental expert-guided face-to-face support groups.
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| 5. |
- Skog, Frida, 1979-
(författare)
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The impact of family composition on adult earnings
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis addresses to what extent childhood family composition – the number of siblings and whether the parents live together, or whether there are non-parental adults and/or half-siblings in the household or not – contributes to variations in adult earnings. The theoretical perspective suggests that resources mediate the effect. While research has shown that siblings, as well as divorce and remarriage, are negatively linked to child outcomes, there are inconsistencies in previous literature. There has been debate over the unconfoundedness of previous studies, something that is handled here by analyzing large sets of representative data using a robust parameter. The longitudinal dataset used is based on Swedish administrative data and the cohorts analyzed are born in the beginning of the 1970s. The data structure is well suited for the assumptions underlying the semi-parametric method propensity score matching.The findings show that family size impacts on adult earnings. However, this is not always of concern. For example, no effect of siblings is found in affluent families, and if siblings are closely spaced this results in better outcomes for children. Divorce and remarriage do not seem to lower the future earnings of children. Thus, this thesis shows that some of the most well-established patterns in the sociology of the family, namely the link between number of siblings and adult earnings, and between divorce/family re-formation and adult earnings, can be broken by resources.
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