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- Hellfeldt, Karin, 1985-
(författare)
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The Hurt Self : Bullied Children's Experiences of Social Support, Recognition and Trust at School
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this dissertation is to add to the development the knowledge base of bullying research with particular focus on processes of victimization within a Swedish context. The goal is to a contribute to understanding the consequences of being bullied by examining patterns of change in bullying victimization over time and how potential positive social interactions and relationships might promote the well-being of bullied children. A mix-methods research design was used, including quantitative data from a one-year longitudinal study, using individual data, from 3,347 pupils (grades 4 to 9, in 44 schools) and five in-depth qualitative interviews with former victims of bullying. From an overview of the research field it was concluded that there is a general shortage of theoretical perspectives within the field of bullying research. Correlation studies have linked negative health consequences with bullying. However, this kind of research design provides few insights into how and why bullied children experience the kinds of problems that they do. By adopting a theoretical understanding of how ‘self’ is realized through interactions with others, this dissertation moves beyond correlation- based explanations of the mechanisms behind the link between bullying and its consequences in order to be able to offer more targeted support for those schoolchildren who are, or have been subjected to bullying. An argument is made for the importance of understanding the social processes behind bullying It is argued that being subjected to bullying victimization is a transient life experience for about three quarters of the small cohort (about 7%) of Swedish schoolchildren who are victims of bullying at any one time. The trajectories of bullying experiences these children are unstable. However, the negative consequences are likely to remain even after the bullying has ceased. For others, the persistent victims (1.6%). the state of being bullied may become stable and continue over periods of years. Nevertheless, peers and teachers may serve as important resources in supporting transitory and continuing victims of bullying.
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| 2. |
- Hiltunen, Linda, 1979-
(författare)
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Lagom perfekt : Erfarenheter av ohälsa bland unga tjejer och killar
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The pursuit of restrained perfection: Experiences of ill health among adolescent girls and boysRates of self-reported mental health problems among young people in Sweden are alarmingly high. Despite several contributions to the literature, knowledge about the subjective health of adolescents is still scarce; specifically, little is known about their experiences of subjective ill health. The aim of this thesis is therefore to study how young people themselves understand the root causes of ill health – or the risk of suffering from ill health – and how they perceive their own ability to cope with these challenges. The thesis also aims to increase our understanding of the fact that girls persistently report higher levels of ill health than boys. Theoretically, the thesis is mainly inspired by symbolic interactionism, but it also relates to, and employs concepts from, the fields of social inequalities in health, research on gender and health, educational research on health, and the sociology of emotions. The thesis applies a mixed-methods approach, and so the conclusions are drawn from a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. The statistical analyses are based on a survey of 497 adolescents, and the qualitative studies build on essays written by the same adolescents, describing their experiences of ill health. I also conducted interviews as a complementary source. The empirical findings are presented in five chapters. The statistical analyses described in the first of these chapters show that the level of ill health in my sample corresponds well with previous studies, whereas the regression analyses reveal that variations in ill health depend on adolescents’ experiences of social relations and status. I also find that these measures interact systematically with gender. The qualitative analyses of the essays and interviews in the following chapters provide more detailed insights into the daily lives of adolescents. A significant finding in these chapters is that ill health is rooted in adolescents’ striving for perfection in several spheres in everyday life. Furthermore, the gender analysis shows that girls, to a greater extent than boys, adhere to norms of behaviour concerning social competition, social relations, and schoolwork. I argue that this “gender regime” helps explain why girls report higher levels of ill health than boys. The results described in the final empirical chapter show that most adolescents employ proactive and reactive strategies to cope with ill health. Still, the resources needed to formulate successful strategies are highly unequally distributed. Notably, adolescents who experience social exclusion appear to have very limited prospects of coping with their situation.
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