Att bli, att vara och att ha varit - om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen i Sverige

Summary To become, to be and to have been: about the  Jehovah’s Witnesses The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in the following text referred to as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or “the organisation”, is a worldwide Christian organisation with about 6.7 million members. The organisation has many times, without any success so far, proclaimed Armageddon when they expect Jehovah to return to Earth. They interpret the Bible in their own, often very literal way, and require their members to live according to these interpretations. Among the consequences of this, members are forbidden to vote, to do military service or to receive blood transfusions. Apart from attending the three weekly meetings, members are expected to be active in missionary work, known as “publishing”. If a member fails to do a certain number of hours’ publishing, he or she risks being deprived of active membership status Sweden in general is considered to be a society where the population is not very religious. The formerly state-governed Lutheran church has lost its influence and the vast majority of ordinary Swedes do not visit church on other occasions than weddings, funerals or christenings. Expressing one’s own religious values has become somewhat of a private matter where publicity is seldom appreciated, which is contrary to the practice of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is one of the reasons why the Jehovah’s Witnesses are commonly perceived by average Swedes as a “suspicious” religious organisation. The aim and methods of the study This dissertation seeks to describe and investigate the entering and leaving of a highly structured and hierarchical religious community, exemplified in this case by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What are the thoughts and aspirations of someone who is considering becoming a Jehovah’s Witness? What are the priorities and what experiences seem important when a person is going through such a process? And when this person has finally reached his or her goal of becoming a member, is it the same motivation that makes him or her stay in the organisation for longer periods of time, possibly for the rest of their lives, or does it change during the process of entering, or does this motivation change its character during the transition from entering to being a regular member? Why do some of the members change their attitude to the Jehovah’s Witnesses from rejoicing to bitterness? And how does this process of exit manifest itself? In what way is it different from the process of entry? The respondents in this study were chosen from both active members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden and those who have left the organisation for personal reasons. Repeated interviews with ten active members of the organisation have been conducted in the course of the study and compared to equal numbers of former members. The interviews have been semi-structured to deal with questions of how a person has come into contact with the organisation; how they retrospectively experienced the process of entry; the reasons for becoming a member. Questions have also been asked about life in the organisation. The group of “exiters” have also been asked about the experience of leaving, why they wanted to leave, and how this process was started and carried out. In addition to this I have analysed a four-year diary describing the time inside and the process of leaving the organisation. This has given me an extra psychological insight into the inner experience of someone who has gone through the whole process. The analysis has been done by categorising the content of the transcribed interviews. An attempt to outline a model of an entry and exit process has been made, based on ideas and interpretations presented in the interviews. The analysis of the diary has involved thorough reading, resulting in a division of it into four different parts, where each part has been given a certain key-word, signifying the author’s emotional state when writing it. A great deal of the information about the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been collected through discussion boards on the Internet, informal talks with members and ex-members, interviews with representatives of the organisations during visits to its different offices (Bethels), such as St. Petersburg, Russia, and Brooklyn, New York, USA. The context Each organisation evolves in its own context with its own norms, roles and stories that would not survive outside it. With this as a starting point, there is a chapter dedicated to the description of the organisation’s history, structure and activities. It has been stated that the organisation’s treatment of its critical members and the strategies for recruiting new members have evolved over the years of its history. At the beginning there was an openness allowing members to be critical. As the structure of the organisation has become more rigid and formalised, the treatment of internal critics has become much less tolerated and exclusion has become a frequent option. As a rule many new members have been attracted to the organisation when (1) the day of Armageddon has been pronounced to be approaching; (2) the members of the organisation have been persecuted or threatened with persecution; and (3) the organisation has discovered a “new market”. The processes for entering and exiting How the entering processes manifest themselves depends on whether the person has been brought up in the organisation or not. A person converting as an adult has to pass six phases before being considered a Jehovah’s Witness by the organisation. These are:  Contact with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Studying the bible with members of the organisation, Questioning, Accepting, Being active as publisher (spreading the belief), Being baptised.  For a person brought up in the organisation, the process to full membership is much shorter:   Upbringing in the organisation, Taking a stand on the belief, Being baptised. The exit process contains of seven phases:   Different levels of doubts, Testing of doubts, Turning points, Different kinds of decisions, Different steps in executing the decisions, Floating, a period of emotional and cognitive consideration of membership and its experiences, Realtive neutrality.   The process in and the process out are both slow and are accompanied with anguish and doubts. When a person is going through the process in or out of the organisation he or she experiences criticism. This is when people around the adept question the decision to continue in the process. The result of the criticism depends on where in the process the person is. If he or she is at the beginning of the process, the criticism will probably make the person insecure and the process will slow down or stop. If the criticism is pronounced in a later phase, the process will probably speed up. The norms of the organisation affect the behaviour of the members. There are techniques for inclusion that both bind members to the organisation and shield them off from the surrounding society. Examples of techniques for inclusion are the “work situation” and “closed doors”. The work situation signifies that members who do as the organisation recommends – doing simple work – often end up in the same branch of industry as many other Jehovah’s Witnesses. This often means that the person has other witnesses as workmates. If the person is unemployed or moves to another town it is easy to find a new job through connections in the organisation. Doubts and exclusions can lead to problems since they entail a risk of losing one’s job. This can also result in problems getting a new job. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not supposed to talk to excluded members, which of course mean difficulties working together. “Closed doors” means that members who do as the organisation recommends – not pursuing higher education, not engaging in civil society, working with a manual or in other way simple job, putting much time into the organisation – will, after a long life in the organisation, have problems starting a new life outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The language used in the organisation shows the community among the members, thus the language is one of the most important symbols. A special way of thinking is created through the language. It binds members to the organisation and sometimes it can work as a way to get back into the normative world of the organisation. Randall Collins’s (1990, 2004) thoughts about “emotional energy” have enabled an understanding of the solidarity and unity in the organisation. This also gives an understanding of the way the members treat doubting and critical members. The members who want to exit have to open up the binding/screening off. A possible way to do that is through language, to become aware of the effect the language might have. Another way is to search for emotional energy in another situation. During the exit process, shame might be of some importance. When members become aware of the shame they feel, because they perceive they are “acting a belief”, the exit process might accelerate.

Nurses’ and patients’ communication in smoking cessation at nurse-led COPD clinics in primary health care

Background: Smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have high nicotine dependence making it difficult to quit smoking. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a method that is used in stimulating motivation and behavioral changes. Objective: To describe smoking cessation communication between patients and registered nurses trained in MI in COPD nurse-led clinics in Swedish primary health care. Methods: A prospective observational study with structured quantitative content analyses of the communication between six nurses with basic education in MI and 13 patients in non-smoking consultations. Results: Only to a small extent did nurses’ evoke patients’ reasons for change, stimulate collaboration, and support patients’ autonomy. Nurses provided information, asked closed questions, and made simple reflections. Patients’ communicationwasmainly neutral and focusing on reasons for and against smoking. It was uncommon for patients to be committed and take steps toward smoking cessation. Conclusion: The nurses did not adhere to the principles of MI in smoking cessation, and the patients focused to a limited extent on how to quit smoking. Practice implications: To make patients more active, the nurses need more education and continuous training in motivational communication.

Languaging in virtual learning sites : studies of online encounters in the language-focused classroom

This thesis focuses upon a series of empirical studies which examine communication and learning in online glocal communities within higher education in Sweden. A recurring theme in the theoretical framework deals with issues of languaging in virtual multimodal environments as well as the making of identity and negotiation of meaning in these settings; analyzing the activity, what people do, in contraposition to the study of how people talk about their activity. The studies arise from netnographic work during two online Italian for Beginners courses offered by a Swedish university. Microanalyses of the interactions occurring through multimodal video-conferencing software are amplified by the study of the courses’ organisation of space and time and have allowed for the identification of communicative strategies and interactional patterns in virtual learning sites when participants communicate in a language variety with which they have a limited experience. The findings from the four studies included in the thesis indicate that students who are part of institutional virtual higher educational settings make use of several resources in order to perform their identity positions inside the group as a way to enrich and nurture the process of communication and learning in this online glocal community. The sociocultural dialogical analyses also shed light on the ways in which participants gathering in discursive technological spaces benefit from the opportunity to go to class without commuting to the physical building of the institution providing the course. This identity position is, thus, both experienced by participants in interaction, and also afforded by the ‘spaceless’ nature of the online environment.

Det handlar om anknytning : En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterares resonemang om anknytningens betydelse för en gynnsam utveckling

The aim of this study was to receive a rapt understanding of how child-welfare officer’s reasons about the meaning of attachment theory, from the child´s best, in placements of a child. The aim was also to examine the possibilities child-welfare officer´s feel they have to work with the child´s best and attachment in focus. The study has a qualitative approach and the empirical material is collected thru semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework used is attachment theory, the child´s best and street-level bureaucracy. The result of the study shows that child-welfare officers have equivalent knowledge, experiences and thoughts about the meaning of attachment theory for a favorable development in foster children. The study concludes is that more knowledge about attachment theory is necessary and child-welfare officers demands methods to better assess attachment patterns in children. The child-welfare officers express frustration when they talk about matters in the "grey area" and situations where different perspectives clashes and the child´s best end up in the background.

Samtal sent i livet : Samtalsstöd för äldre ur ett professionellt perspektiv

Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur omsorgspersonal inom äldreomsorgen upplever äldres behov av samtalsstöd. Metoden som har använts är kvalitativ i form av individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex informanter som arbetar som omsorgspersonal inom den kommunala äldreomsorgen. De teoretiska utgångspunkter som har tillämpats är socialkonstruktionism samt Erik Homburger Eriksons teori om människans livsstadier. Resultatet av studien visar att det enligt omsorgspersonalen finns ett samtalsbehov hos brukare inom äldreomsorgen som inte alltid kan tillgodoses idag på grund av omsorgspersonalens tidsbrist samt avsaknad av kompetens i att möta djupa frågor. Kuratorer inom äldreomsorgen skulle kunna bidra med samtalsstöd för äldre samt vara ett stöd för anhöriga och personal. Resultatet antyder till att behovet av kuratorer inom äldreomsorgen kommer att öka. Framtidens äldre förmodas ställa mer krav än de gör idag på att få samtalsstöd eftersom denna insats blir högre och mer accepterad i samhället.

Vuxna elevers syn på digital läs och skrivinlärning respektive distansstudier i ett andraspråksperspektiv : Den hjälper mig om jag inte känner orden

Syftet med studien är att åskådliggöra hur nio sfi-deltagare på en vuxenutbildning i Mellansverige upplever sin skriftspråksutveckling i samband med nya digitala hjälpmedel, i detta fall med iPad och appar eller distansutbildning med lärplattformen Fronter. De huvudsakliga frågorna gäller hur informanterna upplever de digitala hjälpmedlen i samband med skriftspråksinlärning samt hur de upplever att de utvecklar sin litteracitet genom dessa. Undersökningen görs med kvalitativa intervjuer där frågorna har hög standardisering men låg strukturering. Intervjuerna genomfördes via fysiska träffar eller via telefon för de informanter som inte kan närvara och som studerar på distans. Resultatet från studien diskuteras och jämförs med tidigare studier och forskning. Det som framkommer i studien är att fyra av sex av de informanter som använt iPad tycker att de utvecklate sin litteracitet och sin skriftspråksutveckling på ett bra sätt och de har upptäckt strategier som påskyndar utvecklingen, t.ex. det repetitionsmoment som använts. Två informanter är dock inte lika imponerade utan ser helst att de får arbeta med datorer som de är mer vana att använda. De material de arbetar med i iPad är appar som iBook, Alfavux, Moji Clock, U-talk, Talking Cards, Safari samt iTranslate. Inom distansutbildningen arbetas det via lärplattformen Fronter med blandade uppgifter som täcker de områden som krävs för skriftspråksutveckling inom sfi, såsom att lyssna, tala, läsa och skriva. Tre informanter deltar från början men det blir två kvar som utvärderar sitt arbete, med bra resultat. Båda är mycket nöjda med tillgängligheten, de vet vad som ska göras och de kan bestämma själva när och hur mycket tid de ville lägga på arbetet. De kan också bestämma vilken del av utbildningen de kan och vill fokusera mest på. Samlitliga informanter tycker att de fått bra hjälp och stöd av de lärare och den projektutvecklare som är delaktiga i utbildningen.

Using Swedish in the EFL-classroom : An Interview Study on Swedish Upper Secondary Students’ Attitudes towards Teachers’ L1 use in the EFL-classroom

There is very little focus in previous research on first language (L1) use by teachers in the upper secondary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom from the students’ perspective. In this context and from a Swedish perspective, this thesis examines what attitudes students in the Swedish upper secondary school have towards their teachers’ use of L1 (Swedish) in the EFL-classroom. The method used was qualitative semi-structured interviews, where nine students in total were interviewed. The collected data was then coded, thematized and categorized. The results show that the students mainly believed Swedish should be used when teaching vocabulary, when teaching grammar and for classroom management. They did not believe the L1 should be used by them in questions and answers and in general talk in the classroom. They also endorsed an overall judicious use of Swedish by their teachers and that their use of this language should be adjusted to the specific teaching group. Finally, it can be concluded that further research is needed on how the L1 can be used judiciously in particular situations and on what attitudes students of varying proficiency and age, as well as students who do not have Swedish as their L1 have towards teachers’ L1 use in the EFL-classroom.

Palliativ omvårdnad i hemmet - de anhörigas upplevelse av delaktighet : En litteraturstudie

Bakgrund: Tack vare en mer avancerad hemsjukvård har den palliativa vården utvecklats, vilket gör det möjligt för fler människor att dö i det egna hemmet. Palliativ vård handlar inte endast om patienten, utan involverar även de anhöriga. Det övergripande målet för palliativ vård är att patienten och den anhörige upplever god livskvalitet till livets slut. De anhörigas närvaro är betydelsefull, inte endast för patienten utan även för vårdarna. De anhöriga befinner sig i en mycket påfrestande situation och det är viktigt att vårdare har kunskap om vad de anhöriga upplever och hur man kan stötta de anhöriga i deras situation. Syfte: Att belysa anhörigas upplevelser av delaktighet i samband med palliativ omvårdnad i hemmet. Metod: En litteraturstudie baserad på 11 vetenskapliga artiklar av kvalitativ ansats. Resultat: 2 kategorier framkom ur studien. Delaktighet ger anhöriga upplevelsen av att få vardagen att fungera och Anhörigas delaktighet bidrar till personcentrerad vård. Det blev en drastisk förändring i livet för de anhöriga. Det var inte bara hemmet som förändras i och med all teknisk utrustning och hjälpmedel som patienten behövde. De anhörigas livsförändringar gjorde att det sociala livet fick lida. Tankar kring existentiella frågor dök upp när man levde så nära inpå döden och det var viktigt för de anhöriga att vårdarna kunde se och lyssna även på deras behov. En god kommunikation var viktigt för att de anhöriga skulle våga prata om sina egna behov, tankar och åsikter. Slutsats: Det viktigaste för de anhöriga var att kommunikationen, stödet och informationen fungerade mellan alla parter. Fungerade dessa delar så byggdes en god relation mellan parterna och man fick en god tillit till vården. Samarbetet blev bättre och de anhöriga kände sig som en i teamet.