Elitutbildning: en strategi för erkännande? : En studie om anti-diskrimineringsstrategier bland juriststudenter med ursprung i Mellanöstern

Elite Education: a strategy for recognition? A study on anti-discrimination strategies among law-students of Middle Eastern background While research show that individuals of foreign background are being discriminated against and stigmatized in Sweden, an increasing number of them still choose higher education and also show a tendency towards choosing an elite education. In this article, I examine if there is a link between experiences of discrimination and the choice of elite education. The study is based upon semi-structured interviews with five female and five male law students of Middle Eastern background. The findings show that discrimination, either against the students or their parents, has led to a high study motivation where the choice of elite education can be understood as an anti-discrimination strategy. Other anti-discrimination strategies are to resist a victim mentality and to destigmatize by challenging stereotypes. These anti-discrimination strategies can be understood as strategies for recognition, that is, striving for equality by being ascribed a positive status.

Mångfaldsbarometern : Sju år av attitydmätningar

För ett par månader sedan kompletterade Sociologiska institutionen vid Uppsala universitetet en serie av sju års mätningar av svenska attityder till den etniska mångfalden, Mångfaldsbarometern (Mella, Palm & Bromark, 2011). De gjorda mätningarna tillåter oss att fastställa och tolka vissa tendenser som stabila profiler. Det handlar i första hand om allmänna attityder, hur folket ställer sig till invandringen, vilka erfarenheter man uppger att man haft med de personer som kommer från andra länder och vilka attityder som utformas kring följande teman: arbetet, kulturen, religionen och bostaden.

Från redaktören : Sociologi och naturvetenskap i par

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Sociologförbundet har ordet : Arkivering och återanvändning av kvalitativa data: policy trender och akademiska kontroverser

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Att göra sig anställningsbar : Om instrumentella identitetspositioner och könad säljbarhet

To make oneself employable – instrumental identity positions and gendered marketability. The article takes up the question of the negotiation of expert discourses in career advice and constructing the self in the practice of CV writing. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 19 students (11 women and 8 men) the stories about job search are analyzed. The concept of discursive positioning is used in order to analyze how the students position themselves in relation to career advice and position the self in CV writing. The results show that the female students had difficulties embodying the position as a marketing self as they described it as conflicting with feelings of ‘who they were’. ‘Being you’ in CVs and job interviews is, further, an ideal that is negotiated in relation to what to display as a job-seeking subject. CV writing involves a process of identifying suitable characteristics in an instrumental manner, but it is also combined with an introspective reasoning and identification to find ‘authentic’ strengths and characteristics in ‘who you are’.

The sustainability revolution : A societal paradigm shift - ethos, innovation, government transformation

The Sustainability revolution: A societal paradigm shift – ethos, innovation, governance transformation This paper identifies several key mechanisms that underlie major paradigm shifts. After identifying four such mechanisms, the article focuses on one type of transformation which has a prominent place in the sustainability revolution that the article argues is now taking place. The transformation is piecemeal, incremental, diffuse – in earlier writings referred to as ”organic”. This is a more encompassing notion than grassroots, since the innovation and transformation processes may be launched and developed at multiple levels through diverse mechanisms of discovery and development. Major features of the sustainability revolution are identified and comparisons made to the industrial revolution.

Tid som välfärdsfaktor : förändrade motiv i svensk arbetstidspolicy

Time as a welfare factor This article presents the results of an archive study of working time development in Sweden. It investigates how structural policy change is moving from a social discourse closely related to Swedish welfare reforms, towards an economic discourse motivated by financial arguments. By doing so, the political measures to solve working time related problems in today’s flexible working life appear to be contradictory. On one side we find time-poor people on the labour market mainly supported by tax-reductions and private time saving solutions. On the other side we find time-rich people mainly supported by activation programs and/or welfare benefits. This is a system and a policy strategy that obviously disregards the other side of the coin.

Flerspråkighet i ett globaliserat samhälle : uppfattningar om minoritetsspråket som framtidsresurs

Multilingualism in a globalized society: The minority language as a future resource In this article the author investigates how the globalization of society is used as a reference in the discussion of future opportunities among minority language speaking youths in Sweden. A spatial typology of four different types of societies are constructed, the national, the multicultural, the diasporic and the transnational society, all giving the expression of different levels of globalization. These are used as layers of reference put upon the empirical data, functioning as a raster on a screen. The result is a pattern of expressions in three societal dimensions, the economic, the social and the cultural dimension. The findings of the investigation show that the minority language as a future resource of opportunities is anchored in all four societal types and in all three dimensions. In the empirical data (the youths interviewed) the ability of anchoring (finding stories, opportunities etc.) is less frequent when it comes to the diasporic and the transnational as a foundation for opportunity and more frequent when it comes to the national and the multicultural.

Barnfri : en stigmatiserad position

Childfree: a stigmatized position International research has addressed the subject but in Sweden voluntary childlessness has until now been overlooked. This article draws on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 21 Swedish childfree women. The interviews focused their decision not to have children and attitudes they faced due to their rejection of motherhood. They all had encountered pressure to conform to a pronatalistic norm, proclaiming parenthood to be self-evident in an adult normal life. The results highlight different strategies used by the women to avoid instigating the dislike of those around them. The article argues that understanding childfree as a stigmatized position helps providing new insights to what conditions the social relations between the childfree and ‘the normals’, i.e. persons who advocate having children. Further, viewing the childfree as a stigmatized group has theoretical implications that contribute to developing Goffman’s classical theory of social stigma.

Från redaktören : Ett frånfälle

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Sociologförbundet har ordet : En kort lägesrapport från Sociologförbundets kassör

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Hårdare tag i arbetslivet? : Åtgärder mot arbetsrelaterat våld i facklig press 1978–2004

Preventing violence at work: A study of descriptions of safety measures in Swedish trade union journals 1978–2004 The purpose of this study is to examine if perceptions of interventions aimed at violence in the workplace have changed since the 1970s. In the beginning of the study period, structural factors are seen as the dominating explanation for workplace violence. The crime perspective rises in the 1990’s and methods of intervention becomes the control- and justice functions of larger society. The result shows search for accountability to be a salient factor for understanding the development towards an increasing use of penal sanctions.

Från redaktören : Att utvärderas

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Sociologförbundet har ordet : Att tillsätta tjänster och fördela medel

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

I skuggan av kulturella stereotypier : perspektiv på forskning om genus, jämställdhet och etniska relationer i Sverige

In the shadow of ethno-cultural stereotypes: gender, equity and ethnic relations in Sweden Scientific debates about cultural differences between ”Swedes” and migrants/ethnic minorities in Sweden have fuelled stereotypical categorizations and a socio-cultural demarcation between ”us” and ”them”. The authors argue that this development has underpinned constructions of foreignness. In the light of a critical review of the current debate on honour related violence, the authors discuss – inspired by Georg Simmel’s and Erving Goffman’s classic texts on the stranger, the stigma and the construction of foreignness – alternative understandings of culture and politics of belonging with a focus on gender, agency and identity formation. Formation of cultural and ethnic identity should be related, the authors conclude, to a dynamic interplay between the past and the present. Moreover, the social dimension should be highlighted, in order to avoid a stigmatizing culturalism.