The covid-19 pandemic plunged the world into an experiment in work-from-home without any collective experience in how to manage this situation. During a crisis characterised by social distancing and blurring lines between home and work, providing support to employees is important. Middle managers, being in-between upper management and subordinates, were in a special situation of having to balance new demands from both sides. In light of this, the purpose of our study was to investigate how middle managers handled the challenge of supporting their subordinates during the pandemic. To achieve the purpose of this study, a qualitative research methodology was applied. We investigated middle managers experiences of supporting their subordinates during the pandemic. The data was collected through 8 semi-structured interviews with middle managers working in Sweden. Our results show that during the pandemic middle managers had to adopt empathic behaviour as leaders and adapt their way of leading to each subordinates needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event in world history with a global impact. In the United States, emergency remote teaching (ERT) was utilized due to significant changes in the educational system, including temporary closures, shifts to remote and hybrid learning, and the addition of various infection control measures such as the wearing of masks, social distancing, and quarantine guidelines to reduce the community spread of COVID-19. These changes impacted those working and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative multiple-case study sought to describe and compare the professional experiences of four high school physical science teachers in the United States during the pandemic. Data was collected using surveys, participant artifacts, interviews, and focus groups between the spring of 2020 and the spring of 2022. The data were analyzed inductively using holistic and descriptive coding as well as inductively through a cross-case analysis by utilizing social reproduction theory (SRT) and teacher self-efficacy (TSE) theoretical frameworks. Four individual participant case descriptions and a cross-case analysis are reported. The findings indicate that teachers experienced significant changes to their schedules, technology use, instruction, and assessment. Teachers’ ability to communicate professionally was impacted, as was teacher professional development (PD) and evaluation. These changes resulted in learning gaps, which were more significant for struggling and marginalized students. The results demonstrate that the teachers and their students experienced the pandemic differently depending on various factors, such as resource access and school type. The findings indicate that the teachers’ students with more economic, social, and cultural capital were best positioned to access remote learning, which generated social reproduction and exacerbated inequalities. TSE decreased due to a lack of mastery and vicarious experiences, negative social and verbal persuasion, and the teachers’ adverse physiological and emotional states. TSE was also reduced due to ecological factors such as increased uncertainty and role demands, powerlessness, and isolation. The pandemic displayed how inequities across our educational system must be addressed and how the educational system must better prepare and support teachers and students during educational disruptions. The teachers gained a greater appreciation for in-person instruction, became more confident in their use and implementation of classroom technology and remote teaching, and became more aware of inequities among students.

Uninsured and undocumented immigrants risk deportation as well as other social and financial consequences when accessing healthcare in the US. Facing these risks head-on, they do the work necessary to ensure their friends, families, and communities receive medical care. Research at the intersection of linguistic and medical anthropology understands that work to be “communicative care.” Communicative care includes any way that we use language to maintain ourselves. This dissertation utilizes a communicative care framework to demonstrate that immigrant patients are not passive recipients of whatever policymakers determine they deserve; instead, they are structurally competent experts who do communicative care at the institutional and community levels to make a more equitable, accessible, and affordable healthcare system for themselves, their communities, and all patients. The dissertation relies on ethnographic data collected during five years of Philadelphia-based research and fieldwork completed during two overlapping inflection points in the history of US healthcare and immigration – the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnographic data includes field notes from longitudinal participant observation, transcriptions of interviews and conversations with undocumented and uninsured Latinx immigrant patients and healthcare professionals, and a corpus of audio-visual materials and policy artifacts. Analysis of this qualitative data revealed that undocumented and uninsured immigrants complete various essential roles within the healthcare system beyond that of the patient. They learn through personal experience what the structural barriers to healthcare are as they navigate through Philadelphia’s patchwork of access points and build lived expertise of sociopolitically constructed inequities. Ultimately, they use this knowledge at the institutional and community level to facilitate access to healthcare in their community. Within the institutional level, they serve as educators and trainers of medical professionals who want to understand the policy-based limitations placed on different patient populations and the clinical strategies needed to improve patient services. At the community level, they serve as advocates who organize and participate in large-scale systems change and representatives for the full ratification of immigrant access to healthcare. This project contributes to anthropological research on two of the most defining sociopolitical issues of the 21st century - immigration and healthcare. Often portrayed as victims and undeserving of our charity, we have yet to fully consider the lived expertise of uninsured and undocumented immigrant patients as we draft responses and solutions to urgent and emerging problems like the simultaneous drop in US life expectancy and rise in healthcare spending. This dissertation recasts immigrant patients as experts who actively engage in healthcare reform through everyday responses to the structural barriers that subvert their access to healthcare and undercut healthcare professionals’ capacity to provide medicine. By illuminating the roles of undocumented and uninsured immigrant patients and the manifestation of their lived expertise across multiple levels of analytic granularity, this project offers new possibilities for future healthcare policies, politics, and practices in and beyond the US. / Anthropology

In the field of sociology there is an established idea that risk has importance for identity-building, and existing research shows that risk is a part of transitioning into adulthood. The Covid-19 pandemic has, on the one hand, introduced new risks for young people to consider, and on the other restrictions aiming to prevent the spread of infection. The restrictions have to a varying degree, limited us in everyday life, and constructed new norms which may have influenced youth’s identity-building. This qualitative study aims to examine young people's experience of risk and how those and other experiences during pandemic have affected their identity-building. The results show that youths' understanding of risk was informed by their unique context. Further, the study establishes that young people’s disciplinary attitudes and actions reflected those on the institutional level, whilst other risk behaviour was dependent on the context of the action. Young people have also revealed a level of flexibility and adaptation which enabled them to maintain social practices important for identity-building. Through the integration of feelings of loss and gratitude, establishment of a new everyday life, and wider perspectives on life, young people maintained the feeling of ontological security. Further research should examine how experiences of risk during the pandemic may have long term effects on identity-building, and the possible need for supportive interventions. / Betydelse av risk för identitetsskapande har under lång tid varit ett etablerat forskningsfält där tidigare studier fastslår att risk är en viktig del i ungas vuxenblivande. Coronapandemin introducerade dels en ny risk för unga att förhålla sig till, dels olika former av restriktioner för att minska smittspridning. Dessa begränsade oss i det vardagliga livet samt etablerade nya normer som möjligtvis påverkat människors identitetsskapande, inte minst de ungas. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att genom semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöka ungas upplevelser i förhållande till risk och hur dessa och andra upplevelser under pandemin har påverkat ungas identitetsskapande. Resultatet visar att de ungas förhållande till risk präglades av deras unika situation och kontext. Disciplinering mot sig själv och andra speglade de institutionella riskuppfattningarna, däremot kunde riskbeteendet vara kontextdrivet. När det gäller ungas identitetsskapande visar resultatet på en anpassningsbarhet som till viss del möjliggjort för unga att fortsätta utöva för dem viktiga sociala praktiker. De skapade också ontologisk trygghet genom att integrera upplevelser av både förlust och tacksamhet, skapa en ny vardag och sätta in sin egen livsberättelse i ett större narrativ. Vidare forskning kan med fördel undersöka hur ungas upplevelser i förhållande till risk under pandemin har påverkat deras identitetsskapande på längre sikt för att upptäcka eventuella behov av stödinsatser.

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The Covid-10 pandemic has seen the world crumble as various countries declared themselves under the state of emergence and closed their borders. Thus, harsh restriction measures were introduced in the middle to end the Covid-19 pandemic. Aim: This study analyses hospitality managers' experience with the socio-economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Methodology: The researcher used qualitative techniques in conjecture with pragmatism as a philosophical position to understand the manager's experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were employed to acquire data from 10 hospitality managers in Cape Town )South Africa). The implication of the study: The study will add a gap to the existing body of literature and provide hospitality managers with vital information on how to handle situations when they are in a crisis and on how they can be able to remain resilient.

The study explored the perceptions of social workers on loneliness among elderly people in residential care facilities in Gävle and Stockholm, Sweden, during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  An exploratory qualitative study method was used. Four social workers working with elderly people in residential care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic participated in the study. Data were gathered for the study using an interview guide, and thematic analysis was used to analyze them. The study’s results were captured in two main themes which reflect the study’s research questions: social workers' perception of loneliness, and elderly people’s experiences of loneliness. According to social workers, the study concluded that loneliness is a multifaceted, subjective feeling that can trigger many coping methods and severely impact older people's health. In order to combat loneliness among older persons as a public health issue, social workers believe that a stronger involvement of the entire society is required.

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly altered the ways in which families could engage in youth sport and physical activity (SPA). These forced changes might have implications for families’ preferences and conceptualization of value of youth SPA post-pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to understand the impacts of a global pandemic (i.e., COVID-19) on youth SPA by exploring consumers’ (i.e., families in the Ontario) experiences with youth SPA, and examining if and how preferences for returning to SPA might be shifting and affecting perceptions of value post-pandemic. This dissertation was guided by Social Ecology Theory (i.e., behaviour is a function of the sociocultural and built environment) and consumer behaviour theory (e.g., disconfirmation paradigm; if expectations are met or exceeded, consumers will be satisfied). A collective case study methodology with an exploratory mixed-methods design was employed. First, focus group interviews were conducted with families in Ontario (n=14) followed by semi-structured interviews with youth sport providers in Ontario (n=12) to understand these groups’ experiences with youth SPA during the pandemic and post-pandemic intentions. Finally, for generalizability, questionnaires were administered to parents in Ontario (n=550) to assess families’ experiences with, preferences for, and conceptualization of value of youth SPA pre, during, and post-pandemic. Overall, families experienced decreases in youth SPA in all contexts considered (i.e., organized SPA, non-organized SPA, travel for SPA, diversity of SPA). However, the way families felt about these changes (i.e., satisfaction) varied. Families’ socioecological circumstances and their satisfaction with the changes to their youth SPA during the pandemic shaped their preferences and conceptualizations of value for youth SPA post-pandemic. While the forced changes to youth SPA contributed to reconceptualization of value for families with means and access to participation opportunities, families without these means were, and are likely to continue to struggle to access youth SPA opportunities.

Public health concerns were prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly regarding rising cases of anxiety and depression among adults. U.S. healthcare providers were especially affected by the unrelenting demands on their time and service. Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNPs) provided patient care during the pandemic to meet the increasing need for mental health services as people began experiencing mood disturbances such as anxiety, depression, and grief. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceived effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of PMHNPs. A qualitative design using the interpretive description method allows researchers to use pre-existing knowledge to inform their research and actively participate in knowledge synthesis, focusing on variations in data. Individual interviews with 18 PMHNPs were conducted via video teleconferencing, and their data were evaluated and interpreted for meaning. After a thorough analysis of the interview transcripts, nine themes were identified: adaptive coping, improved access, support, self-care, work strain, complications, maladaptive coping, pandemic strain, and polarization. This study illuminated the challenges PMHNPs faced during the pandemic and the strategies they employed to cope with difficulties and will inform future research and practice in mental health care.

Yes / This study adopts a theory of reasoned action approach to understand consumers’ mask wearing when shopping in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated mask wearing while shopping as a prosocial consumption behaviour whereby self-oriented benefits and others-oriented benefits are added as proposed drivers of attitudes and perceived social norms. Empirical evidence from a survey in France and Germany confirms a strong effect of social norms on mask-wearing intentions. Moreover, altruistic benefits predict mask-wearing intentions, with attitude and subjective norms as mediators. In contrast, self-expression benefits of mask wearing only influence perceived social norms and not attitudes; this effect differs between the countries. Our findings guide scholars, policy makers and practitioners to steer consumers’ mask wearing as a prosocial behaviour. / Received support from central internationalization funds of Universität Hamburg.