The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to a greater understanding of how social inequalities in health evolve causally and to explore the missing links between social position and health in different social and economic contexts. A premise in the thesis is that in affluent societies, not only material aspects and purchasing power linked to income and social positions are important explanations for the health of individuals, but also the relative socio-economic standards in society. The concept of relative income position was used to explore this notion across time and country contexts: A comparison of income-related health inequalities between the different welfare contexts of Sweden and Germany showed similar magnitudes in poor health. When exploring the role of absolute and relative income changes over time in Sweden, income volatility was found to influence individuals’ health. Another aim was to explore the specific social mechanisms reflecting intra- and interpersonal social comparisons and their role for health. Subjective measures of social position were found to capture non-material aspects of social positions. Self-rated class affinity revealed strong associations with health, particularly for women. Income satisfaction, predicting mortality, was shown to be a measure that accounts for internalized reference standards regarded as meaningful by individuals. Conceptually, the used subjective measures capture aspects of social comparisons and relative deprivation and further suggest that not the material dimension of social position alone matters for health. It is also shown that income satisfaction operates as a mediator between income position and mortality. Subjective measures such as income satisfaction and class affinity provide a plausible link in the understanding of how social inequality entails persistent effects on health and mortality. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

Who enters self-employment in the labor market? This is a question that has been extensively researched. To find answers, studies have been concerned with what characterizes the individuals who make the different employment choices. This dissertation takes another approach to the issue and shows how self-employment, just as any other type of employment, is socially preconditioned. Rather than focusing on what characterizes the individuals who enter self-employment, this study looks at what characterizes the social structures of particular fields, as well as at what position the self-employed individuals hold within these structures. We then gain an understanding of how social positions are related to employment possibilities, and which social groups enter self-employment. The study builds on the theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This dissertation examines two social fields: management consulting and artistic production. The results show that what characterizes the group of individuals who are self-employed is quite different depending on the social context. Among management consultants, self-employment is foremost related to social origin, while in artistic production it is related to investments made in the field itself. However, in both fields, the self-employed individuals hold a similar social position.

This    qualitative research investigates the social positions of Peruvian female migrants in the Catalan labour market in Spain. It questions how social categories interactin order to determine the social positions of individuals, a nd how the positions can be related to a global  world structure.   Four unstructured life story interviews with  Peruvian women resident in  Catalonia were realized in December 2014. The interviews and two previously made studies have then been reviewed by a narrative analysis. The research formed a theoretical framework of intersectionality interpreted by Nina Yuval-Davis, and a globalization and female migration theory by Saskia Sassen.  The analysis with the  implementation of theories showed that nationality has a particularly strong influence in the intersection of social categories, though one must understand how all the identifications lay imbedded in each other in order to determine the social position of each individual. It was  also concluded that an intersection of the identifications of the individuals interacts with global structures in order to determine the  social positions of the study participants in the Catalan labour market.The city of Barcelona  could through the lives of the four Peruvian females be seen as an economic centre that demands cheap labour by migrants, and where the social positions in the labour market can show a division of core and peripheral countries.

As a result of apartheid and ethnocentric structures in South Africa and Cape Town, the unemployment is highest among the black youth. The purpose of this study is to examine how the black youth are experiencing their possibilities to get a job. This qualitative study was conducted among black youths at the age of 18-34 living in Cape Town. The theoretical framework chosen for this study was habitus and capital, social position, intersectionality and social stratification. Focus has been on how habitus and intersectionality plays a part in how black youths experience their possibilities of getting a job and how their experiences can be related to structural aspects in South Africa. The respondents differ in terms of background and individual experiences, but they all seem to unite in the experience of Cape Town’s labor market as racist and difficult to get job at as a young black individual. The study shows that their skin color is the most distinct trait that are being evaluated on the labor market, whereby it further seems that the darker skin, the harder to get a job. What separates the respondents experiences is mainly dependent on their socioeconomic background and the area of their upbringing, whereby the respondents from poorer areas has experienced the challenge to get a job much harder. On a structural level there’s a general problem according to the respondents experiences with informal recruitment, exploitation and especially discrimination of the black youth. Furthermore, contacts seems to be crucial for getting a job, which seems to be upheld by the mentality of "looking after one's own people". Overall there are several aspects on both individual and structural level that affect black youths experience of getting a job in Cape Town.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa undersökning är att belysa hur yrkesidentitet skapas och formas hos poliser i yttre tjänst samt hur de agerar i sin yrkesroll. Vi har genomfört åtta individuella intervjuer med poliser som arbetar i yttre tjänst i Stockholms län. Anledningen till att vi avgränsade oss till poliser i yttre tjänst är för att de dagligen ingår i sociala sammanhang där möten och situationer ser olika ut. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna i denna uppsats är främst sociologiska och socialpsykologiska perspektiv på begreppen identitet och roll. Inom dessa perspektiv anknyter identitet och roll till det sociala livet där sociala positioner och roller samt kollektiv samhörighet är viktiga komponenter i individens identitetsskapande. Undersökningen fokuserar på hur poliser inom den egna gruppen skapar och formar en yrkesidentitet samt hur de agerar utifrån förväntningar på yrkesrollen. Resultaten visar att instruktörerna som respondenterna hade under sin aspirant är en av de främsta faktorerna som inverkat på skapandet och formandet av polisernas yrkesidentitet. Undersökningen visar också att poliser använder sig av teamframträdanden och intrycksstyrning för att de ska lyckas i arbetet. I samarbetet kollegorna emellan är det viktigt att de agerar i enlighet med varandra samt att de inte går till angrepp eller kritiserar varandra framför allmänheten.

Abstract This thesis discusses and analyses a 19th century female author's vanishing from history. The study investigates social relationships as figured and described in the epistolary form, based on letters between the author herself and different members of her family. It also tries to identify the author's position and situation in her time and society according to important themes and motifs in her novels. The main purpose is not to reconstruct history, but rather to show the many complex histories that can also be described, apart from the simplified and generalized one. The aim of this study is to, from a post-structuralist perspective, analyze the position of author Marianne Lundegård-Hagberg, and her role as a performative, discursive person that history forgot.

Drawing upon data from a qualitative interview study on the life stories of young women, the aim of this study is to analyze young womens experiences of difficult life events. Special interest is directed to how cultural frameworks are reflected in young women’s stories about themselves and the family and school worlds they have lived in. During a period of almost four years, I conducted deep interviews with ten young women on two to four occasions. They were between the ages of sixteen and twenty at the time of the first interview and of different classes and local origins. The young women were recruited to the study through leaders of a youth detention home and of a girl group activity. Methodologically, the thesis is based in the general field of narrative research and more specifically in the field of feminist life story research. I employed a holistic and thematic content analysis inspired by hermeneutic interpretation and the mainly focus has been on what was told in the stories. The thesis is written in a context of feminist epistemology and from a critical perspective (cf. Harding, 1986, 2004). It includes, among other things, an assumption that there is a social, cultural and historically created imbalance of power between different groups in society (cf. Anderson, 2003). The theoretical concepts that form the basis of this part of the theoretical framework are social worlds (cf. Shibutani, 1955), exclusion (cf. Goffman, 1963; Young, 1990, 2000), belonging (cf. Molin, 2010; Spånberger Weitz, 2011), agency (cf. McNay, 2003, 2004), space of agency (cf. Eduards, 2002) and social positions (cf. Anderson, 2003). The young women´s stories about family gathered around experiences of parents’ separation, family violence, parental substance abuse and the separation from parents. Their stories of school life gathered mainly around experiences of being different and othered, and these experiences of otherness and alienation were closely linked to bullying, school difficulties and to a general unhappiness at school (cf. Andersson, 1995). In contemplation of life as a series of life events, the young womens stories highlight the importance of difficult life events and the impact they have had on their ability to live their lives. The results portray the importance of considering life as a series of moving events, instant and recurring, and of understanding the consequences of social structures on how life and its conditions change and are linked across borders, between different worlds and different times. In a consideration of the life events as variable, instantaneous and sometimes recurring and changing, every life event has to be viewed as new and important to pay attention to, both as an event in itself and also how this event spreads to other moments and contexts than the time and world in which it occurred. In the assumption of life as moving and of life events as essential elements in a changeable life course, available positions and spaces of agency are made visible in the young womens stories. The cultural frameworks of the good family, the real schoolgirl and an authentic I represent structuring principles for how the events are possible to understand and talk about for the young women. They can be considered as ideal images that both increase and limit their opportunities to make difficult life events and their own actions in relation to the events understandable. In this thesis, it becomes visible that, in order to understand young women’s experiences of difficult life events, we need to place experiences in a context where the different circumstances, such as social positions and local structures, are made visible, analyzed and reflected upon.

The diploma thesis covers the theme of mutual influence of assessment, self-evaluation and social position of a student in lower secondary level classes. Focus lies also on the relationship of the studied phenomena to sex of the respondents. The data from the social relationship study are analyzed thoroughly to disclose the social structure of the studied classes. The thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical part and a practical part. The theoretical part deals with assessment and its specifics, functions, types, forms, phases and also with self-evaluation. The topic of social group is then developed focusing on different kinds of social groups, the position and the role of the member of a group and social norms. As the third topic, the bachelor thesis concerns with a school class and its specifics, factors determining its status, the position and the role of a student in a class and also with the methods of analyzing a school class. The last topic of the theoretical part are general features of psychological development, its determiners, and life stages of psychological development with special regard to puberty. In the practical part there are presented the results of research which was realized with the students of sixth grade, respectively seventh grade classes at lower secondary...

BACKGROUND: The social causation of preterm birth remains elusive, without an adequate explanatory framework. Thus, this study proposed and evaluated a conceptual model of the social determinants of perinatal health for the understanding of perinatal health disparities. METHODS: A prospective cohort study was conducted with pregnant women between 20 and 35 weeks gestation who were participating in two Healthy Start programs in Central Florida, from July 2011-August 2013. Perinatal health was operationalized based on gestational age, birth weight, and healthy start infant risk screen score. The predictors were: early life adversity, social position, maternal health-related quality of life, maternal stress, racism and discrimination, lack of social support, father involvement during pregnancy, intimate partner violence, and adverse maternal behaviors. Data collection consisted of a self-administered survey and birth outcome data was obtained from Healthy Start administrative databases. The statistical framework was structural equation modeling. RESULTS: The study sample was racially and ethnically diverse (N, Hispanics=72; N, non-Hispanic blacks=61; and N, non-Hispanic whites=48). The majority of mothers in this study were single or not married (cumulative 76%), US born (74.6%), and with English speaking preference (74.6%). The sample tended to cluster in low income groups (cumulative 58% less than $25,000 annual household income) and with education levels of less than high school (79.6%). A greater proportion of Hispanic mothers were married (66.7%) compared to non-Hispanic blacks (34.4%) and non-Hispanic whites (47.9%). Only 41.7% had completed high school, compared to 63.9% non-Hispanic blacks and 64.6% non-Hispanic whites. Nearly all non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites were born in the US, compared to only 43.1% Hispanic mothers. Only 40% of non-Hispanic blacks reported on currently living with the baby's father at the time of the survey, compared to 66.2% for Hispanic mothers, and 58.3% for non-Hispanic whites. Furthermore, non-Hispanic blacks reported a greater proportion of discriminatory experiences in daily situations (mean = 4.74), compared to the other groups (mean for Hispanics was 2.14, and mean for non-Hispanic whites was 1.95). Non-Hispanic whites reported the greater proportion of daily alcohol use (mean 3.8 beverages per month), compared to other groups (Hispanic mean was 0.69, and non-Hispanic blacks mean was 1.68). Non-Hispanic white mothers also presented a higher mean of adverse childhood experiences before 18 years of life (mean = 3.4), compared to other groups (mean for Hispanics was 1.63, mean for non-Hispanic blacks was 2.48). With the exception of the confirmatory factor analysis for intimate partner violence (low correlations with common factor), all other confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated an acceptable Chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio (<6), and the RMSEA was less than 0.08 (minimum for acceptance). Thus, structural equation models were estimated subsequently. The first model was a model of direct effects between social position and perinatal health (hypothesis 1: direct effects), which demonstrated a good fit as indicated by X2/DF ratio of 1.4 (Chi-Square = 19, DF =13) and a RMSEA of 0.05. However, the direct effect of social position was very small and non-significant (Beta=-.02, p-value =.76), supporting the conclusion that a simple direct effect of social position on perinatal health was not found in this population. The second model explored indirect effects of social position through intermediate factors (hypothesis 2: indirect effects), which demonstrated a good fit to the data, as indicated by a Chi-square/df ratio = 1.45 and RMSEA=.05. Social support was a statistically significant mediator between social position (Beta=0.284, p<0.05) and perinatal health (Beta=0.22, p<0.05). The third model incorporated adverse childhood experiences as predictor of social position effects. Adverse childhood experiences were significantly associated with social position (Beta=.363, p<0.05) and moderated the effects of social position on social support and perinatal health. In the presence of adverse childhood experiences, the social position was significantly associated to maternal health-related quality of life (Beta=-0.226, p<0.05) and maladaptive maternal behaviors (Beta=0.654, p<0.05). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated synergistic effects of social determinants of health. Controlling for all factors considered, social support was significantly associated with perinatal health, which presents implications for strengthening prenatal programs that provide support to pregnant women. Findings need to be replicated in larger studies with the US general population. Policy makers and researchers need to pay greater attention to the role of early life adversity on perinatal health outcomes.

This thesis is about medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds who work in Sweden. Based on 15 qualitative interviews with medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds, this thesis explores the medical doctors’ feeling of professional belonging and boundary work. This thesis focuses mainly on the doctors’ experiences of being part of the Swedish medical profession while, at the same time, being regarded as ‘different’ from their Swedish medical counterparts. It starts off with the idea that medical doctors with immigrant backgrounds may have, or could be regarded as having, contradictory social positions. By virtue of being part of the Swedish medical profession, they belong to one of the most privileged groups in Swedish society. However, due to their immigrant background these doctors do not necessarily occupy a privileged position either within their profession or in society in general. This thesis shows that doctors with immigrant backgrounds feel that they are not perceived as full-fledged doctors, which seem related to how they are somewhat ‘othered'. The results show that these doctors cope with being seen as different from doctor with non-immigrant backgrounds, by using the notion of ‘migranthood’ as a resource in negotiations in everyday work life but they also do what they can to overcome the boundaries of ‘Swedishness’. Belonging should therefore be seen as having a formal and an informal side, as getting a Swedish license does not automatically mean that you feel belonging to, in this case, the Swedish medical profession. This seems to put doctors with immigrant backgrounds in a somewhat outsider within position, which seems having to do with boundaries between who is included in the ‘us’ and in the ‘them’. Lastly, these findings indicate that sociologists need to expand the understanding of professional groups to also include boundary work within these groups. In order to do so, this thesis argues that sociological theory on professional groups could be combined with sociological theory about social positions as that is one way to understand the outsider-within position that these doctors (and presumably other skilled migrants) have to cope with.