Police officer has been conventionally regarded as a masculine occupation, where values such as strength, aggressivity and, bravery are commemorated. In Sweden, a country that is highly regarded for its gender equality status, understanding how police officers navigate gendered expectations is crucial to understand the implications of gender in policing. The aim of this thesis is to understand the role of masculinity in the everyday practices that define a police officer. For this purpose, a process of triangulation combines discourse analysis of the National education plan for police and the three videos from the campaign “Are you ready for a bigger assignment?” [“Är du redo för en större upgift?”], together with the narrative interviews of six police officers. The findings show that masculinity works as a normative standard in police work and influences narratives and role constructions of crime and justice. Policewomen are excluded through the diffusion of stories about risky situations, discursive gendered boundaries and ‘punishing’ feminine practices.

This research aims to understand the value assigned to work by information workers in Turkey. Benefiting from the global literature on the meaning of work (Graeber, 2019), how work affects one’s character (Sennett, 1998), and how postmodern jobs are pushing individuals to a state of pretense (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016), I am trying to understand how the information workers in Turkey are experiencing global trends, what kind of value they assign to work, and what are some of the influences on their understanding of work. There is a growing information sector in Turkey, but very limited resources on their experiences. By utilizing the lens of the Marxist theory of alienation (Marx, 1992), this study explains the experiences of research participants in four categories: Alienation from self, from others, from productive activity, and finally the product. Research findings show that the alienation from self was heavily experienced by the research participants and the situation got severe when there was increased bureaucracy and workplace politics. Due to the increased division of labor and the nature of the information work, increased levels of alienation from productive activity and the product were also shared by participants of the research. The study concludes with my suggestions on potential future research to be conducted in the field to better understand the trends and conditions in Turkey.

Transnational population migration is a multifaceted phenomenon that has been shaping human history and continues to shape the world today. War and conflict are among the major drivers of forced migration. The full-scale war waged by Russia on Ukraine on 24 February 2022 caused an unprecedented mass migration of the Ukrainian population with millions of refugees scattered across Europe. This study explores migration decisions, education strategies, and experiences of Ukrainian wartime refugees with school-aged children in Sweden. Taking a qualitative approach and following the sociological tradition of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the study examines what considerations determined the families’ decisions to leave Ukraine and seek refuge in Sweden; how the families navigate the Swedish school system and perceive the changes in their children’s education trajectories caused by the war and migration; and how various forms of the families’ capital shape the children’s migration and education trajectories in wartime. Data collection involved 20 qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with parents of school-aged children who left Ukraine after 24 February 2022 and at the time of data collection, were living in Sweden. The findings reveal the following: (1) migration decisions of the families were driven by the perceived immediate threat to life and physical integrity for some, and by the increasing uncertainty caused by the war for others; (2) their routes to Sweden were to a great extent determined by the earlier accumulated social capital in the form of personal contacts, but also by work-related arrangements, and by random volunteers encountered in other European countries; (3) at the time of heading to Sweden, the country was widely perceived by the families as a child-friendly destination; (4) the families’ practices of navigating the Swedish school system appear to depend on the volume and composition of their capital and can be categorised as the Proactive, the Reliant, and the Oblivious; (5) the families’ perceptions of the changes in their children’s education trajectories caused by the war and migration are characterised by ambivalence leading to some of the children’s “double schooling” in Sweden and in Ukraine as the families struggle to establish and/or maintain their social standing in both countries. The study is among the first to explore the migration decisions and experiences of Ukrainian refugees in the context of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, and, to the best of our knowledge, the first to explore the experiences of Ukrainian refugee families of Swedish schools. It adds to the existing body of literature on the forced migration and education of refugee children by shedding light on the lived experiences of transitioning from one education system to the other at a time of war and uncertainty.

Parque Científico y Tecnológico (PACYT, Science and Technology Park) is a large-scale R+D project that seems to be framed in a Smart City plan for Concepción, Chile, which the media has presented as “the Chilean Silicon Valley” (Araus, 2015; Tele13, 2019) and promises to bring not only research and development opportunities for the city but also thousands of direct and indirect jobs (Estudio Interdiseño, 2018; la Tercera, 2015) carried out by PACYT Corporation. Nonetheless, voices have raised to question the construction of the 91 hectares initiative, and some of them have even organized in citizen groups targeting the creation of the urban complex, which actively share information contesting the PACYT through social media, and coordinate activities to protest and spread the word. This is the study case to be analyzed in the present research, which aims to explore and understand, on the one hand, the reasons that have led to the organization of citizens contesting the PACYT project, and on the other hand, the way the project has been advertised and developed in relationship to the city's inhabitants. It intends to make a novel contribution to the field of Urban Studies, both in the areas of Critical Smart Urbanism and Postcolonial Studies, which in this case collide in Latin America, part of the Global South, while opening a discussion around the topic of citizens contesting urban developments with a Smart City background, where few incursions have been made and more specifically in the Latin American context, where the Smart City seems to have a particular interpretation. With that in mind, the current research tries to dig into an under-studied territory, and in doing so, it plans to bring to the table the relevance of studying the approach and way of developing Smart Cities’ ideas in Latin American, and to put focus on what city’s inhabitants have to say about those developments and what their interests are, using the lenses of the right to the city and the understandings coming from urban social movements and conflicts. In that sense, the research outputs are to question the form in which Smart City projects are being implemented in Latin America and to find possible guidelines to incorporate the city’s inhabitants in the development of them elsewhere, with that in mind, future research can be supported by this investigation, which encourages further studies both in the described fields and territory. To do so, the current investigation explores and unwrap theories regarding the mentioned fields and focuses on analyzing the case making use of mixed methods research, by executing qualitative and quantitative methodological tools to reach relevant data that helps to answer the research inquiries. In that sense, the results show that it can be confirmed that the nature of the PACYT, i.e. its R+D purposes and origins linked to a Smart City plan to transform the city into smartness, does not play a relevant role in the development of the conflict that has emerged between the PACYT management, and the people opposed to its construction, but several aspects explain the urban social conflict and that will be explored in the present work. / <p><strong>Acknowledgment.</strong></p><p>First of all, I would like to thank all the interviewees that decided to share their thoughts in the present study, as well as to all the people that participated in the survey; without your contribution, it would have not been possible for me to reach my research goals and to count on with the rich material I have. On the other hand, I want to thank people from academia, such as my peers, who have given me advice and stamina, to my tutor, who has contributed with his wisdom, and to my mentor at university, who has kept me on track and provided me with valuable insights. I am grateful to these people for helping me with my willpower and effectiveness. Finally, I need to thank those surrounding me, like my family for supporting me from the distance, my partner for being here to contain and take care of me, and my dog for always being around me and spreading his love and joy.</p>

This thesis analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on relationships between international and local humanitarian actors responding to the 4 August 2020 Beirut Port Explosion. The concepts of “the local”, localization, inequality, and remote management provide a theoretical framework for this analysis. Data collection for this case study research includes a review of published and grey literature, and five video interviews with staff of local and international humanitarian organizations in Beirut. Empirical findings show that local-international inequalities—in the forms of limited access, recognition,and control—have been observed in Beirut and Lebanon for decades, and persisted during the port explosion response. This research further suggests that COVID-19 has contributed to an increase in inequality, most notably by reducing the participation of local actors in humanitarian coordination meetings, and disproportionately transferring risk from international to local actors due to a reliance on remote management. Findings also show that the port explosion caused an influx of funding that was disproportionately directed to international actors, and the economic crisis created a currency devaluation that has exacerbated local-international wage disparities and threatened to limit the reach of local NGO activities. Despite the strength of the civil society—shaped by a strong education system, decades of working through crisis, and government inaction—local actors have often been excluded from humanitarian practice in Beirut and Lebanon. At the same time, findings highlight increases in equality: some local actors adapted more quickly than international actors to COVID-19 and were able to leverage their strengths to receive more funding and greater leadership in the port explosion response. These movements demonstrate adaptability in humanitarian practice that would be critically required in any future reform. This thesis concludes with two recommendations: (1) the use of remote management due to COVID-19 is likely problematic and requires further research to identify best practices; and (2) critical localization provides a useful framework to analyze and mitigate the persistence of local-international inequalities infuture humanitarian responses, and helps to find a meaningful way forward.

Social Investments (SI) have become a significant policy tool during the 2010s for developing and implementing social policy. This study explores how the SI framework, based on social innovation, evidence-based policy and practice, and impact evaluation, affects professionals when it is implemented and evaluated.  The empirical material of the study was based on semi-structured interviews with professionals operating in the City of Stockholm. The author applied practical philosophy, relational sociology, and evaluation theory to answer four phronetic social science research questions focusing on phronesis (practical wisdom). SI comes with constitutive effects that affect the praxis of professionals. It is accompanied by different logics that can both enable or restrict common understanding between economists or social advocates, these differ between professional groups. It creates new content to strive for to create measurable outcomes, which can often lead to conflicts of power. Whether it is delivering outcomes within a certain set of time, or following evidence-based policy and practice, different chains of accountability put a lot of pressure to not do wrong, rather than do right.   The design and implementation of the SI fund in the City of Stockholm have had problems that need addressing. Thus, this study concludes with a warning that any attempts to fix these problems must refrain to create an evaluation machine that risks alienating professionals’ relationship with their work.

This essay explores if and how welfare attitudes in Sweden and in the United Kingdom have changed since the 1990s. Due to an increase in privatization and globalisation during the last 20-30 years, Sweden has become more economically liberal or right wing, aligning more with countries like the United Kingdom. The question therefore is to see if Sweden’s welfare attitudes have changed to become more like the welfare attitudes in the United Kingdom. There is a lack of research on how welfare attitudes change over time, as earlier research has focused more on comparison between countries or between groups. This essay uses empirical data from The International Social Survey Programme, in which three surveys from the years of 1996, 2006 and 2016 has been selected. In these surveys respondent have been asked how much responsibility they think the government should have for its citizens. The results show that the development in welfare attitudes in Sweden and United Kingdom are remarkably similar to each other. The analysis of the empirical data showed no differences between Sweden and the United Kingdom in welfare attitudes across all time periods. Compared to 1996, most groups in these countries wanted less state intervention in welfare generosities which is meant to aid poorer and more economically vulnerable people in their own society.

In critical times of reawakening right-wing ideologies in Germany, the social movement OMAS GEGEN RECHTS (transl. ‘Grannies against the far right’) sets a determined, yet by many unexpected, political statement against fascism. This thesis draws on collective identity theory and symbolic interactionism to conceptualize the activists’ communicative and strategic use of the grandmother self-designation. Based on semi- structured interviews, photo elicitation method, participant observation, and song lyrics, the work explores the expressive and symbolic meaning of their collective action, communicative objects and processes. The grounded analysis points to four themes of identity negotiations – (1) loudness, (2) visibility, (3) commemoration and (4) peacefulness versus ruthlessness – to reveal how OMAS GEGEN RECHTS re-appropriate grandmotherhood. With the lens of feminist gerontology, it becomes apparent that the activists’ self-designation ‘OMA’ extends far beyond anti-fascist commitment by challenging traditional images of female ageing. / In kritischen Zeiten wiedererstarkender rechter Ideologien in Deutschland setzt die soziale Bewegung OMAS GEGEN RECHTS ein entschlossenes, wenngleich für viele unerwartetes politisches Zeichen gegen den Faschismus. Mit Theorien der kollektiven Identität und des symbolischen Interaktionismus konzeptualisiert diese Arbeit den kommunikativen und strategischen Gebrauch der Selbstbezeichnung ‚Oma‘. Deren expressive und symbolische Bedeutung in Form von kollektiver Aktion sowie kommunikativer Objekte und Prozesse wird auf Grundlage von Interviews (mit visueller Unterstützung), teilnehmenden Beobachtungen und Liedtexten untersucht. Die fundierte Analyse verweist auf vier Themen der Identitätsverhandlungen – (1) Lautstärke, (2) Sichtbarkeit, (3) Gedenken und (4) Friedfertigkeit versus Wehrhaftigkeit. Die Themen zeigen auf, wie OMAS GEGEN RECHTS den Begriff der ‚Großmutterschaft‘ neu interpretieren und ihn sich aneignen. Aus der Perspektive der feministischen Gerontologie wird deutlich, dass die Selbstbezeichnung der Aktivistinnen ‚OMA‘ weit über antifaschistisches Engagement hinausgeht, indem sie traditionelle Bilder des weiblichen Alterns in Frage stellen.

The purpose of this study has been to explore the importance of internalized age stereotypes and age norms for older workers' self-image. By examining the use of norms and stereotypes when they talk about their working life and plan for life after retirement, the study aims to expand the understanding of self-image formation and the influence of internalized age stereotypes on retirement planning. The study was conducted using a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework guiding this research incorporates social identity theory and self-categorization theory to understand how self-image takes shape throughsocial interactions and societal structures. Concepts from social psychology underscore the importance of self-reflection in identity formation. Stereotype embodiment theory specifically focuses on the impact of ageist stereotypes. The results of our study show that internalized ageist beliefs influence the participants’ thoughts, feelings and behaviors. These beliefs affect their self-image and interpretation of the world around them. Self-image is continuously formed throughout life, not only at work or during leisure time. Our theoretical standpoint is confirmed by the empirical data, showing that how individuals perceive themselves is significantly influenced by how they are perceived by others. However, this varies with their basic self-esteem. The less significance age has for personal identity, the lower the susceptibility to societal ageist attitudes. Our study shows that age identification is stronger among women. The influence on an age-related self-image on retirement plans is relatively low. The plans are based on what the participants want and dream about – choices dictated by their personality, interests, feelings and values. Age is a part of the whole, without being decisive for post-retirement plans. However, the age-related aspect can be seen in the fact that several participants experience stress about not being able to accomplish everything they desire in life. This stress does not motivate continued work but rather encourages them to retire as soon as they have the opportunity from both a work and economic perspective.

Caregivers are socializing agents for their children and play an important role in their psychosocial development and desistance from criminal pathways. When children’s psychosocial needs are unmet by their caregivers, social workers play an important role in supporting their healthy development. Considering the increased attention by scholars toward caregiver engagement in children’s interventions, and the acknowledgment of emergent power dynamics in the interaction between caregivers and social workers, it is of interest to explore broader influences of engagement. This paper compares the experiences of social workers and caregivers at an outpatient treatment working on behalf of Swedish Social Services. Caregiver engagement in children’s psychosocial development is discussed from stereotypes and broader sociocultural influences to explore potential power dynamics. The findings suggest that caregiver engagement is not a simple dichotomy of good or bad. Instead, sociocultural influences such as shame, guilt, and blame, along with integrational processes and sociocultural norms are indicative of inclusive and exclusive processes of caregiver engagement. Failure to address intercultural misunderstandings and failure to recognize individual needs beyond the caregiver identity are perceived as discriminatory factors contributing to unfair assessments of caregiver capabilities and practices. Consequently, power dynamics resulting in discriminatory assessments have led to fear and mistrust towards Swedish authorities, leading caregivers to avoid seeking support. This avoidance from caregivers could potentially result in children persisting on criminal or deviant pathways. Therefore, the result warrants awareness of unequal or unjust assessments of caregiver engagement based on prejudice toward cultural and social stereotypes. Practically, this emphasizes the implementation of individualized interventions that promote open communication, trust, and intercultural learning.