Clients experiences in attempting to access counselling help have rarely been studied. As such, a full and clear understanding of clients experiences with accessing services, as well as identification of the barriers encountered by clients and clients ideas about what would make accessing more comfortable, have eluded researchers. Typically, the research focus has been quantitative investigations of the no-show phenomenon, whereby clients fail to arrive at pre-booked counselling appointments. Such studies have left 24% of the variance in the unexplained "other" category. More recently, researchers have begun to question whether or not mental health stigma impacts counselling attendance. The present study sought to describe the experience of individuals who self identified as having booked a counselling appointment within the previous 8-months and then had failed to attend. A basic interpretive qualitative research design (Merriam, 2002) was employed for the purpose of describing and understanding this phenomenon, with special emphasis given to identifying possible barriers to accessing counselling. Interviews with four middle class Caucasian adults aged 27-33; two of whom had accessed counselling previously and two of whom had not, were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed in terms of a shared meaning and descriptive categories (Kearney, 2001). Findings revealed that stigma, self-stigma, several fears, and some counselling practices functioned as barriers. However, participants also expressed positive emotions associated with reaching out and accessing counselling help and a desire for information about what to expect in counselling, whether they had accessed previously or not. The beginnings of a pattern associated with accessing counselling are discussed and implications for counselling practice and future research are described.

No description available.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att studera svartkonst som förklaringsmodell för AIDS i förhållande till det stigma som är förknippat med sjukdomen. Jag kommer också att ta upp den västerländska biomedicinska förklaringsmodellen som dominerar anti-AIDS-programmen för att se närmare på vilka problem som kan uppstå där emellan. Genom att främst utgå från situationen i Zimbabwe kommer jag med hjälp av några olika teorier kring föreställningar, kategoriseringssystem, stigma och skam att öppna upp till en mer allmän diskussion om hur svartkonst används som förklaringsmodell för en stigmatiserande sjukdom; hur detta påverkar hur man skyddar sig och söker behandling; samt, vilka problem användandet av program utformade efter föreställningar som har sitt ursprung i en västerländsk kontext medför.

Denna studie har som syfte att synliggöra hur sjukvårdspersonal uppfattar missbrukare. För att ta del av våra informanters uppfattningar har vi utfört kvalitativa intervjuer för att generera ett material som är grund för visare analys. Vidare har en fenomenografisk ansats använts för att analysera vårt material. Teoriernagenuskontraktetochstigmahar använts för att analysera och vidare diskutera materialet, men även tidigare forskning rörande missbrukande individer . En viktig slutsats i studien är hur informanternas egna uppfattningar påverkar deras inställning.

The purpose of this article was to describe experiences of living as hearing impaired. What kind of function and importance has rehabilitation had for professionals with hearing impairment and what hearing rehabilitation meant to ease everyday life and professional life. We also wanted to know through our questionnaire what participants in the course considered as meaning full in their rehabilitation for their everyday life and professional life. Based on our purpose a qualitative approach was chosen for data collection and analysis. We have interviewed six participants of the course ”Basrehabilitering för yrkesverksamma med förvärvad hörselskada” which Kalmar Landsting offers. We have also participated during an observation week where we have been active participants in the rehabilitation course and also done a literature study of the meaning of the term disabled in a historical view. The use of method triangulation gave us the opportunity to examine things from different views and thus the possibility to increase the validity of our study. In our study we also used the term stigma and the results show that the term is relevant and that the problems surrounding hearing impairment to a large extent is connected to shame, shame created from a stigma. The results further showed that rehabilitation is significant to prevent the stigmatization for a person with hearing impairment. 2

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka gränserna för den disciplinerade socialiteten i grundskolan, hur gränserna sätts och hur avvikare konstrueras. Empirin baseras på intervjuer med en elev som under sin skolgång utvecklade en avvikaridentitet, samt elevens föräldrar och rektor. Analyserna visar att gränserna för den disciplinerade socialiteten blir snävare med åren. Från en öppen friare socialitet i förskolan till allt mindre utrymme för individuella olikheter i grundskolan. Kollektiva abstrakta restriktioner sätts upp av en maktfull grupp (pedagogerna och rektorn) som bygger på öppna regler (styrdokument, skolans regler) men även dolda (den dolda läroplanen). Utifrån dessa skapas och förhandlas individuella konkreta restriktioner fram. När individen bryter mot de individuella restriktionerna finns risken att denna stigmatiseras utifrån en abstrakt kategorisering som av den maktfulla gruppen projiceras på individen. Om avvikaren dessutom kommer i kontakt med andra avvikare är chansen stor att en avvikaridentitet utvecklas. De abstrakta kategoriseringarna av avvikare är tydliga till skillnad mot gränserna för avvikelse, där en hel del göms i den dolda läroplanen. Därav fyller avvikarna en viktig funktion: att utgöra fixpunkter för den ideale skoleleven.

According to several studies immigrants today in general face more difficulties to enter the labor market than before. This also applies to educated immigrants who are the main focus of this thesis. Studies have shown that educated migrants have more difficulties of obtaining an adequate job than ethnic Swedes. Thousands of educated immigrants are forced to work in low skilled occupations to cope with their everyday lives. The reasons behind their lack of success on the Swedish labor market have been blamed on different kinds of obstacles.     This study wants to examine at least some of the obstacles that educated immigrants face on the labor market through some informants own personal reflections and experiences. The study is based on an inside perspective in which the different personal experiences and reflections of the various informants is of great importance.  The study is focused on how five educated immigrants describe their situation on the Swedish labor market. The aim is to investigate the informants 'understanding of the difficulties they have to get a job that matches their skills. It also aims to discuss the structural barriers that respondents relate to when they describe their situation.    The results of the interviews with the informants have been analyzed with the help of central concepts gained from the two sociologists, Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu.    The results of my study have shown through the personal experiences of the informants that the difficulties they face on the labor market can be attributed to their lack of access to valuable social networks and to the various requirement profiles that exist from employers, often with a strong focus on a developed knowledge of the Swedish language. These two obstacles results in that the skilled migrants on the labor market have a relative disadvantage in comparison with ethnic Swedes in the search for the attractive jobs.

<p>This dissertation examines racial socialization in Afro-Brazilian families in order to understand how phenotypically diverse families negotiate racial hierarchies and ideologies of white supremacy. As an inductive, qualitative project, this research is based on over fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in fifteen poor and working-class Bahian families and 116 semi-structured interviews with family members and informants. Findings suggest that one of the most prominent features of racial socialization is the pervasive devaluation of black/African influences, which is conveyed through implicit and explicit messages as well as concrete practices (including rituals) that promote the stigmatization of negatively valued racialized physical features. The study reveals a pattern of unequal distribution of affection based on racial appearance (phenotype), which is evident in parent-child, sibling, extended family, and romantic relationships. Findings suggest that negative appraisals of racial phenotype may significantly compromise affective bonds in families and have social psychological consequences impacting self-esteem and sense of belonging, while also eliciting suicidal ideations and anxieties. These outcomes are most pronounced for Afro-Brazilian females. Racial socialization also conveys the "strategically ambiguous" logic of color and racial classification, uncritically exposes family members to racist messages, jokes, and stereotypical images of Afro-Brazilians, and encourages cultural participation that superficially valorizes Afro-Brazilian culture and fosters nationalism, rather than racial identity. In contrast to traditional findings of racial socialization in the U.S., messages valorizing racial heritage are rare and efforts to prepare family members for bias rely on universal terms. Families do employ counter-discourses and creative strategies of resistance; and so, racial socialization is characterized by practices that reflect both resistance and accommodation to racial hierarchies. I conclude that racial socialization in families is influenced by and sustains racialization processes that maintain the broader system of white supremacy. Contrary to how racial socialization has been framed as having a purely protective role in families, this study illustrates how it may disadvantage blacks vis-à-vis whites and uniquely stigmatizes the most "black-looking" family members vis-à-vis those who more closely approximate an idealized (whiter) somatic norm. Future studies should triangulate data on racial socialization from other regions of the Americas.</p> / Dissertation

With the advances in technology and popularization of the Internet, the interaction of human beings in real society has extended to the Internet forum. Due to the low barrier for entering the Internet, people can always speak their mind freely and make comments on whatever they want to. Behind a world that seems to have freedom and equality of speech, the expression of opinions is being tested by standards of different cultures and living backgrounds. Using Gossiping¢wthe most popular and interactive board on PTT¢w as the source data, this study identifies the spiral of silence between the mainstream opinions and non-mainstream opinions. Where the spiral of silence occurred, the study also examines the force which affected the spiral based on the theories of stigma and analyze its accompanying meanings. With different positions, people resulted in different critical standards and stigma phenomenon. When facing stigma, people should realize the causes of things from the social and cultural dimensions, and rethink the positive meanings that stigma brings to us instead of being afraid of it.

<p>Avsikten med arbetet har varit att belysa hur de professionella ser på, vad ett kriminellt ungdomsgäng betyder för den enskilde gängmedlemmen, även att få större kunskap om de professionellas erfarenheter i möten med ungdomar. Frågeställningarna var, vad tillhörighet i ett kriminellt ungdomsgäng har för påverkan på den enskilde gängmedlemmen? Den andra löd, hur man som professionell arbetar med kriminella ungdomsgäng? Metoden vi använde oss av var kvalitativ. Intervjuerna gjordes med en polis som var aktiv inom ungdomsarbete, två socialsekreterare, två behandlingspersonaler på ett ungdomsboende, en fritidsledare och en lärare på en högstadieskola. Resultatet visade huvudsakligen att ungdomar befann sig i kriminella ungdomsgäng eftersom de sökte en tillhörighet, bekräftelse, att bli någon. De professionella menade att insatserna borde läggas på individnivå snarare än gruppnivå för att kunna splittra ungdomsgäng. Undersökningen kan vara nyttig för dem som kommer att möta ungdomar i sitt yrke och för de som söker en större förståelse för ungdomsgäng och grupptillhörighet.</p>