Titel: “Exposed – but in different ways”. A vignette study on social workers' view of addicted clients based on beliefs about gender. Authors: Caroline Johansson and Linn Johansson. The purpose of this essay was to investigate whether gender affects how social workers in the addiction area assess the client's situation. This was done through a vignette study with a qualitative approach in which six social workers' from four different municipalities participated. The fictional case description was about a client who was in a situation where the use of alcohol and prescription drugs was highlighted. Social factors were also reported when the person in question had two children, a former partner, a current partner and two parents. Two vignettes were constructed with the same content, the only difference was that in vignette 1, the main character was a woman and in vignette 2, the main character was a man. Three social workers received vignette 1 and the remaining three received vignette 2. Individual interviews were conducted and the result was analyzed using a social constructivism perspective focusing on gender. This was done by using the concepts genus order, heterosexual matrix, typing and stereotyping and "making gender". Previous research within the field was also included in the analysis. The result showed that the social workers' made different assessments based on beliefs about gender in a number of different areas. The conclusion is that a discussion needs to be raised about how to create gender equality in social work services which takes into account the different positions that gender entails in society.   Keywords: sex, gender, social worker, addiction, social constructionism.

Anorexia as a nosological category has developed in a western context and is now being applied to people around the world. In order for researchers to know they are asking the right questions about AN as knowledge expands, it is important to understand what meanings Anorexia carries and how those meanings manifest locally. The present study to aid in that understanding by employing a mixed methods (survey and in-depth interviewing) research approach in answering the following question: In what ways are Taiwanese students' explanatory models of anorexia nervosa (AN) congruent with or different from professional understandings derived from the western Bio-medical perspective? In answering this question, this study first addresses the current state of research on anorexia as well as the recent findings from studies done in Asia. Subsequently, the findings of the present research address what are young, Taiwanese adults' notions of the causality of AN. In particular, the present research found that student explanations of AN are focused predominantly on two causal forces; namely, the desire to be thin or the inability to eat as a result of psychosocial pressure arising from some interpersonal interactions. Additionally, Taiwanese students also maintain that AN can be explained by other less common factors. For instance, significantly more males than females believed that AN could be explained by some physiological dysfunction in the anorectic person. This study seeks to contribute to the literature by examining how college-age Taiwanese understand and conceptualize AN; which in turn may help towards understanding how other research conducted among Chinese populations has produced findings that are incongruent with the expectations suggested by the western, biomedical model of anorexia nervosa. There is further need for cross-cultural research on AN including lay understandings. This should focus not only on the "accurateness" of lay models as has been the case with the majority of research on lay models of AN in the past, but future research should consider the appropriateness of current research and public health models that influence both research and policy.

The relationship between the body, food and exercise is complex and remains poorly understood within the athletic population. Much of what is currently known stems from disordered eating literature grounded in objectivist perspectives. While this literature has been fruitful, it has limited our understanding of athletes' eating and body experiences as they have primarily been conceptualized through an objectivist lens as pathological and/or linked to individual psychological deficiencies (e.g., low self-esteem, body image distortion). In turn, the ways in which food and exercise are negotiated and experienced by athletes in the context of taken-for-granted social, cultural and gendered discourses had not yet been explored. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to use an alternative theoretical perspective (i.e., feminist psychology) to look beyond the traditional objectivist notion of `disordered eating' and explore the complex relationship between the body, food and exercise in athletes (i.e., male and female distance runners), including the underlying meanings surrounding the athletic body and the role of gender and power in the social construction of their body experiences. A narrative approach drawing from Sparkes & Smith (2008), Smith & Sparkes (2008, 2010), and Riessman (1993, 2008) was used to accomplish this research goal. As such, participants were asked to tell stories about their body experiences, in relation to both eating and exercising, over the course of two separate individual interviews, as well as to create a visual representation/story of their running experience. These stories stood as the backdrop through which meanings were sought, as they provided a window into larger social, cultural and historical narratives as well as the process of individual meaning-making around the body, food and exercise (Riessman, 1993, 2008; Smith & Sparkes, 2010). A total of nine recreational distance runners (5 males, 4 females) and three elite (i.e., collegiate or post-collegiate) distance runners (1 male, 2 females) participated in the study. Together, these 12 runners produced a sum of 23 narrative interviews and 11 visual narratives, all of which underwent a combined thematic, dialogic/performance and visual analysis. The results of this thorough analysis indicated that the runners' stories were primarily situated in broader self-identity narratives and further demarcated by one of two opposing running narratives that shifted the meanings around the body, food and exercise in complex ways. Furthermore, their stories, along with the construction of meanings around the body, food and exercise, were found to be situated and negotiated within gendered narratives of the self. The ways in which the runners drew upon these narratives, and formed meanings within them, directly impacted their thoughts, emotions and behaviors around their bodies, food and exercise in both empowering (i.e., positive and healthy) and/or disempowering ways. As such, this study highlighted the complexity of the body, food and exercise relationship in distance runners and demonstrated how athletes' eating and exercising practices are socially and culturally formed through the narratives made available to them.

This qualitative study focused on retired school principals’ involvement in special education. More specifically, it explored various ways former principals conceived of their leadership identity and accounted for their level of involvement in special education and with students identified or identifying as disabled. The following research question guided this study: How do former principals account for their involvement with special education and/or disability? The study’s subquestions were: What are principals’ accounts of being, becoming, and remaining involved with special education and/or with disability?; In what ways do principals attend to special education and/or disability?; and How do principals conceive of their leadership identity given their accounts of involvement with special education and/or disability? Narratives shared by former principals regarding what it means to be involved with special education and/or disability and relationships between conceptions of involvement and identities served as the primary source of data. These conceptions included, but were not limited to, perceived ways principals’ viewed their attentiveness and commitment to special education. In this study leadership identity was understood as a professional identity in relationship to one’s identities and in response to others’ identities. Employing a phenomenographic approach, findings were grouped into pools of meanings, labeled as categories of description, and presented in an outcome space—a visual representation of results illustrating how participants experienced and attributed variation in meaning to the research phenomenon. Findings revealed former principals accounted for their involvement with special education and/or disability through professional responses, risk-taking, and working toward the social transformation of their schools. Participants experienced involvement as active presence, critical reflection, advocacy, and resistance. Findings suggested principal involvement in special education is influenced by their experiences with disability and relationships with individuals with disabilities. Furthermore, participants experienced identity through compassion, learning, spirituality, and dis/abled-ness. This study also revealed a nexus between participants’ confidence and involvement, suggesting the greater participants’ confidence to lead in special education, the more directly involved they were with and among students with disabilities; the less confident, the more they assumed a “supportive” role leading in this area. Personal experiences with disability—that was, participants having a child with a disability and/or having a disability themselves—facilitated increased leadership involvement. Participants who conceived leadership identity through a sense of spirituality and dis/abled-ness were more inclined to take risks and work toward socially transforming their schools. Discussion of how leadership preparation programs can recruit and prepare school leaders by focusing conversations around role expectations associated with leadership in special education is provided. Future research should consider how a leader’s identity affects leadership of students with disabilities and address the unique positionality of principals who are also parents of children with disabilities.

This study explored the discursive subject positions that 18 parents, teachers and administrators involved with children identified as experiencing learning difficulties in a Queensland regional primary school between September 2003 and August 2004 drew upon to explain the causes of those children’s learning difficulties. The study used a post-structuralist adaptation of positioning theory and social constructionism and a discourse analytic method to analyse relevant policy documents and participants’ semi-structured interview transcripts to interrogate what models were being used to explain a student's inability to access the curriculum. Despite the existence of alternative explanatory frameworks that functioned as relatively undeveloped resistant counternarratives, the study demonstrated the medical model’s overwhelming dominance in both Education Queensland policy statements and the participants’ subject positions. This dominance shapes and informs the adult stakeholders’ subjectivities and renders the child docile and potentially irrational.

<p>Happiness research is advancing as an academic discipline as well as on the political agenda. An aspect, largely ignored in the field, is what impact an individual’s construction of the good life has on his or her subjective well-being. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how people in different situations in life and with different backgrounds construct the idea of a good life and the importance these constructions may have in explaining subjective well-being. Despite the differences between themselves, the respondents’ constructions of the good life were shown to have a lot in common. Some factors in the good life were shared by the respondents, such as relations to other people, access to food, water and housing, whereas in other aspects, such as money and time, the constructions of the good life differed quite a lot from one another. When evaluating their own lives the respondents used quite different criteria mostly corresponding to their idea of the good life. If this is a general pattern, possible to replicate in other studies, one may in the future be able to draw the conclusion that the construction of the good life has an effect on our subjective well-being.</p>

<p>In November 2006 and July 2007, changes were made to the Social Services Law and the Criminal Injuries Law, defining children who have witnessed domestic violence as crime victims. The objective of our study is to examine if these changes have affected how social workers responsible for child protection inquiries interact with children who have witnessed domestic violence, and to what extent these children’s need of support are taken into account. Qualitative interviews have been carried out with five social workers, with the aim to evaluate how they meet and become aware of these children. Our problem-formulation is based upon the question how social services implement the recent changes to the law. The framework for analysis combines a social constructionist approach with a critical perspective. The study identifies shortcomings when it comes to the ways in which these children are encountered and the extent to which they are allowed to participate in the investigation process. The social workers interviewed have little knowledge about how children are affected by domestic violence, and also about these children’s need of help and support. The study further shows that children are not perceived as actors that have a right to participation and to be involved in the process. However, even if parents tend to be the focal point of child protection inquiries, there are also social workers who try to bring children’s rights to the fore and find ways to support these. The study thus supports the notion that it is important to see children as actors and individuals in their respective situation rather than as passive victims whose needs are overshadowed by those of the adults.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p> </p><p>This licentiate’s dissertation is about how school staff talk about pupils having difficulties in relating to teachers and other pupils. It’s specific focus is on pupils which are described as “disturbing”, “troublesome”,”unruly”, “unconcentrated” or characterised by similar concepts. The main aim is to elucidate and discuss how school staff explain pupils’ difficulties, what measures they state that they undertake and what measures they consider necessary.</p><p>The study is based on a social constructive approach. This means that the way we understand the world we live in is seen as shaped by social and cultural processes mediated through language. A consequence of this is that the way the staff talk about pupils in difficulties will influence how they relate to those children and how they work at solving the problems.</p><p>The empirical material consists of interviews with six principals, six Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators and six class teachers from six different schools. 15 of the people interviewed work with 11–13 year olds and three of them with 7–9 year olds. The material from the interviews is categorised into themes and further analysed in order to present a systematic overview of the ways in which the staff talk about children in difficulties.</p><p>The result shows that the problems are understood as complex and full of nuances. Explanations of the problems from medical/psychological perspectives have no distinguished status. It is more common that the problems are related to social conditions, family situation and school environment.</p><p>The study also shows that different professional groups usually place the responsibility for solving the problems with other professional groups. The way the concerned principal looks upon the problem seems be important for the way the problem is dealt with.</p><p>The way the staff studied talk about the school activities indicates that schools differ concerning issues like organisation, the role of the Special Needs Co-ordinator, co-operation between different professional groups etc. As a consequence pupils having difficulties in relating to other people will be subjected to different conditions depending on what school they attend. The school as an arena of identity creation and citizenship education will offer hence different opportunities to different children in difficulties.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em> </em></p><p><em> </em></p><p><em>Keywords:</em><strong> </strong>special educational needs, social constructionism, children in need of support,</p><p>problem behavior in schools</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong><em> </em></strong></p><p>Hans Larsson, Department of Education,</p><p>Örebro University, SE-701 82 Örebro, Sweden, hans.larsson@oru.se</p>

<p>Our aim with this study is to investigate whether or not Utbildningsradions - which is a public broadcasting agency - educational programmes reproduce the existing gender patterns of the female and male genders. We have chosen to analyse two educational programmes, Home Farm Twins and Rena rama forntiden.</p><p>We use a social constructionist theory regarding the construction and reproduction of gender and the method we have chosen to use is a qualitative content analysis to study the educational programmes.</p><p>Our conclusion is that in the case of Home Farm Twins, it reproduces the current stereotypes that exist in society. Rena rama forntiden on the other hand does not, the program has got a clear gender perspective in regards to its content. Though it can be said that in some ways it does not reflect upon the gender patterns that exist in society today, to a satisfactionary extent.</p><p>Utbildningsradion does not achieve its policy concerning Home Farm Twins, but on the other hand it shows that in the case of Rena rama forntiden they do own up to the standards regarding cultural diversity and creative aim.</p>

<p>The aim of this essay was to deepen the knowledge of how child-protection-work is illustrated by massmedia. The essay takes it stand in discourse analysis to explain what image is displayed of social work concerning child-protection that is published in news media during 2007 in one of Sweden’s most read evening-papers. The result of the study is that social workers involved in child-protection-work often are categorized as either too zealous or too uncommitted, in the media. The result reflected the current discourse concerning how social workers do their duties in the modern society.</p>