To contribute knowledge on obstacles to children’s participation in decisions concerning their welfare, this study examines four reports published by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare in two steps. First, using Bacchi's ‘What's the problem represented to be?’-approach, this paper concludes that the National Board of Health and Welfare describes obstacles to children's participation in decision-making processes within Socialstjänsten as a matter of (1) a lack of competence among social workers, (2) lacking adaptation to individual children, and (3) insufficient rules and regulations. Second, by developing a theoretical tool based on Fox Harding's theory on value perspectives and using it to analyze different views on children contained within the reports by the National Board of Health and Welfare, this paper shows that the content of this material indicates that children in decision-making processes within Socialtjänsten are viewed in two ways: Either as vulnerable and in need of protection or as a part of the family unit, where the parents are the ones who hold rights. These perspectives on children constitute two schools of thought that have a narrow or conditional attitude towards children's participation and stand in contrast to a rights-based view on children, which values participation and is more in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Based on these findings, the paper argues that the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare have reason to discuss social workers' views on children as an obstacle for child participation and that it is problematic that they do not.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-439051 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Carlfjord, Vendela |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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