During the emergence of social work, women have been considered to hold greater competence in social relations. Approximately 80% of social workers in Sweden are women, which leaves men in a minority. Men are considered to have advantages in female-dominated professions because of their unique and desirable abilities. This paper aims to adress men's underpresentation in the female-dominated social work profession. The purpose is to explore the attitudes and experiences of men working in a minority group.

In recent years, the demands for effectiveness and evidence in social work have increased in all work areas, including that of healthcare. This has sparked the discussion on concepts such as practical- and theoretical knowledge and their respective roles in social work. In the light of this, the purpose of this candidate thesis is to investigate healthcare social workers understanding of practical- and theoretical knowledge in the working process as well as their respective influence and importance. This candidate thesis is based on three interviews with social workers from different departments in Norrlands Universitetssjukhus in Umeå, Sweden. To provide range to the thesis, the interviewees were chosen from a purposeful sampling.

The focus of this thesis is the conception of work and the relation between work, economic growth and welfare in today?s Sweden in the editorial of Dagens Nyheter (DN), which is the main morning paper in Sweden.As the theoretical foundation of this thesis is social constructionism and the method being used is critical discourse analysis, the language is considered as an important source for the construction of value and meaning of work. In that context it is important to investigate how DN, by certain ways of representing reality, preserves a certain view of the human being, the society and the economy. Which ideological ideas underlie the conception of work that emerges in DN? What social consequences will these ideas have?The thesis discusses the ?truths? that the editorialists mediate concerning for example the view of the human being as guided by rational choice and the view of economic growth as the main goal for social life.One of the conclusions is that DN considers work as a means for economic growth as economic growth is regarded fundamental for the survival of the welfare state..

This report is a result of a diplomawork in construction engineering.The goal of this thesis is to highlighthow the work with planning andperformance management is done in theprojects at the Swedish buildingcontractor Skanska Väg & anläggning,region Stockholm/Mälardalen, districtMark Stockholm North, compared toSkanska?s policies.The comparison was made with focus onfive tools for productivity. The toolsare as follow: broken-down schedule,work sets, visual control, performancemanagement/progress monitoring and bestpractice.The study showed that the usage of thedifferent tools varied both within andbetween the different projects.Practically none of the projects whereusing the tools progress monitoring andbest practice, mostly due to fewoperations being applicable. The worksets are now mostly documented, but theyare rarely followed up. Performancemanagement is somewhat inconsequentialfor the moment, but during 2011 targetsheets will be introduced, withtemplates for setting up targets.Scheduling is one of the most importantworks regarding planning.

Social work in Sweden has historically been mostly done by the public sector andthe work has been regulated by law. In the last two decades, private and voluntaryactors have played an important role as providers of welfare state; one of theseplayers is the Swedish Church. The aim of this thesis has been to describe thework the deacons perform in the Swedish Church in a medium-sized municipalityin Sweden. To find out how much freedom of action the deacons themselves feelthat they have and if they feel that their work is influenced by the social work thatother performers are doing. In order to reach the goal, a qualitative approach wasused where seven deacons were interviewed.

After the honor killings of Fadime and Pela, an extensively discussion started in the media, debating honor-related violence and oppression. This debate also made us, the authours of this paper, to pay attention to the problem. As a professional in social work, there are several good points to be made by having an in-depth knowledge in the field, both to discover individuals exposed to honor-related violence and to be able to protect them. The study was conducted by four qualitative interviews with professionals in social work with a professional experience of honor-related problems. Through the interviews, the social worker's view of honor problems emerged.

The overall aim with this essay was to study how counsellors at upper secondary school work with mental illness among youths and compare this with what research and theories advocate. This because there has been a rise in the number of people, especially in the age-group 16-24 years, suffering from different degrees of mental illnesses. The school can in some aspect contribute to cause mental illness but it also consists of good opportunities to offer counselling and work to prevent mental illness among the students. This study consists of five qualitative interviews and two short telephone interviews with school counsellors. During the interviews they expressed their thoughts concerning factors that causes mental illness among youths and gave an account of how they work with prevention, counselling and collaboration.

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

This work applies intersectionality to five Somali women self-narratives and focuses on their identities and positions in Swedish society, but also their relation to Somali society. Since people constructs in relation to the environment, this work studies the impact of environmental confirmations of their own self. Intersectionality is brought into the social work with an operational attempt, and shows how critics of power and interplay between theories and empirics can provide new knowledge. Intersectionality also demands some alterations of the social constructionists? idea of the ego.

The aim of this study was to examine women shelters conditions as an organization and how these conditions affect their work with children who have experienced family violence and live in their shelters. In order to achieve a more profound and comprehensive view of the women shelters and their work with these children we selected to execute a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews with collaborators from nine different shelters in Sweden. We found that the women shelter as a non-governmental organization was bicameral and complex where their work with children distinguishes on several areas. We discovered that the women shelters were an organization, affected and formed by its environment. From our empiricism we could distinguish differences on a municipality level where collaborations with schools and social services occur in a resource guided hierarchy which influences the women shelters work with children.

This study investigates how productivity works when employees have remote work in their workplace. This study will also focus on challenges that cause productivity to decrease when remote work applies. The empirical data shows that individual productivity increases when employees work in a workplace that provides remote work. The data says that less distractions and high autonomy is a big factor to why employees feel that they work productively at home. Briefly it shows that a flexible workplace makes individual employees work productively and even motivates employees to work effectively because of increased concentration and undisturbed work environment.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to get an understanding of what is expected of social workers targeted towards women managers in social services. Nine social workers were interviewed. The empirical data was then analyzed on the basis of gender theory. Respondents did not see their supervisor as a manager but more as a social worker with special tasks. Our empirical data indicates that there is a strong belief that men and women possess different properties.

The purpose of this study was to examine how the needs of social assistance for people with substance abuse are assessed in accordance to The Swedish Social Services Act 4th chapter 1§. The purpose was also to examine how substance abuse is assessed as a social problem by social workers, how the municipal guidelines concerning social assistance for substance abuser were constructed in relation to the Social Service Act and finally how social workers made their assessments of the need of social assistance to people with substance abuse in relation to the legislation. The sample was made among the municipalities in the county of Stockholm. Municipal guidelines were studied in 18 municipalities by content analysis. A sample of 11 social workers was chosen from 5 municipalities.

AbstractTo take the role of another is an important and a central part of human interaction. When we take the role of another we not only learn about them but also we learn about ourselves and how we interact with other people.  Social work in this form, working with directly with families in crises, is much about understanding other people?s perspective and feelings. It is important to know the strategy of one?s work and which perspective to work from.

This study is about the child?s perspective when it comes to work with financial assistance. The purpose of the study was partly to describe how social workers regard the child?s perspective in their work with financial assistance and partly to look into whether they impose a child?s perspective in their practical work. To fulfill this purpose the authors used a quantitative method and sent out a web based survey to all the social workers actively working with financial assistance in Stockholm town.