Män i socialt arbete
En kvalitativ studie om manliga socialarbetares upplevelser av en kvinnodominerad arbetsplats
The aim of this study was to describe how male social workers who work in the section for children and family in one municipality in southern Sweden, experience that their gender influences their daily work. The main focus is to understand what it means to be a man in the social services department. The first research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their contact with children and parents in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The second research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their working place in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The third research question was how the male social workers experienced that their gender affected the work with women colleagues. The fourth and last research question was how the male social workers experienced what it means to be a man in the present society. The study was based on a qualitative method and contains semi-structured interviews done with five social workers. I analyzed my interviews with the help of a theory which focused on masculine hegemony and with the help of prior research in this area. My results show that male social workers experience both possibilities and obstacles because of their gender when working with children and parents. Male social workers also felt that their gender affected their work with women colleagues.