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In 2016 Swedish law was amended to allow single women to access fertility treatment with donor sperm. In this paper, based on interviews, document analysis and autoethnographic insights, I examine the implementation of this law using human rights approaches, specifically the availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality framework (AAAQ Framework). While the law extended the scope of reproductive rights, the health system was unprepared. Five years on, women seek care in the private sector or continue to travel abroad due in large part to waiting times which can be up to four years in some regions. The paper also provides a meeting point between anthropology and policy analysis. The law change provides a pathway for analyzing the Swedish health system and political context, particularly the relationships between the private and public sectors and between different regions, and the balance of responsibility between national and regional levels. While many of the challenges are unique to the Swedish context, they also offer lessons for countries which have or are considering expanding access to fertility treatment for single women and other patient groups, thus demonstrating the importance of ethnographic approaches in health policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this paper was to highlight the importance of cultural infl uence in understanding hearing-help seeking and hearing-aid uptake. Design: Information on audiological services in different countries and ' theories related to cross-culture ' is presented, followed by a general discussion. Study sample: Twenty-seven relevant literature reviews on hearing impairment, cross-cultural studies, and the health psychology model and others as secondary resources. Results: Despite the adverse consequences of hearing impairment and the significant potential benefits of audiological rehabilitation, only a small number of those with hearing impairment seek professional help and take up appropriate rehabilitation. Therefore, hearing help-seeking and hearing-aid uptake has recently become the hot topic for clinicians and researchers. Previous research has identified many contributing factors for hearing help-seeking with self-reported hearing disability being one of the main factors. Although significant differences in help-seeking and hearing-aid adoption rates have been reported across countries in population studies, limited literature on the infl uence of cross-cultural factors in this area calls for an immediate need for research. Conclusions: This paper highlights the importance of psychological models and cross-cultural research in the area of hearing help-seeking and hearing-aid uptake, and consequently some directions for future research are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper1 presents a study of children's use of fingerspelling. It is part of a larger longitudinal ethnographic study of deaf2 children, who were 3-6 years old when the study started. They are early signers using Swedish Sign Language in communication with teachers and peers. The aim of this paper is to examine the different functions which fingerspelling has as a part of literacy learning in the early years and later at school. Six main themes are identified when the children first explore and learn to fingerspell: (i) exploring handshapes, letters, inventing fingerspelling, and later exploring its use and learning to fingerspell in literacy practices; (ii) exploring the direction of writing and fingerspelling; (iii) practising and memorizing words; (iv) decoding words; (v) recalling from memory; and (vi) fingerspelling as a tool for exploring the relationships; between letters, words, signs, mouth movements, and voice. These aspects of children's fingerspelling and their possible implications are addressed, as are some findings regarding how teachers respond to the children's attempts at fingerspelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, many countries spend a great deal of money and effort on programs for expert-guided parenting support to be carried out in face-to-face groups. One goal of such support is to target, help, and educate “risky” groups of parents, such as young parents. It is striking, however, that young parents have a conspicuously low degree of participation in this type of parenting support. Drawing on the assumption that many young parents go online to seek, give, and receive peer parenting support, this paper presents a case study of activities within three Facebook groups. Using a combination of social network analysis, online ethnography, and interviews, we analyze how social network relationships and discussions differ depending on whether the analyzed Facebook group in question is administrated by professionals or peers, what the role of professional experts is, and how young parents might use social media to take control of their own support needs. Our results indicate that some of the affordances provided by Facebook might contribute to a challenging of the roles of “skilled” professionals versus “risky” young parents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the issue of reflective practice, as suggested by Schön. The aim is to analyze instances of reflective practice in elder care, in order to depict individual and collective work. Reflective practice is prevailing as a way of emphasizing the value of practical knowledge and enhancing its status. Reflexivity is thinking about what and why we do something. Moreover, reflexivity is a way of incorporating knowledge with our own personal selves, making it a very personal matter. Using reflective practice in elder care enables learning, leading to improved quality of care. However, individual reflection must be accompanied by collective reflection; this is crucial to improve quality of care. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper builds on sociological assumptions that teachers, schools and schooling may play an important role in the recognition and psychopathologization of particular boys as ‘difficult, disordered and disturbed’. The data draw on ethnographic work combined with video recordings of everyday classroom practices in a special educational needs unit with boys diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Drawing on ethnomethodological work on members’ understanding of social categories (MCA) combined with the related methodology of ‘doing difference’, the focus is on the local social process through which boys’ unruly behaviors are made sense of and treated as the grounds for shifting categorization practices. It is found that both teachers and boys orient to the institutional categories Teacher and Student in teacher–student interactions for the ordering of the classroom . The boys’ conduct is in these instances far from pathological but is meaningful in the sense that it provides local resources to resist teacher authorithy and display agency. Overall, the analysis highlights the complexity of locally accomplished identity practices – in terms of how institutional-, gender- and age-appropriate conduct meshes with diagnostic criteria – in the social identification of boys diagnosed with ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As our globalized world entails meetings between health care givers and patients from diverse cultures, cultural factors must be considered in physiotherapy practice. Yet there is insufficient research regarding physiotherapists’ experiences when meeting different cultures. This paper aims to describe my experiences and reactions when meeting a different physiotherapy culture than my own. An autoethnographic study was conducted in India at four different physiotherapy clinical settings during seven weeks. Participant observation and field notes were used to document experiences. The data were analyzed with a qualitative content analysis to find recurring categories and themes. The analysis of field notes resulted in a overreaching category ‘From curiosity to appreciating and re-evaluating cultural diversity in physiotherapy’, divided into three different subcategories and themes: reflecting on hierarchies and the working structure in the context of physiotherapy practice, on the Indian physiotherapy students’ knowledgebase compared with my earlier experiences from Sweden and on the emotions emerging from being a student in the field with minor experience and knowledge in a different context. This reflective process over my experiences has taught me that my own culture is something I can only understand and re-evaluate when I have met a different one, and has helped me to start appreciate and develop further insight of the importance and the complexity of cultural diversity in physiotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to analyse how humour and narratives about humour are used in a natural group of adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Narratives about humour and use of humour in the group are analysed from a discursive psychological perspective, informed by insights from both disability studies and critical autism studies. The setting of the research is ethnographic fieldwork in an educational setting in Sweden. In the paper, I show the use of three storylines among a natural group of people with autism (PWA) when talking about humour: the storyline of humourless PWA that dominates within Swedish society; and two alternatives, a storyline of alternative humour among PWA and another storyline in line with the social model of disability, of neurotypical humour or disabling humour. When invoking these two alternative storylines, PWA challenge both the humourlessness storyline and the lack of social accessibility within mainstream neurotypical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the ongoing paradigm shift on enhancing diversity climates in Swedish human services organizations. Traditional social policy arrangements based on a monocultural style of service provision has been challenged by the growing need for cultural competence and ethnic sensitivity. A study of cultural competence enhancement finds the recruitment of ethnic social workers to be the most efficient strategy for making social services more culturally sensitive. At both the operational and the managerial level, ethnic staff contribute to regular training and the updating of staff cultural competences, as well as to the strategic diversity plans of entire organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore communication and engagement in everyday situations between persons with young-onset dementia (YOD) living in a nursing home (NH) and the caregivers. The study draws on ethnographic methods aligned with participatory design. Three residents with YOD living in a NH and eight staff members were recruited. A narrative approach was used for data collection and analysis. Three narrative vignettes were developed representing everyday situations in which communication and engagement was enacted among residents and caregiver staff: (a) waiting for something to happen, (b) tensions about everyday communication, and (c) negotiating a combined living + working environment. The findings stress a paradoxical tension rooted in the NH as residence and workplace as well as place of calm and place of boredom. The everyday situations are interpreted differently from the perspective of the residents and staff. The identified paradox of planned and spontaneous situations influences communication and engagement in everyday life, and the potentiality for active engagement embedded in contexts of units for residents with YOD. The degree to which everyday activities and encounters are redefined and renegotiated is an important part of caregiving practices in NH settings for residents with YOD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objectives: The aims of the study were to investigate foreign-born women's lifestyle and health before and during early pregnancy and compare them with those of Nordic-born women.Methods: Women recruited at antenatal clinics in Sweden answered a questionnaire in Swedish, English or Arabic or by telephone interview with an interpreter. Questions covered pregnancy planning and periconceptional lifestyle and health. The responses of women born in or outside Europe were compared with those of Nordic-born women. The impact of religiousness and integration on periconceptional lifestyle and health was also investigated.Results: Twelve percent of participants (N = 3389) were foreign-born (n = 414). Compared with Nordic women, European and non-European women consumed less alcohol before conception (respectively, adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.38; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.24, 0.58 and aOR 0.14; 95% CI 0.10, 0.19) and during early pregnancy (respectively, aOR 0.61; 95% CI 0.40, 0.91 and aOR 0.20; 95% CI 0.14, 0.29). Non-European women used less tobacco and were less physically active, but body mass index (BMI) did not differ between groups. Self-perceived health, stress and anxiety during early pregnancy did not differ, but non-European women more often had depressive symptoms (aOR 1.67; 95% CI 1.12, 2.51). Non-European women's healthy lifestyle was associated with religiousness but not with the level of integration.Conclusions: Non-European women were overall less likely to engage in harmful lifestyle habits before and during early pregnancy but were more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms in comparison with Nordic women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall aim of this study is to explore how individual children with long-term school difficulties follow unique 'trajectories of participation' in special educational needs settings, sometimes in unexpected ways, and how this contributes to alternative forms of identification and processes of learning. The data draws on long-term video-ethnographic work, tracing trajectories of participation during the course of a school year for an individual girl with an ADHD diagnosis who is a newcomer to a special support school in Sweden. We use a multi-layered theoretical and methodological framework to learning, identities and participation as situated practices to explore how the focal girl, through her everyday participation in classroom contexts structured to amplify the student's capabilities, gradually moves from an 'unwilling student' to an 'agentive learner'. Through a multimodal interactional analysis, we demonstrate how the focal girl's actions and the teacher's scaffolding responses are interactionally organised, and the emotional and relational dimensions in the creation of participation frameworks for learning. It is argued that the student's agency and emerging emotional engagement in school-based learning are intimately linked to the pursuit of building long-term learning relationships based on mutual trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall aim of this article is to analyse how a school's special needs unit in Sweden deals with children's agency and category work as they negotiate and categorise the problems that are encountered there. The data derive from an ethnographic study conducted in a Swedish special educational needs unit (SENU) attended by a group of five boys aged between 7 and 12. The results show that the teachers' categorisations of the boys' emotional and behaviour problems and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) could be interpreted as an attempt to guide the boys' development so that they will change and improve. Conversely, from the boys' perspectives, the daily activities in the SENU could themselves be problematic in that the boys are obliged to adopt several different strategies to control and strengthen their identity. These observations highlight the importance of detailed analyses of the boys' communicative activities during their interactions with teachers and peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an autoethnographic study that inquiries into my own journey as an aspiring educational researcher throughout the second course of my Master’s Program at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. My experiences take place in the context of a group of real educational researchers and their on-going research project at the faculty of education called ‘Beyond Plant Blindness: Seeing the importance of plants for a sustainable world’ (BPB). All of the experiences included in this study are expressed in the form of chronologically ordered narrative vignettes. In order to bring theoretical meaning to these experiences, the vignettes were critically reflected upon and interpreted through the concept Communities of Practice (CoP), which is central to situated learning theory. Through this conceptual lens, my experiences revealed that an aspiring educational researcher may feel emotional and intellectual growth as a newcomer who is granted legitimate peripheral participation in the ‘real’ researcher CoP. Consequently, this study sheds light on ways that real researchers may play a part in shaping the identities of aspiring educational researchers through learning experiences. However, more generally, this study may facilitate fresh conversations about the complexities of learning, identity, and inclusion in the field of educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Western culture can be seen as permeated by risk-consciousness. In particular, parents are under scrutiny in their roles as risk managers. In this article, we address parental experiences of children more at risk than other children, children with food allergy, and the management of allergy risk in everyday life. Drawing on a notion of risk as ‘situated’ in local everyday life, we argue that a further exploration of parental understandings of child food allergy risk would benefit from an analysis of studies across different local contexts. In this article, we draw on a secondary qualitative cross-cultural analysis of interview data from several studies of parents in Sweden and Scotland through 2006–2010, which focused on parents’ understandings of the nature of food allergy and the children’s management of the allergy risk. We found some common themes in the different data sets. First, parents depicted food allergy as life-threatening, a ‘death risk’ lurking in the background, more or less constantly present in different everyday situations, amounting to an existential condition in parenting. Second, they talked about food allergy risk as a relational phenomenon, meaning that the risk emerged in the encounter between the young person’s individual competence to manage allergy risk and the understandings of allergy risk in others – thus depending on contexts and interaction between several actors. Finally, the analysis showed that unpredictability and risk in constant flux are the prominent aspects of living with food allergy. We also discussed the ways risk and trust are related, as well as how the involvement of others can be seen as both a riskanda safeguard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses wardrobe interviews with women in the ages of 62–94 to explore transitions and continuities during the life course. During interviews the women have defined their style preferences. One categorization favored by several of them wascomfortable. Different meanings were attached to this concept. Practical and convenient outfits were described as increasingly important when aging. Garments that did not expose the body—and its changes with aging—were preferred. The informants talked about the importance of feeling at ease, appropriately dressed for the occasion and situation. They were concerned with feeling nice in their outfits but also stressed becoming more laid-back and prioritizing convenience in their later years. All of these examples had to do with comfort and being comfortable. Uncomfortable clothes were too tight, deemed wrong for the occasion, and unwanted sources of self-consciousness and visibility. Transitions in their style of dress had been gradual, slowly adapting to changes in everyday life as well as in their bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundMany people ageing with intellectual disabilities (ID) age in place in group homes. Participation is a central concept in support and service to people with ID, but age is often a determining factor for participation among this group. Choice and control are dimensions of participation.AimThe aim of this article is to explore how choice and control in the everyday life of people ageing with ID is expressed and performed in the group home’s semi-private spaces.Material and methodsParticipant observations and interviews with residents and staff were conducted in four different group homes in Sweden that had older residents.ResultsFour categories were found that can be understood as aspects of choice and control in the group home’s semi-private spaces in the everyday life of people ageing with ID. These categories included aspects such as space and object, time and routines, privacy, and a person-centred approach.Conclusion and significancePeople ageing with ID are vulnerable when it comes to maintaining choice and control in various situations in the home’s semi-private spaces. It is argued that occupational therapists should include this occupational arena in their evaluations and interventions for people ageing with ID. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Academic work in Sweden's higher education system is changing character. Distinctly different career pathways are emerging, as facilities for developing research careers and capital have become both more restricted and more dependent on external funding. These developments are in focus in the present article. Based on ethnographic research and a series of semi-structured interviews with new academics and senior academic mentors in education faculties, the research suggests that several factors intercede in how careers are developed and experienced. The unacknowledged exploitation of female academic labour is perhaps amongst the more significant of these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults sometimes accompany the directives they issue to children about their actions and movements with bodily contact (for example, shoving, guiding, or pushing). This article explores the interactional uses and meanings of such combinations of spoken directive and bodily contact that involves touch in data from families and primary educational settings in Sweden. The focus is on how the timing and coordination of haptics (communicative acts of touch), speech, and contextual factors produce communicative meanings. Findings reveal how touch and talk are synchronized to achieve the child’s compliance to directives. Laminated (that is, multimodal) directives combine concurrent use of imperatives with adults’ own haptic acts, signaling and enforcing the onset and/or trajectory of the required movement. They constitute the prevalent pattern of use, as compared to the use of control touch without accompanying verbalization. Haptic control formats are usually responsive to the child recipient’s noncompliant responses. The data are in Swedish with English translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, which is part of a larger longitudinal ethnographic study of young deaf children, reports on deaf children's use of fingerspelling. The children observed were early signers using Swedish Sign Language (SSL) in communication with teachers and peers. This study centres on the functions of fingerspelling in the children's everyday activities from a sociocultural perspective. Two main functions are identified (Theme I) developing the manual alphabet through performing and experimenting with fingerspelling as an integrated part of using Sign Language, and (Theme II) using fingerspelling as an artefact and identity marker in play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Communication and interaction between carers and residents in elderly and dementia care can be challenging and demanding. The carer's personality, one factor shaping this interaction, seems to have been neglected in the literature. This article looks at cross-cultural comparisons of staff in elderly and dementia care with individuals from the general population matched by age and gender. Compared to individuals in the general population, elderly and dementia care staff are usually slower tempered, more stoic and reflective, tolerant to monotony, and more systematic. They also have more optimistic attitudes in situations that might worry most people, and more confidence in social situations and in the face of danger and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intervention studies show that if children with disabilities play motion-controlled TV and computer games for training purposes their motivation increases and their training becomes more intensive, but why this happens has not been explained. This article addresses this question with the help of ethnographic material from a public project in Sweden. By applying interactional constructionism to detailed instances of play situations, the article specifies the social dynamics as well as identificatory attractions of these games for children with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents intensive psychiatric nurses' work and nursing care. The aim of the study was to describe expressions of cultural knowing in nursing care in psychiatric intensive care units (PICU). Spradley's ethnographic methodology was applied. Six themes emerged as frames for nursing care in psychiatric intensive care: providing surveillance, soothing, being present, trading information, maintaining security and reducing. These themes are used to strike a balance between turbulence and stability and to achieve equilibrium. As the nursing care intervenes when turbulence emerges, the PICU becomes a sanctuary that offers tranquility, peace and rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]