Interlopers in class: A duoethnography of working‐class women academics

This article introduces the concept of the interloper for examining classed and gendered dislocation. Focusing on academia, which we view as a classed and gendered field, we draw on Bourdieu and feminist standpoint theory to account for how we, as women of working‐class origin, have experienced ‘breaches' through which we have come to understand ourselves in classed and gendered terms. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, we also reflect on how understandings of class are context‐specific. We employ a duoethnographic method which emphasizes the value of subjective experiences for organizational and social analyses. The article shows how the concept of the interloper may shed light on the dynamic, relational character of constructions of class and gender; the maintenance work that is performed; and how a sense of permanent inbetweenness characterizes our ongoing movement between the fields of the family and academia.     

Global narratives of fatherhood. Fathering and masculinity on the Internet

There is currently an increasing amount of research on online fatherhood. In this article, we have used international blogs as our empirical data, in order to investigate and create an in-depth picture of fatherhood as it is expressed in various men’s stories about their everyday lives. Three distinct conceptions of fatherhood and masculinity emerge. The first of these positions could be described as a nostalgic position in relation to hegemonic masculinity. The second position is referred to here as complicity. This position indicates a changing landscape of fatherhood and family politics, moving towards gender-equal conditions. Thirdly, we have an inclusive position that reflects a gender-neutral position, and are understood less in terms of masculinity, heteronormativity and gender-divided responsibilities.     

Parental involvement in the development of a culture‐based school curriculum

This study focuses on parental involvement in Sámi schools when developing a culturally sensitive school curriculum. The research recognizes a number of competing and complementary interests that play a role when constructing structures and policies in curriculum development. Two Sámi schools in Sweden with 115 pupils, their parents and 27 teachers were included in a longitudinal three‐year study. Interviews, school visits, videotapes and document analysis were used to gather information. The results indicate the invisible existence of culture‐based school practice and curriculum texts. The lack of contact among homes, schools and community culture was obvious. Parents and teachers expressed an interest in developing a culture‐based local curriculum through a process of reflecting on and creating an education incorporating the past, the present and the future. The study showed that parents, pupils and teachers experienced increased awareness in culture‐based schoolwork. The study pointed to a desire for cooperation between home and school in the development of a culture‐based school curriculum and a school practice supported by a culturally responsible teacher.     

Playing in the academic field: Non-native English-speaking academics in UK business schools

This paper draws on Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital to explore the ways in which working in English as a non-native language influences foreign academics' performance of academic habitus and the level of their symbolic capital necessary for the achievement of success within UK higher education. Empirically, it is based on interviews with 54 non-native English-speaking academics employed in UK business schools. Our findings point to advantages and disadvantages associated with being a non-native English-speaking academic, to strategies deployed by individuals to enhance their linguistic capital, and to the importance of language not merely as a tool of communication but as a key factor enabling individuals to perform academic habitus in the UK academic field. We reflect on whether, and if so, how, the UK academic field is changing as a result of the increased presence within it of non-UK-born academics and, in particular, the fact of their professional functioning in English as a non-native language.     

Ethnicity as a risk indicator for musculoskeletal disease, long consultation times and care utilization A prospective visitor study of 438 consecutive adult consultations of a primary health care centre

This article shows the influence of ethnicity (people born outside Sweden and in Sweden) and social class (socioeconomic class) on the distribution of diagnoses, consultation time and health care utilization in primary health care controlled for sex, age, marital status and educational level. The study was designed as a prospective primary health care utilization study during 7 consecutive weeks. Of a total of 439 adults who lived in the residential area, 290 were born in Sweden and 149 were born elsewhere. The data were analysed unmatched with logistic regression and Poisson regression in main effect models. People born outside Sweden received significantly more diagnoses per consultation than people born in Sweden. The strongest independent risk indicator for musculoskeletal disease was being born outside Sweden, with an estimated odds ratio (OR) of 5.01, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.70–8.72. Age over 44 was associated with increased odds for musculoskeletal disease. Respiratory disease, as an indicator of less serious disease, were significantly less common among people born outside Sweden (OR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.33–0.87). Being born outside Sweden was a risk indicator for consultations longer than 30 minutes (OR = 3.03, 95% CI=1.18–7.43). There were no differences between people born in Sweden and those born elsewhere in health and utilization. Social class was not associated with any of the dependent variables.     

Suspicious minds: local context and attitude variation across Swedish municipalities

Johansson Sevä I. Suspicious minds: local context and attitude variation across Swedish municipalities
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 225–235 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article investigates whether degree of suspicion of welfare abuse relates to local context in Sweden. It is suggested that certain features of Swedish municipalities can create a local information bias influencing individual suspicion of welfare abuse. Prevalence of social problems and political climate are features of the municipal context having the potential to influence opinion formation. Social problems are captured by local unemployment, social assistance and ill‐health rates. Political climate is captured by electoral support for conservatives. The results indicate that local context can influence suspicion of welfare abuse, contexts where social problems are widespread reduce such suspicion. While local political climate seems important in itself, it also interacts with social problem level, increasing suspicion if a conservative political climate and social problems coexist. While social problems seem to generate less suspicion regarding social policy abuse, they also provide ‘raw material’ for political rhetoric regarding suspicion.     

Time series count data regression

The count data model studied in the paper extends the Poisson model by al-lowing for overdispersion and serial correlation. Alternative approaches to esti-mate nuisance parameters, required for the correction of the Poisson maximum likelihood covariance matrix estimator and for a quasi-likelihood estimator, are studied. The estimators are evaluated by finite sample Monte Carlo experi-mentation. It is found that the Poisson maximum likelihood estimator with corrected covariance matrix estimators provide reliable inferences for longer time series. Overdispersion test statistics are wellbehaved, while conventional portmanteau statistics for white noise have too large sizes. Two empirical illustrations are included.     

Panel data regression for counts

A new panel data model for count data is introduced. We suggest alternative estimators, such as pseudo maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments, of structural and nuisance parameters. In addition, different test statistics of independence and overdispersion are obtained. The small sample performance of the estimators and tests are evaluated in Monte Carlo experiments. The model is applied to the number of days absent in Sweden 1981–1991 for a panel of Swedish male workers.     

Writing resistance together

This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open‐ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some ‘dirtiness’ that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.     

Welfare service privatization and opinions about service quality: The role of political ideology among local politicians and the public

In this article, we join the discussion about the potential consequences of welfare service privatization by examining the relationship between the privatization of welfare service delivery and public opinion about service quality in Sweden. Due to the politically polarized debate about welfare service privatization in Sweden, we also examine the extent to which individualsapos; ideological orientations influence this relationship in both local politicians and ordinary citizens. For local politicians, the results show that a higher municipal degree of privatization is generally associated with slightly lower levels of satisfaction overall with welfare services, although no such relationship exists for the public. Most importantly, however, the results indicate that political ideology constitutes an important moderator in the relationship between privatization and opinions about service quality. Local politicians and, to some extent, ordinary citizens who place themselves to the left on the ideological left–right scale tend to be less satisfied with services as the municipal degree of welfare service privatization increases. For local politicians who position themselves far to the right on the scale, the relationship between welfare service privatization and satisfaction is positive. These findings suggest that there is no clear-cut relationship between privatization and individualsapos; opinions about services; rather, this relationship depends on the ideological predispositions of local politicians and ordinary citizens.