Institutional Governance of Minority Religious Practices: Insights from a Study of Muslim Practices in Danish Schools

An increasing number of studies are concerned with the ways in which the religious practices of Europe's minority populations are accommodated on the political, national and local levels. In this article, I present a case study of Muslim practices in Danish schools. The study is an investigation of how and why six selected practices are governed in Danish schools: halal food, fasting, prayer, head scarves, holidays and mosques. The results underline the importance of the specific practice in question for the way in which it is governed: some practices are easily accommodated, while others are rejected outright by the schools. Furthermore, the study demonstrates how governance of Muslim practices is developed in the absence of national regulation and against the prevailing ideals in the Danish public debate. In fact, the governance developed seems to be a direct response to the number of Muslim children in school and in line with general school ideals of inclusion. However, the results also indicate that more direct involvement by local or national authorities might push schools to be more exclusive with regard to Muslim practices.     

How can context and discourse affect teachers’ and mental health professionals’ interactions with adults with mental illness?

Patients with severe mental illness may have needs different from those of patients with more limited illnesses and might benefit from other types of intervention than traditional treatment. We interviewed health care professionals from two open, short-term psychiatric wards and teachers from two schools for adults with psychiatric diagnoses. The focus was to explore how differences in contextual factors such as time, tasks, and organizational demands might affect the actions and attitudes of health care professionals and teachers, as well as the potential consequences for patients and students. Data were collected through qualitative interviews. Participants included 14 health care professionals and 14 teachers. The informants worked with patients and students with similar diagnoses and illness durations. All interviews were conducted during the informants’ work time. Findings and interpretations showed that both teachers and health care professionals were engaged in their work and in the wellbeing of students and patients. However, they described marked differences in practice, including the amount of time spent with students/patients, the organization of their work, main tasks, amount of control over their tasks, and social structure. These differences seemed to affect relationships with students/patients, attitudes toward students/patients, norms and values, and opportunities for patient empowerment. Our findings suggest that while existing psychiatric health care might be appropriate for limited short-term problems such as single-episode depression, a model with a supportive environment, based on stable relations and possibility for learning, may improve personal development and mental health for persons with severe mental illness and disturbances in self-experience.     

Broken Interaction Rituals,Struggles for Membership,and Violence among Young Children in Two Danish Schools

Children's conflicts, understood as disagreements involving negative emotional energy, constitute a particularly intense type of social interaction. In this paper, we show that children's conflictual interactions in school differ with regard to interactional dynamics and levels of confrontational tension, which together potentially lead to violence. We discuss how these differences relate to issues of inclusion and exclusion, to levels of interactional resources, and to neighborhood differences. Our conclusions are based on analysis of fieldwork data on children aged five to eight in two Danish schools. The analysis applies Goffman's and Collins's perspectives on interaction rituals and violence and the concept of emotional capital based on Bourdieu's theory of practice.     

Conflicts and empowerment – a processual perspective on the development of a partnership

Partnership working involving providers and users of social services is highly valued as a means to inform research and practice, yet its effectiveness is debated. Frameworks for measuring and evaluating partnerships are developed, but still there is a need to shed light on micro-practices to gain insight in how partnerships succeed or fail to reach their goals. The context for this qualitative study is a Norwegian governmental funded program, where one goal was promotion of structures for equal collaboration between social work education, research, social service providers and users. The study investigates one local partnership project and how conflicts influenced processes and outcomes. Conflicts were related to the leadership of the group. With a particular look at users’ participation, the findings indicate how emergence and negotiations of conflicts were related to their empowering processes as the project developed. The study underscores the importance of acknowledging conflicts and how these may be complex and interwoven with empowering processes when users are involved, as well as the need to critically examine issues on leadership. The study supports the importance of ethnographic studies in order to understand how a partnership might deliver, as this approach enables enhanced understanding of micro-practices and internal power dynamics.     

Impact of Traumatic Events on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Danish Survivors of Sexual Abuse in Childhood

Childhood sexual abuse can be extremely traumatic and lead to lifelong symptomatology. The present study examined the impact of several demographic, abuse, and psychosocial variables on posttraumatic stress disorder severity among a consecutive sample of treatment-seeking, adult child sexual abuse survivors (N = 480). The child sexual abuse sample was characterized by severe trauma exposure, insecure attachment, and significant traumatization, with an estimated 77% suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, more than twice the level of the comparison group. Regression analyses revealed risk factors associated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder in which the strongest predictors being additional traumas, negative affectivity, and somatization. The findings add to existing research confirming the stressful nature of child sexual abuse and the variables that contribute to the development and severity of posttraumatic stress disorder.