Homing blogs as ambivalent spaces for feminine agency

This article discusses a form of lifestyle blogging where women blog about their homes and everyday lives. In these homing blogs, self-representations are characteristically spatially demarcated within the private sphere of the home. As these repeated representations of women in their homes take place in the public space of the internet, homing blogs work towards naturalizing the home as a women’s sphere. Written and commented on mostly by other women, homing blogs represent a feminine form of self-expression and communication that functions as a discursive expression of ongoing social, economic, and cultural changes in affluent Western societies. In this article, Finnish versions of these homing blogs are analysed in the cultural and political context of contemporary Finland, and discussed as a form of intimate publics that reverses the gender politics of other historical, semi-public spaces for the exercise of women’s agency, such as the salon.     

Socio-demographic Differences in Self-reported Psychological Distress Among 25- to 64-Year-Old Finns

Background Mental health problems are a major public health issue worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the relative importance of socio-demographic characteristics associated with different domains of psychological distress in Finland. Methods Data source was a nationwide survey “Health Behaviour and Health among the Finnish Adult Population” (AVTK), from years 2002 to 2003 (N = 5425; response rate 66%). Psychological distress was measured by self-reported questions of general mental health (MHI-5), depression, insomnia and stress. Socio-demographic factors included education, employment status, partnership and children living in the household. Main analyses were conducted by multivariate logistic regression. Results Education, employment and partnership were associated with most of the psychological distress outcomes. Respondents with a lower educational level had poor mental health in both genders but less insomnia and stress in men. Those with an intermediate education had the least stress in women. The unemployed and retired were at a higher risk for poor mental health and depression. Moreover, employment status was associated with insomnia and stress in men. Respondents not having a partner showed a higher risk of psychological distress according to all measures. Not having children living in the household was associated with insomnia in women and with less stress in men. Conclusions Socio-demographic factors, such as having a partner and employment status, are associated with several measures of psychological distress indicating the importance of social and economic factors to psychological well-being. The association of education and of having children living at home varies by the domain of psychological distress measure.     

The Art of Pacifying an Aggressive Client: ‘Feminine’ Skills and Preventing Violence in Caring Work

This article explores the complex interconnection between gender and emotion in the context of client‐perpetrated violence at work, focusing on interviews with and writings by Finnish nurses and social workers to discuss the ‘feminine’ emotional skills that are supposed to prevent violence. The social formation of these skills is analysed with the concept ‘emotional habitus’: emotional skills derive from the socially acquired disposition to manage emotions according to the gendered values of caring work. Emotional habitus, based on the internalized, second‐nature sense of emotional management, is shown to both persuade and enable employees to use emotional skills as assets for negotiating violence. This article discusses the potentiality for active agency enabled by skilful emotional management in violence prevention, bearing in mind the gender inequalities and internal contradictions connected to the social formation and practice of those skills.     

Possibilities for Intervention in Domestic Violence: Frame Analysis of Health Care Professionals’ Attitudes

ABSTRACT. Violence is a serious problem, and social and health care providers are in a key position for implementing successful interventions. This qualitative study of 6 focus groups with professionals (n = 30) examines the health care professionals’ ways of framing a domestic violence intervention. Of special interest here is how professionals see their own roles in the process of recognizing and helping victims of domestic violence. By using Erving Goffman's frame analysis, this study identifies several frames that either: a) emphasize the obstacles to intervention and justify nonintervention, or on the contrary, b) question these obstacles and find justifications for intervention. The possibilities for intervention are further explored by analyzing the ways in which the dynamics between the different frames allow redefinition of domestic violence interventions. Despite the challenges involved in a domestic violence intervention, there seems to be potential for change in personal attitudes and reform of professional practices. The research findings underline the role of social and health care professionals as members of a larger chain of service providers working collaboratively against domestic violence. Implications for practice and directions in policy and future research are suggested.     

Thank you!

The study focuses on the question of how HRD personnel employed in a large multinational company perceive learning at work. We are interested in how HR development staff describe learning at the individual, collective and organizational levels. The participants were Finnish and Chinese human resource professionals (n?=?17) who used an asynchronous web-based tool to study adult education. The empirical data consist of all the texts sent to a web-based discussion forum. The findings showed that the HRD practitioners' views of learning covered quite evenly all three levels of organizational learning. The practitioners paid special attention to practical learning taking place in connection with everyday work activities, to communication and collaborative learning and to the development of a learning organization. This reflects the multifaceted nature of learning at work and the necessity of using HRD to integrate individual- and organizational-level needs in order to enhance organizational learning. The participants frequently reported that they found this a demanding task that required a clear 'understanding of humans, people in the organizations and their learning'. If organizational learning is to meet its current challenges it should take note of messages like these from HRD practitioners, which emphasise the diversity of learning experiences. Promoting a shared understanding and especially awareness and recognition of the fundamental issues associated with learning at work is a possible first step.     

Measurement and socio-demographic variation of social capital in a large population-based survey

Objectives The main objective of this study was to describe the variation of individual social capital according to socio-demographic factors, and to develop a suitable way to measure social capital for this purpose. The similarity of socio-demographic variation between the genders was also assessed. Data and methods The study applied cross-sectional data from the national Finnish Health 2000 survey (n = 8,028) which represents the adult population, aged 30 years and over. Several variables indicating social capital were condensed to dimensions on the basis of factor analysis. Participants were categorized into tertiles in each dimension of social capital by means of factor scores. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to produce the adjusted prevalences for the dimensions of social capital according to socio-demographic categories (age, gender, education, living arrangements, income, and type of region). Results Three dimensions of social capital were distinguished: social support, social participation and networks, and trust and reciprocity. Age had an inverse association with social support as well as participation and networks, and a curvilinear association between age and trust and reciprocity, the oldest age groups showing the highest level of trust. Married persons and those in the highest educational and income groups tended to have more social capital than other persons. Residents of urban and rural regions did not systematically differ from each other in their level of social capital although residents of urban regions participated less and showed less trust than people living in semi-urban or rural regions. Social support varied significantly with gender. The decline of social support by age was steeper in women than in men. Social participation and networks increased with education, the gradient appearing steeper among men. The difference between married and cohabiting men was substantial compared to women when it came to trust. Conclusions People who are young, married, educated, and well-off have plenty of social capital. This information might help various services to concentrate the actions on the people in danger of social exclusion. Our results also form a basis for the future by allowing the changes in social capital to be examined over time and over different studies.     

Five years in care: documented lives and time trajectories in child welfare

Child welfare practice is temporally structured and includes a variety of follow‐up activities. Practice‐based follow‐up has not, however, been much explored when studying children's paths in the child welfare system. This paper is based on a study of children (103) who were taken into care in 2006 in 10 Finnish municipalities and their paths in care until 2011. The social workers' institutional knowledge of their ‘own’ clients comprises the core of the research design. The paper reflects on the nature of this data from the point of view of the notions of temporality. The analysis highlights four temporal trajectories used in retrospective analysis of children's paths in care: the linear time trajectory of the decisions and changes in the institutional positions, the temporally fragmentary trajectory of childhood and youth, the circular time trajectory of professional understanding of the child's path and the silent time trajectory. Each one documents the children's paths differently; the linear one tends to be the ‘natural’ and most easily available trajectory and consequently, the children's paths are documented via decisions and institutional positions. The analysis suggests that more attention should be given to the complexity of time and temporality when studying children's paths in child welfare.     

Three stories about mother: narratives by women who have lived in care

Families and social work interventions in their lives are at the core of child welfare. Child welfare practices can shape children's and parents' family memories and narratives of different family relations. However, there is little social work research so far based on the personal narratives of people who have lived in care. The study data consist of the written life stories and biographical interviews of three women who have lived part of their childhood in children's homes. In their narratives, the most central family relation was their relationship to the mother. They used different narrative strategies in their stories while trying to manage both living their childhood in care and presenting their mother morally in the same story. The central moral and emotional stance in the narratives of the mother–daughter relationship was love. Through the analysis, three moral characters of the mother were constructed. The first told about an absent mother, the second a loved and loving mother and in the third, the mother's moral character was continuously negotiated and contested. Constructing a personal story and moral character of oneself and of one's mother can be truly risky in the context of a childhood in care.     

The role of gender and job level in coping with occupational stress

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between coping and health problems in the context of gender and level in the organization. Questionnaire data were collected from 279 women and men (100 managers and 179 non-managers) at a sales department in a Swedish telecom company in which men and women worked at similar tasks. It was hypothesized that, if gender and level in the organization were controlled for, the use of problem-focused strategies would be associated with fewer health problems and the use of emotion-focused strategies with greater health problems. It was also predicted that men and women at a similar organizational level would not differ in their use of problem-focused coping strategies. The results showed, contrary to the hypothesis, that when level and gender were controlled for, no relation between problem-focused strategies and health was obtained. Instead the emotion-focused strategy of Seeking emotional support was associated with fewer health problems, whereas Focus on emotions and Alcohol/drug disengagement were associated with more symptoms. Coping was at least partly related to level. At a managerial level the men and the women used basically the same strategies whereas at a non-managerial level traditionally-conceived coping patterns were evident.