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Artikeln problematiserar läraryrkets koppling till säkerhets- och krishanteringsfältet samt hur denna kan förväntas inverka på lärarnas arbetsmiljö. Baserad på litteraturstudier med fokus på yrkesgruppen lärares närmande till fältet säkerhet och krishantering, mynnar analysen ut i två potentiella utmaningar a) arbetsmiljöproblem relaterade till den nya lärarrollen och b) genusaspekter som uppstår vid kopplingen till säkerhets- och krishanteringsfältet. Lärarnas arbetsmiljö utmanas med anledning av nya krav att hantera kriser och agera som säkerhetsaktörer. Yrkesgruppen kan ställas inför nya uppgifter som traditionellt sett har hanterats av räddningstjänst och polis. I denna kontext aktualiseras föreställningar om genus kopplade till dessa tidigare separata yrkesgrupper. Kvinnodominerade yrkesgrupper riskerar här att underordnas. Kommunal resursallokering har hittills exkluderat lärare som kris- och säkerhetsaktörer vilket riskerar förstärka arbetsmiljöproblemen.

In 2014, towards the end of a hot and very dry summer in Sweden, a fire broke out in the forests of the county of Västmanland. Fanned by high winds, this forest fire rapidly swept out of control, developing into a major disaster and national emergency. The acute phase continued for eleven days, resulting in one death, one seriously injured, 71 buildings and over 13,800 hectares of forest destroyed. Approximately 1000 persons and 1700 livestock were evacuated. In the aftermath of the fire, considerable criticism has been raised regarding the firefighting operation, communication with the affected communities and the functioning of the Swedish crisis management system in general. A number of inquiries and analyses have been initiated, some of which are still in progress. The fire has had dramatic effects on the environment, which will be clearly visible in the landscape for many years to come. Less visible, but equally far-reaching are the psychological and social consequences for the affected communities. This paper describes a project initiated in 2015 to study the impact of the Västmanland fire in affected local communities, focusing temporally on the first two years after the event. The impact is conceived of as deriving from the experience of the fire itself and its immediate physical consequences, and from adjusting to physical and social changes in the local environment, but it is also taken to stem from the multiple perceptions and varying understandings among different social actors of how the event has been managed and how it has been framed in the media. In the project these different perspectives are reflected in analyses of reporting in the media, examination of inquiry reports and other materials, observations and interviews with key actors, various stakeholders and community representatives. The purpose of the project is to understand how people and organizations have coped with and recovered from this particular environmental disaster in order to identify factors that support or prevent short term recovery and medium term resilience at the individual and community level. An overall outline of the project will be presented, together with some preliminary findings relating to implications of the post-fire period for recovery and learning processes. 

Purpose – With a particular focus on cultural understandings and the concepts behind welfare policies, the purpose of this paper is to analyse commonalities and dissimilarities in the patterns of social policy, and more precisely youth unemployment policies, in Sweden and Germany.

Design/methodology/approach – A document analysis of Swedish and German youth unemployment policies was conducted with regard to how the two welfare regimes’ policies define the underlying problem, the instruments through which this problem is tackled, and the aim of youth activation policies.

Findings – The findings show congruency concerning the definitions of the problem of youth unemployment, in which the unemployed are regarded as lacking in discipline, as well as in the policies through which the problem is tackled: through conditionality and pastoral power as policy tools. The solution of the problem on the other hand, found in the notion of the ideal worker to be produced, diverges between active entrepreneurs in one country, and blue-collar workers in the other. The authors conclude that the introduction of supranational policy concepts is not a matter of mere implementation, and that concepts like activation are reinterpreted according to differing cultural ideologies and accommodated into the context of particular welfare states.

Originality/value – This paper provides an innovative framework for the understanding of the influence of cultural understandings on policy making, but also on challenges facing activation governance on the one hand and European Union policy initiatives and transnational policy diffusion on the other.

Public discussions about the division of responsibilities between state and citizen in crises have led to reformulated policies. These are interpreted and put into practice by crisis managers. Hence, their understandings of citizens’ responsibilities are central for actions and resource allocation. This qualitative study focuses on Swedish crisis managers’ understandings of citizens’ (moral) responsibilities and practices of ‘doing’ responsibilities. Three overarching forms of ‘doing responsibilities’ were found: assignment, assessment, and differentiation. These ways of constructing responsibilities were permeated by two diverging rationales: the autonomy rationale, and the paternalism rationale. The two rationales add up to a partly contradictory complexity which may explain individuals’ differing responsibility-taking. Further, not recognizing this contradiction may negatively affect citizen’s willingness to take responsibility when desired.

Experienced collectively, disasters are also remembered collectively. Constituting a social glue among affected communities, disaster memories are essential for recovery processes. Focusing on teachers, who became frontline disaster workers, this paper explores how disasters are experienced and managed by a professional group lacking emergency management training. The study draws on in-depth interviews with school teachers about their memories of a forest fire in Sweden in 2014. As residents in, or close by, a small, rural community close to the fire, the teachers experienced the fire both as professionals and as citizens in their roles as family members and neighbours. The paper explores the role of kinship and vicinity of community reflecting the concepts of Therapeutic community and Gemeinschaft to provide a more substantial understanding of the social structures of a small, rural community without previous experiences of a disaster. The second theoretical focus and consequential contribution of the study lies within the teacher's recollections of professionalism, and how such interlinked norms and values remained intact through the disaster. In addition to convergence concerning professional ideals in the teacher collective, there was divergence in the teachers' memories of their performance and how others valued them, outlining how the social context and organizational support structures have tangible impacts on individuals' memories. Findings enable further systematic exploration of post-disaster social structures, training and organizational support, as well as the role of professional ideals, in disaster recovery processes.

En svärmorsdröm är någon med ett välbetalt jobb som har ett behagligt yttre och är hjälpsam och trevlig. På motsvarande sätt skulle en ”arbetsgivardröm” om en arbetstagare med idealiska egenskaper kunna beskrivas. Men i motsats till svärmorsdrömmen, vars egenskaper har varit ganska stabila åtminstone under det senaste århundradet, har arbetsgivardrömmen varierat. Den här artikeln är en resa genom tid och beskriver strömningar kring vilka egenskaper som betraktats som attraktiva hos anställda – hur idealarbetaren sett ut.

Föreställningar om kön och könsroller har förändrats på den svenska arbetsmarknaden, i exempelvis krishanteringssystemet och i familjestrukturer. Även krishändelser kan påverka sociala relationer såsom könsroller. Här är det intressant att undersöka grundskole- och förskolelärares erfarenheter. De tillhör en yrkesgrupp med en central roll i en mängd olika samhällsfunktioner, och som ofta uppfattas som ”kvinnlig”, och vilka föreställningar om kön som återspeglas i deras berättelser. Kapitlet visar att de intervjuade kvinnorna uppfattar och värderar de gärningar och arbetsuppgifter de utför som självklarheter, vilket får till konsekvens att de osynliggörs, även av dem själva.

The aim of the thesis is to highlight and to problematize conceptions of unemployment in Swedish society. The questions guiding my work have been: Which conceptions of unemployment emerge in society? How are these dealt with by the unemployed? Work on the thesis has been guided by a social constructionist approach. The empirical findings are constituted by four publications which, in various ways, are linked to overarching aim of the thesis. These publications consist of an analysis of the legal regulation surrounding the unemployed, a study of the activities of civil society organisations working with unemployed and two publications based on interviews with long-term unemployed young adults.

The thesis provides increased knowledge of conceptions of unemployment in Swedish society. It shows that there is a widespread societal discourse concerning the individual being responsible for her/his unemployment, and that this conception has historically been well-grounded in Swedish labour market and social policy, as well as in people’s understandings. Among representatives of civil society organisations and unemployed individuals, there is also both a questioning of and a resistance to this understanding, indicating a possible change in the discourse. The thesis further shows that the individualisation of responsibility greatly affects individuals’ approaches in social contexts, as well as in their contacts with government agencies, but also when it comes to relationships with politics and political involvement. These insights are significant, for example during both policy formulation and efforts for the unemployed, bearing in mind that consideration needs to be paid to individual prerequisites in order for the individual’s strengths and abilities to be utilized. This is particulary important when it comes to those in an exposed position.

Arbetslöshet förknippas med individen, hennes bristande arbetsmoral och andra personliga tillkortakommanden. Detta är något arbetslösa måste hantera och förhålla sig till. Artikeln syftar till att belysa på vilket sätt diskursen om det individualiserade ansvaret speglas i unga långtidsarbetslösas berättelser och, i synnerhet, hur de arbetslösa unga vuxna tar ställning till den. Resultaten visar tre förhållningssätt till diskursen: konformitet, distansering och motstånd.

In Sweden, as in most Western societies, a common belief is that unemployment is somehow linked to the individual, her lack of work ethic, or other personal shortcomings rather than to structural causes. This is not only manifested in public arenas such as the media or political debates but also in our social surroundings. In recent years, these views have gained mportance, indicating a shift in the location of responsibilities from the welfare state to the ndividual. This shift entails high demands and expectations on unemployed people and is omething they have to deal with and relate to. One of the most exposed groups is young ong-term unemployed.

The aim of this article is to highlight how the discourse of individualized responsibility is reflected in unemployed peoples’ stories, and to shed light on the ways in which young long-term unemployed adults relate to and position themselves toward this discourse. Based on 18 qualitative interviews with young Swedish long-term unemployed people, the findings how three approaches to the discourse: conformity, distancing, and resistance.

Detta kapitel undersöker en aspekt av etik som militära praktiker ställs inför bland annat i samband med internationella insatser, men även vid nationellt försvar. Kapitlet öppnar upp för reflektion kring frågor som: Har olika kulturer olika moraliska sanningar? Begrepp som universalism och kulturrelativism har presenterats och använts för att stimulera reflektion kring följande frågor: Kan jag ha mer rätt att med våld försvara mina värderingar än vad motståndaren har? Kan jag som svensk militär acceptera andras kulturella seder och bruk som tycks bryta mot svenska normer? Kapitlet är avsett som komplement till mer teoretiskt informerad litteratur och mer praktiskt orienterade texter om kultur och etik. Fokus är främst fredsbevarande insatser och mötet med lokalbefolkningen.

Assumptions about citizens and their behaviour in a crisis situation strongly influence emergency planning and decision-making. This article therefore aims to explore municipal crisis managers’ views of citizens in relation to contingencies. We identified two dimensions in the municipal leaders’ views of the general public, illustrating how these views can be characterized by two separate stages. They embrace individual prerequisites for preparing for and dealing with contingencies, as well as characteristics of the current crisis and its effects on the citizens. The article highlights public leaders’ awareness of social vulnerability factors and demonstrates a more complex image of crisis managers’ views of the general public than has generally been depicted.

In the summer of 2014, a fire devoured almost 14 000 hectares of forest in Mid Sweden. More than one thousand people were evacuated, one person lost his life and another was severely injured, and around 25 buildings were damaged or burnt to the ground. Concerns and worries about the rage, reach and pace of the fire are still highly present in the minds of many affected, and the enormous clouds of smoke, the extreme heat and a remarkable silence are some of the distinct and tangible physical memories many of those affected still recall when looking back upon this natural disaster. Its impact was severe on many people, at the time as well as in the aftermath.

Similar to this description, extreme and major events are depicted through general impressions. However, the perceptions of disaster s vary, for instance among different groups of people, proximity to the event or areas of personal or work-related responsibilities. One group whose experiences and roles in the context of contingencies tend to be largely overlooked is women. In particular, with regard to their efforts concerning caring for children, who are particularly vulnerable and exposed to disasters. Although scholarly interest in the perceptions of women in disasters is increasing, studies in the area are far from exhaustive. Even less attention has been directed towards parenting and caring for children in disasters.

This empirical study thus focuses on women’s experiences of a natural disaster, and how they managed their double roles as affected and carers. Drawing on qualitative interviews with parents, kindergarten teachers and after-school teachers, this paper explores how women understood, made sense of and dealt with the event, and examines their perceptions of the feelings and needs of children in their care, and how these were managed. Such knowledge contributes to understanding womens’ resilience to critical events. 

Studies of unemployment have traditionally focused on the welfare state as a framework. In that context, the third sector has been neglected, despite a considerable contribution to the field of unemployment. This comparative study will take a closer look at the activities offered by organizations working with unemployed, which will serve as a basis for exploring the relationship between civil society and state in four European countries. Associations in one city per country, active on this particular field within the third sector, will serve as case studies with the cases representing their welfare regime. Data comprises quantitative data gathered in corporatist Germany, Southern European Italy, paternalistic-market hybrid Poland and Social democratic Sweden. We argue that the role of the civil society organizations active on this area has changed in regard to the traditional pattern of classical welfare state models. This study shows that, regardless of welfare regime type as described in literature, the activities and strategies of the organizations are similar in all four countries.

The link between the occupational status and the degree of self-esteem has been elucidated by, above all, social sciences research on unemployment and well-being. The main argument has been that the lower degree of self-esteem the unemployed suffer from is a result of the missing latent functions of work, such as a time structure, regular activities and social contacts. However, the experience of unemployment is not limited to the absence of gainful employment. Emanated in particular from the public discussion regarding unemployed people being lazy and unwilling to work the negative connotations have gained importance in most of the European countries. Hence, unemployment marks a social status that is closely connected to the experience of stigmatization.

Using survey data with a large sample of unemployed and employed young people from seven European countries, this paper aims to study to what extent the experience of social stigmatization may explain the interrelation between unemployment and self-esteem. Initially, we will analyse the impact of occupational status on the experience of stigmatization, i.e. the belief in societal prejudice towards the unemployed as well as social and institutional discrimination. In a second step, we will test to what extent the experience of stigmatization may explain the lower degree of self-esteem the unemployed suffer from.

This article explores how women in top leader positions navigate between the two contradictory cultures of masculinity and femininity and, in particular, if and how these positionings and negotiations develop over time. Drawing on working-life biographical interviews with women on the top of organizational hierarchies within the crisis management systems in the Nordic countries, the article illustrates women top leaders relating to norms of masculinity and femininity, demonstrating how these have shaped their roles as top leaders, and how these have shifted along their careers. It shows how, in the beginning of their careers, women in organizations marked by cultures of masculinity conform to these gendered norms, while in their roles as top leaders, they do gender differently and assume roles as change agents. The findings suggest that processes of navigation between organizational cultures of masculinity and societal cultures of femininity can be better understood when individual experiences are situated within their gendered social and cultural expectations.

This comparative article aims to understand the patterns underlying the political behavior of young German and Swedish long-term unemployed individuals. Based on almost 40 qualitative interviews, the analysis follows a grounded theory approach and shows that “unemployment” is not an objective reality that imposes uniform living conditions. Social and political activities diverge considerably, even though our respondents experience similar pressures and sanctions by public opinion, political parties, public administrations, relatives and/or acquaintances. The consequences of unemployment depend on individual mind-sets, support networks and coping strategies. This study identifies informal networks of social relations as one main factor influencing unemployed young peoples’ political behavior. Three types of political involvement are shaped by the routines and norms reproduced within their web of social relations in everyday life: evasion, civic minimalism and reluctant activism. The similarities between the German and the Swedish respondents overshadowed the national differences.

This article examines different orientations to planning in the context of the post-redundancy transition of workers in the Swedish steel industry. The aim of the article is to extend our understanding of the role of planning in careers transitions. Drawing on careers transitions theories, the article explores the qualitative experience of the journey between a redundancy event and the employment situation several years later. Within the careers literature planning is regarded as important to transitions, yet there is a tendency to present planning as an ongoing and lifelong process. By going beyond the prevalent focus within the career literature on managerial, professional or creative industries workers, the article raises the question of whether highly agential, ongoing, lifelong approaches to planning apply to everyone. Data are based on working-life biographical interviews conducted several years after redundancy. The findings show that although some participants resembled assumptions within the careers literature, there are key variations relating to ongoing planning, reflecting differences in the expectations of agency and perceptions of structural constraint. The analysis identifies three orientations to planning – strategic, episodic and truncated – and explores these in relation to both post-redundancy transition outcomes and, crucially, the experience of the transition journey.

Purpose– Supporting and communicating with citizens is a vital part of societal crisis management. Training exercises may offer an opportunity to develop capabilities among managers in this regard. The purpose of this paper is to examine this potential in an analysis of how citizens were portrayed and perceived by participants in a major crisis management exercise.

Design/methodology/approach– Observation, document analysis and short interviews during the exercise were used as data collection methods. Data were subjected to thematic analysis to capture core themes in relation to the research aim.

Findings– Patterns in how citizens’ reactions were portrayed in the exercise were identified to form a citizen behaviour typology. Observations during the exercise also demonstrated some of the challenges in incorporating the citizen perspective. However, findings regarding the perception of the citizen perspective also demonstrate the ability of exercise participants to meet and respond to public behaviours with respect and seriousness.

Originality/value– Variation is an important condition for learning in exercises, and the identified typology is suggested as a starting point for achieving this in incorporation of the citizen perspective in training scenarios. The results of the study are discussed in terms of a learning framework with the aim of explicitly developing crisis managers’ ability to interact and communicate with citizens in crisis situations.

Baserat på trettiotre djupintervjuer med undersköterskor, sjuksköterskor och läkare analyseras betydelsen av smittspridningen av sars-coronavirus-2 för arbete inom vård- och omsorgssektorn i Sverige. Resultaten visar att arbetssituationen upplevs som i grunden förändrad vilket inkluderar relationer till patienter (hygien, vårdplanering), anhöriga (kontakt) och kollegor emellan (personalplanering, kommunikation). Samtidigt beskrivs arbetet fortgå som vanligt i relation till patienter (hygien, nära vård, medicinering). Utifrån en diskussion kring betydelsen arbetsintensifiering och flexibilitet bidrar analysen till en förståelse för dynamiken mellan kontinuitet och förändring på mikronivå, i det vardagliga, praktiska arbetet för personal inom vård och omsorgssektorn i Sverige.