This article presents various forms of activities performed by locally based social welfare research and development (R&D) units in Sweden. The authors argue that these units are vital actors in the field of encouraging and strengthening evidence-based social work practice. They are close to social services organisations and have the ability to use flexible methods in order to bridge the gap between research and practice in a local context. The theoretical framework for the article is the organisational excellence model – an archetype for how research can be used in practice.

This article elaborates on disability and the Qur’an and accentuates how a grand narrative of moral codes held the community together and enforced a collective identity of the ummah, in which disability was interlaced with the shaping of an in-group grounded in a common set of values. This process of identity making in turn had implications for people with disabilities, since they could have trouble fulfilling religious requirements, something that was met with counter mechanisms of solidarity within the community of Muslim believers.

This chapter takes the Swedish Committee for People with Limited Work Ability, appointed in 1943 by the Swedish government, as a starting point to provide a close reading of widespread political stances on labour and disability during the post-war period. It analyses the committee's understanding of the mechanisms of the free market and the consequences of this for people with disabilities, which is seen in relation to an expanding welfare state. The liberal idea of encouraging self-help had long been an important part of the Swedish system that surrounded people with disabilities. Integrating people into the workforce was thus seen as a cornerstone of Swedish society and this was also expressed by the committee that was appointed to address these issues.

This article explores disability in the Old Testament. The discussion takes its starting point in a number of domains and arenas where disability was visualized and investigates the significance and meaning that can be attached to these domains in relation to the problem of inclusion and exclusion. The analysis highlights complex and contradictory phenomena, where the interpretation was not given but rather dependent on the cultural context and different

How disability as a phenomenon is to be understood has been widely discussed within the field of disability research. Influenced by a Marxist perspective, the social model has reinforced the view that disability results from the organization of society rather than from individual premises. This article elaborates on these issues by exploring the writings of Karl Marx and his views concerning disability. The analysis pinpoints bodily normality in Marx’s reasoning and how the economic system shapes the premises for participation and roles, but also how people with disabilities were left out of the progressive call for social change. 

This article takes its starting point in the Nazi ideology as it appears in the writings of Adolf Hitler, and discusses how disability and the body can be understood in the context of Mein Kampf. The article underlines how disability and bodily infirmities, alongside race, featured significantly in Hitler’s demagogic message. Although the overall image of disability was related to a sense of threat–and a culture gone wrong–Mein Kampf also contains a mixed interpretation of disability as a phenomenon, in which different and opposing disability narratives took part in the construction and the image of the body as a national property. 

This article addresses the issue of disability, normalcy and social categorization in relation to the New Testament. It discusses how disabilities ended up in elusive and contradictory categories where a number of various mechanisms and roles coincided and where different systems of logic converged. The scrutiny suggests that people with disabilities simultaneously were considered to be both a threat and an opportunity. The analysis illustrates how the interpretation of disability is a malleable phenomenon continually affected by changes within the cultural context.

Drawing on written narratives by 72 former sanatorium patients, this article explores, from patients' perspectives, the nature of the relationships between patients and staff in a Swedish sanatorium during the first half of the twentieth century. These narratives are discussed in the context of the total institution. This article suggests that this phenomenon was marked by inconsistencies that can be understood in terms of its situational and contradictory characteristics. Simultaneously, these narratives are in opposition to the assumption of the static and powerless patient adapted only to suit the logic of the institution.

This article focuses on young unemployed people in Sweden involved in two activation measures. Using the analytical framework of governmentality, it analyses how the participants perceive and value activation measures as government-driven interventions aimed at bringing young people into the labour market based on a neoliberal discourse of the welfare state. The article highlights that the welfare system tries to not only promote behavioural changes, but also change the way people think. At the centre of the study are the people-changing technologies embedded in the Swedish norms of a strong work ethic. The analysis underlines how these technologies are internalised and even become a part of the participant's own free will.

Since 2003 the University West in Sweden offers distance courses in Social work and Social pedagogy. The three year program is given in collaboration with a number of local learning centers throughout the country. The technology of videoconferencing enables the teacher to interact with students even though they are separated geographically.

The study deals with this kind of education seen from the perspective of both students and teachers. The main objective is to illuminate significant aspects of this kind of phenomenon in terms of how students and teachers describe and experience problems and potential embedded in this model. The discussion rests on four overall questions:

1) What are the motives for students to choose this kind of education?

2) What kind of expectations did the students have before they started the program?

3) How do students experience/describe strengths and weaknesses connected to this model?

4) What experiences do the teacher's have working with this kind of distance education?

The empirical data has been collected using mainly group interviews and observations. The analysis rests heavily on theories concerning symbolic interactionism and socio-cultural learning. The study underlines that both students and teachers embrace the potential in this form of education, giving more groups the possibility of combining their studies with a sense of regional belonging. However the interviews and observations also reveal weaknesses with this kind of educational model. There is a risk that students at the local learning centers consider themselves as being excluded by teachers and other students at campus; and that the gap between the university and the local learning centers becomes too wide. To prevent this from happening communication and confirmation from the teacher is crucial. But eventhough this scrutiny identifies weaknesses within the technology of videoconferencing, technology alone does not determine the outcome of the teaching. If a teacher manages to show great engagement and structure, this functions as a mechanism weakening the barrierof technology. At the same time it is clear that the model of videoconferencing, from a teacher perspective, can be an obstacle, which emphasizes the importance of developing the technology further and how this technology is being handled by the teacher.

Finally, we consider the model with local learning centers and videoconferencing as a unique model for education, but that the model, when it comes to areas such as pedagogy, organization and technology, must be allowed to function and develop according to its own premises.

Artikeln handlar om hur välfärdsorganisationer och deras tjänstemän kopplade till aktivitets- och sysselsättningsåtgärder agerar i mötet med den enskilde och vilka berättelser som skapas om individerna. Artikeln diskuterar hur projektdeltagaren omgärdas av en fortgående medikalisering och en social fragmentisering, där projektdeltagarens problematik reduceras och där individens egen röst tycks få ett begränsat utrymme.

Increased care worker knowledge has been emphasized for improving quality of care for older persons in organized elder care in Sweden. However, care workers and national policies are not always corresponding, with observations suggesting that care workers emphasize tacit knowledge. The aim of this article is to explore the nature of this kind of knowledge and how it can be identified and described. Field notes from participant observations at two elder care units in Sweden serve as the empirical material. Knowledge use for staff in elder care is part of a process of knowledge making and knowledge shaping. Analysis of the field notes identified the themes of “feeling for work” and “acting and artistry” as parts of a tacit knowledge in elder care. The processes of knowledge and job execution are closely intertwined, making them difficult to separate or even understand without a deeper insight.

This paper addresses the issue of reflective practice, as suggested by Schon. 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.

This volume puts disability and labour at the centre of historical enquiry. It offers fresh perspectives on the history of disability and labour in the twentieth century and highlights the need to address the topic beyond regional boundaries. Bringing together historians and disability scholars from a variety of disciplines and regions, the chapters investigate various historical settings, ranging from work cooperatives to disability associations and informal workplaces, and analyse multiple meanings of labour in different political and economic systems through the lens of disability.

The book’s contributors demonstrate that the nexus between labour and disability in modern, industrialised societies resists easy generalisations, as marginalisation and integration were often two sides of the same coin: While the experience of many disabled people has been marked by exclusion from mainstream production, labour also became a vehicle for integration and emancipation. Addressing one of the research gaps of the disability history field, which has long been dominated by British and North American perspectives, the book sheds light on less-studied examples from Scandinavian countries and Eastern Europe including Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Romania.

Cutting across national, cultural and class divides the volume provides a springboard for reflections on common experiences of disability and labour during the twentieth century. It will be of interest to all scholars and students working in the field of disability studies, sociology and labour history.

Hur har arbetets alltmer centrala roll under 1900-talet kommit att påverka personer med funktionsnedsättning? Och vilka skillnader fanns det mellan statssocialistiska samhällen i Öst och liberal-demokratiska samhällen i Väst? Dessa frågor står i centrum för föreliggande bidrag. Vi tar avstamp i en nyutkommen antologi där vi tillsammans med forskare från Nordamerika, Väst- och Östeuropa har undersökt vilka inklusions- och exklusionsmekanismer förvärvsarbete har skapat för människor med funktionsnedsättningar (Disability and Labour in the Twetieth Century. Comparative and Historical Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2023). Trots att arbete har löpt som en röd tråd genom funktionshinderforskningen har sambandet mellan arbete och funktionshinder inte beforskats mycket ur ett historiskt perspektiv. Funktionshinder har även förblivit i utkanten av den etablerade arbetarhistoriska forskningen. Med vårt bidrag vill vi fylla denna forskningslucka och kasta nytt ljus på förvärvsarbete under 1900-talets andra hälft. Staffan Bengtsson diskuterar Kommitténs för partiellt arbetsföra betänkande från 1946 och efterkrigstidens socialpolitiska ansträngningar att få ”partiellt arbetsföra människor” i arbete. Radu Harald Dinu belyser hur synskadade skulle integreras i arbetslivet under efterkrigstiden. Som exempel tjänar de Blindas Förbund i Rumänien under statssocialismen.

This volume is the first of its kind to take a comprehensive and comparative historical perspective on labour and disability during the twentieth century. The project started in 2020 when the editors received a Research Initiation Grant from the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond foundation to organise an international symposium. Recognising that historical research on disability varied across regions, with the symposium, we aimed to gather scholars from Eastern and Western Europe as well as North America and to facilitate an academic exchange on this topic. The symposium, which was hosted by Jönköping University and the Swedish Institute for Disability Research, brought together emerging and established scholars from ten countries and explored the nexus between disability and labour from a historical and comparative perspective. We decided early on to publish the conference papers, which eventually gave rise to the present volume.

Case-based learning has a long history in social work education, but has been relatively unaffected by the advances of information and computer technology. The aim of this study is to discuss new, and perhaps more rewarding, forms of decision case learning by using a computer-based simulation, SimChild, that puts the student in the position of a professional social worker assessing a child protection case. Aggregated statistics from the SimChild exercise form the basis for seminars where the students can reflect on their decisions. The study indicates that the simulation promotes reflections and learning insights among students as well as new insights into the importance of more collective and interactive learning.

Social work educators have long struggled with the challenge of finding appropriate strategies for fostering cultural awareness among their students. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how a computer-based simulation, SimChild, can be used in teaching about child protection to enhance cultural awareness among students and expand their insight into how personal biases can affect professional practice. In SimChild, individual students can assume the role of social worker and then collectively discuss the patterns emerging after their individual assessments have been aggregated. This study, based primarily on focus group data, reflects testing conducted at three Swedish universities.

The aim of this study was to investigate if the type of class setting is related to the utilisation of disability-related services and child welfare services outside school over time among children with mild intellectual disability (ID). A quantitative study with a longitudinal and comparative design was carried out including data from archival records concerning service utilisation among 405 children. Children in special classes were more likely than children integrated into regular classes to utilise disability-related services. Integrated children who changed school setting from regular classes to special classes were more likely to begin to utilise such services and to increase the number of services utilised, compared to children who remained integrated. Professionals in social services and schools may need to improve their collaboration around families of children with mild ID when assessing needs and providing services. Special attention may need to be devoted to children integrated into regular classes.

The Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS) is effective in assessing positive aspects of mental health. Despite its advantages, little is known about group differences in the interpretation of SWEMWBS items across age groups, especially during the adolescence period. Hence, this study examined the psychometric properties of the SWEMWBS through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Rasch analysis and network analysis of Swedish adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 5548 participants from the south of Sweden (i.e., Jönköping County) took part in this cross-sectional study through an online platform between September 2020 and October 2020. The CFA, Rasch (including differential item functioning, DIF) analysis and network analysis were used to examine the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the SWEMWBS. The SWEMWBS had a unidimensional structure with robust psychometric properties. The CFA demonstrated measurement invariance across gender, school year and country of birth, which was also confirmed by Rasch DIF. Furthermore, considerable associations between the items of the SWEMWBS, general health and COVID-19 impact items were observed in network analysis. The SWEMWBS showed robust psychometric properties capable of assessing positive aspects of mental health and well-being among adolescents.