The aim of this article is to unpack how the categories 'gender' and 'age' are understood among Swedish Victim Support organizations. This is done through a study of how individuals who work in Swedish Victim Support organizations talk about victims as well as about their own role. In an analysis of 12 focus groups from Swedish Victim Support organizations, where one part was based on vignettes and the other part on open discussion, we focus on how the supporters understand gender and age. By working with three categorical pairs -victim and supporter, male and female as well as young and old -we show that gender is a dominant categorization in understanding both victims and victim supporters. Age seemed to have more importance in how women are understood, as female victims were described quite differently depending on age, and the ideal helper was described as a mature woman. Male helpers were regarded as a homogenous group and age did not matter. Conclusively, we found that, while gender as a category was important in the understanding of how people are perceived in Victim Support, the intersection of the categories of gender and age were important in supporting and enhancing this understanding. This article points at the importance of understanding how these specific categories work.
The article discusses children’s citizenship by linking the dimensions of being, becoming and belonging to the concept of lived citizenship in the context of contact person and contact family interventions. Drawing on empirical research from Finland and Sweden, the article elaborates on how to identify if, and if so, how, children’s lived citizenship is constructed in contact person and contact family interventions and to what extent these constructions leave room for children’s perspectives. The results of the study indicate that contact person and contact family interventions contribute to the construction of children’s citizenship in various ways that include the perspectives on children and childhood of being, becoming and belonging. However, children’s active participation often seems to be governed by adults. Thus, giving greater attention to children’s intergenerational connections, i.e., adults’ roles in forming children’s citizenship, is needed.
Collective identity and the supportive role in Victim Support SwedenThe purpose of this article is to show how a collective identity and the role of a helper is created and retained in a voluntary organization like Victim Support Sweden. The empirical material consists of 12 focus groups with local victim support organizations, Victim Support Sweden’s website and educational material used in basic training for new members. We highlight the internal and external collective identity and the supportive role and show how they are formed, centrally by Victim Support Sweden and by the local organizations. The results show that Victim Support Sweden has a strong internal and external collective identity, which is highly prioritized by its members. There is a clear and consensual idea about an ideal-type group member, who is needed by crime victims and flexible in relation to their needs. S/he is presented as an ”ordinary, slightly professional, wise and unpretentious person” whom crime victims can relate to and trust.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.