Reluctant Help-Seekers and Agentic Victims – Swedish Social Workers’ Talk about Young Men Victimised by Violence

Kullberg, Christian; Skillmark, Mikael

doi:10.1080/09503153.2016.1231802

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Several studies in the area of Swedish social assistance also indicate that there appears to be a general expectation on women to be in greater need of societal help to sustain (financial) welfare, as they are found to more often be deemed as 'deserving' recipients of social assistance and have a higher proportion of approved applications (Kullberg 2005(Kullberg , 2006Hussenius 2019;Stranz, Karlsson and Wiklund 2017). Studies in therapeutic counselling and victim-support also highlight how such gendered notions influences which help-giving technology that is implemented, as professionals more often interpret men as needing 'problem-solving' technologies (Kullberg and Skillmark 2017) and women to need emotional support due to a perceived 'vulnerability' (Vogel, Epting and Wester 2003). The street-level praxis of HSO hence provides a setting where gendered notions and identities continuously are 'done', constructed, through the categorization and assessment of helpseeking individuals (cf.…”

Section: Gendered Work In Human Service Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The making of the indebted wo/man: gendered constructions of fiscal identities and help-giving technologies in Swedish budget and debt counselling

Callegari

Liedgren

Kullberg

2020

Nordic Social Work Research

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In parallel with increasing levels of household over-indebtedness, dominant discourses position debt problems mainly as resulting from financial mismanagement and character failings on the individual level. The 'fiscal identity' of over-indebted is thereby constructed in opposition to current ideals of financial competence and rationality. This article seeks to investigate how these dominant discourses interact with notions of gender in the debt-managing institution of Swedish budget and debt counselling. The aim was to examine the fiscal identities that are constructed in budget and debt counsellor's talk and written documentation about male and female clients, and the implications these constructions may have for the help-giving technologies implemented. The empirical material consists of 11 focus group interviews with budget and debt counsellors and analysis of documentation. The results show that gendered fiscal identities are constructed, with masculinity being associated with financial competence, autonomy and less need of emotional support and femininity with a lack of financial competence and a need for comprehensive counselling contacts. These gendered constructions implicitly motivate different help-giving technologies for women and men, although the counsellors claim that gender does not influence the help they provide. Age and ethnicity are found to affect these gendered constructions to varying degrees. The results are discussed in relation to the ideals that are (re)produced through the construction of these gendered fiscal identities and help-giving technologies and how debt-managing welfare institutions contribute to the making of the indebted woman and man.

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Section: Gendered Work In Human Service Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The making of the indebted wo/man: gendered constructions of fiscal identities and help-giving technologies in Swedish budget and debt counselling

Callegari

Liedgren

Kullberg

2020

Nordic Social Work Research

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“…Despite men being overrepresented as victims of violence in Sweden, there is limited research on this matter, though some qualitative studies have examined masculinity in male victims' narratives (Burcar Alm, 2013) and identities (Burcar & Åkerström, 2009). Other studies have focused on social workers' interpretations of male victimization (Kullberg & Skillmark, 2017), victimization in homosexual cohabiting relationships (e.g., Holmberg & Stjernqvist, 2008), and male victims of violence and the role of alcohol (Tryggvesson, 2008). However, there is limited quantitative research into male victims of violence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Die Young: A Follow-Up Study of Young Men Exposed to Violence in Sweden

Trygged

Lilja

Hedlund

et al. 2020

Victims & Offenders

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This register-based study from Sweden examines mortality risks among young male victims of violence. In total, 87,22 l men aged 18-24 years who spent at least one night in inpatient care after exposure to violence in the years 1992-2005 were compared with 78,702 age-matched men from the general population. Cox regressions showed that men exposed to violence had a >3 times higher risk of all-cause mortality, a >4 times higher risk of suicide, and about a 20 times higher risk of death from later violence. The risk of suicide remained stable during the follow-up, and the risk of all-cause mortality and death from later violence decreased.

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“…SV is a more common context of male exposure to violence than IPV. Studies of SV show that men are not interpreted as being victimized to the same extent as women, but are more likely to be viewed as young guys who go out and ‘get beaten up’ one night, and beat others up the next (Jägervi and Svensson, 2015; Kullberg and Skillmark, 2017b). It is highly likely that such preconceptions about young men subjected to SV are a result of the victim–offender overlap that has been proven to exist (see, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research also shows that victims’ actions play a significant role in the attribution of responsibility for their violent victimization. It is shown, for instance, that male victims of SV are interpreted as at least partly to blame for the harm inflicted on them (Kullberg and Skillmark, 2017b). Such research shows that interpretations of young male victims’ responsibility for SV are related to assessments of whether they have been careless in their choice of where they go and at what time, but also the extent to which they themselves ‘provoke’ the crime, so to speak.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The significance of context and victim–offender relationship for Swedish social workers’ understandings of young men’s violent victimization

Skillmark

Kullberg

2019

International Review of Victimology

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This article investigates how social workers’ interpretations of contextual factors and the relationship between victim and offender affect their understanding and assessment of male violent victimization. The study was designed as a multiple case study with a qualitative comparative approach. Focus group interviews supported by vignettes were used to collect data. Interviews were carried out with professional Swedish social workers working with victimized men and women at support units for young crime victims in Sweden. The results show that the social workers consider the violence that the young men are subjected to in cases of street violence and interpersonal violence to be unavoidable or even ‘natural’. The violence was in some cases considered to be dependent on the men’s own agency and in others on their lack of agency, when displaying traits of both more traditional and less traditional forms of masculinity respectively. The social workers’ talk about young male crime victims is interpreted as contributing to making the men appear as less legitimate victims. Even though the social workers argued that the victims’ own behaviour should not lead to any special considerations concerning help efforts, the possibility of upholding such a demarcation between explanations ascribed to the violent incident and help measures offered is problematized in the article.

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Reluctant Help-Seekers and Agentic Victims – Swedish Social Workers’ Talk about Young Men Victimised by Violence

Cited by 3 publications

References 47 publications

The making of the indebted wo/man: gendered constructions of fiscal identities and help-giving technologies in Swedish budget and debt counselling

The making of the indebted wo/man: gendered constructions of fiscal identities and help-giving technologies in Swedish budget and debt counselling

Some Die Young: A Follow-Up Study of Young Men Exposed to Violence in Sweden

The significance of context and victim–offender relationship for Swedish social workers’ understandings of young men’s violent victimization

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