Familjehem och sexualitet: Familjehemssekreterares resonemang kring familjehem bestående av homosexuella par
(2008)School of Social Work
- Abstract
- New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society. By interwieing nine social workers and representives from HomO (working with prevention of discrimination due to sexuality) and HBTre (involved in improvements of homo- , bi- and transsexual competence) we collected... (More)
- New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society. By interwieing nine social workers and representives from HomO (working with prevention of discrimination due to sexuality) and HBTre (involved in improvements of homo- , bi- and transsexual competence) we collected material for our analysis. Questions that were asked to the social workers focused on what they consider to be a suitable foster care family and how they might be affected by the fact that a proposed foster care family were living in a homosexual relationship. Through answeres given we could analyse different attitudes among social workers regarding engaging homosexual families into the foster care practice. HomO and HBTre were presented with questions both regarding their experiences of discrimination of homosexual foster care families as well as the homosexual family structure and its changes. The interwiews were semi-structural which enabled the respondents to talk freely about the topics presented by the questions. Norbert Elias´ theory was used to interpret the empirical material about established and outsiders groups, which discusses the position of different groups in the society. This theory was combined with a heteronormative perspective. Anothere source was Michael Foucault´s theoretical perspective of power as a influence on the structure in the society as well as in human relations. The result of this study shows that the interviewed social workers mainly had a positive attutide towards homosexual families as foster caregivers. In practice this proved to be difficult to carry out given the consideration for the biological parents as well as the childs´ vulnerable situation. Standards of family structures in society were also influencing the foster care investigations and thereby maintaining a traditional foster care family. Families deviant to traditional foster care families often had to be justified with particular assets to become approved as suitable foster care givers. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1317671
- author
- Jonsson, Helen and Karrman, Ingrid
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2008
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- familjehem, familjehemsvård, homosexuella familjer, kärnfamiljer, heteronormativitet, etablerade och outsiders, makt, Social changes, theory of social work, Sociala förändringar, teorier om socialt arbete
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1317671
- date added to LUP
- 2008-02-04 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2008-02-04 00:00:00
@misc{1317671,
abstract = {{New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society. By interwieing nine social workers and representives from HomO (working with prevention of discrimination due to sexuality) and HBTre (involved in improvements of homo- , bi- and transsexual competence) we collected material for our analysis. Questions that were asked to the social workers focused on what they consider to be a suitable foster care family and how they might be affected by the fact that a proposed foster care family were living in a homosexual relationship. Through answeres given we could analyse different attitudes among social workers regarding engaging homosexual families into the foster care practice. HomO and HBTre were presented with questions both regarding their experiences of discrimination of homosexual foster care families as well as the homosexual family structure and its changes. The interwiews were semi-structural which enabled the respondents to talk freely about the topics presented by the questions. Norbert Elias´ theory was used to interpret the empirical material about established and outsiders groups, which discusses the position of different groups in the society. This theory was combined with a heteronormative perspective. Anothere source was Michael Foucault´s theoretical perspective of power as a influence on the structure in the society as well as in human relations. The result of this study shows that the interviewed social workers mainly had a positive attutide towards homosexual families as foster caregivers. In practice this proved to be difficult to carry out given the consideration for the biological parents as well as the childs´ vulnerable situation. Standards of family structures in society were also influencing the foster care investigations and thereby maintaining a traditional foster care family. Families deviant to traditional foster care families often had to be justified with particular assets to become approved as suitable foster care givers.}},
author = {{Jonsson, Helen and Karrman, Ingrid}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Familjehem och sexualitet: Familjehemssekreterares resonemang kring familjehem bestående av homosexuella par}},
year = {{2008}},
}