Interkulturell kunskap i socialtjänsten - En kvalitativ studie av tre socialkontor i Malmö
(2009) SOPA63 20091School of Social Work
- Abstract
- The purpose of this essay was to explore the meaning of interculturality and intercultural competence and its importance in social work. In Malmö there are currently over 285 000 citizens representing 170 different nationalities speaking over a hundred different languages. Is this diversity being exploited within the social services in Malmö, and if so in what ways? Our empirical material is based on a qualitative method containing interviews with five social workers from three different social welfare offices in Malmö. To broaden our knowledge on the subject matter, we also interviewed former integration coordinator Mujo Halilovic and lecturer, project coordinator and public debater Behrang Miri. The essay’s analytic perspective is based... (More)
- The purpose of this essay was to explore the meaning of interculturality and intercultural competence and its importance in social work. In Malmö there are currently over 285 000 citizens representing 170 different nationalities speaking over a hundred different languages. Is this diversity being exploited within the social services in Malmö, and if so in what ways? Our empirical material is based on a qualitative method containing interviews with five social workers from three different social welfare offices in Malmö. To broaden our knowledge on the subject matter, we also interviewed former integration coordinator Mujo Halilovic and lecturer, project coordinator and public debater Behrang Miri. The essay’s analytic perspective is based on the social construction theory. This theory helped us to understand how interactions in our social environment can produce knowledge. While analyzing our interviews we found that the main differences and similarities between the three offices could be summarized in four central themes: context, knowledge, dilemmas and integration/segregation. When asked, the social workers at office 1 and office 3 did not recognize the notion of interculturality. Although, we could see that their intercultural competence was utilized through questions, curiosity, understanding and openness towards the client instead. With this they attained an overall perspective regarding the problems involved. A greater awareness of interculturality and its significance existed at office 2, which one of the social workers said rested upon the fact that it was natural for her to work with multiple cultures. Much of the things she said resembled what Mujo and Behrang also believed, for example that culture and ethnicity are two different concepts, and that there is a relation between social problems and social class, and also that “expressed knowledge” – in contrast to “silent knowledge” – generates development. Their opinion was that in order to understand the complex individual you need to understand the context they live in. From this we found that to be able to grasp the concept of a culture you also have to study its contextual environment. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1415639
- author
- Atroushi, Sharmin LU and Lindo, Lina LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOPA63 20091
- year
- 2009
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- social work, culture, social services, intercultural competence, interculturality, interaction, knowledge
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1415639
- date added to LUP
- 2009-06-16 12:40:53
- date last changed
- 2009-06-16 12:40:53
@misc{1415639,
abstract = {{The purpose of this essay was to explore the meaning of interculturality and intercultural competence and its importance in social work. In Malmö there are currently over 285 000 citizens representing 170 different nationalities speaking over a hundred different languages. Is this diversity being exploited within the social services in Malmö, and if so in what ways? Our empirical material is based on a qualitative method containing interviews with five social workers from three different social welfare offices in Malmö. To broaden our knowledge on the subject matter, we also interviewed former integration coordinator Mujo Halilovic and lecturer, project coordinator and public debater Behrang Miri. The essay’s analytic perspective is based on the social construction theory. This theory helped us to understand how interactions in our social environment can produce knowledge. While analyzing our interviews we found that the main differences and similarities between the three offices could be summarized in four central themes: context, knowledge, dilemmas and integration/segregation. When asked, the social workers at office 1 and office 3 did not recognize the notion of interculturality. Although, we could see that their intercultural competence was utilized through questions, curiosity, understanding and openness towards the client instead. With this they attained an overall perspective regarding the problems involved. A greater awareness of interculturality and its significance existed at office 2, which one of the social workers said rested upon the fact that it was natural for her to work with multiple cultures. Much of the things she said resembled what Mujo and Behrang also believed, for example that culture and ethnicity are two different concepts, and that there is a relation between social problems and social class, and also that “expressed knowledge” – in contrast to “silent knowledge” – generates development. Their opinion was that in order to understand the complex individual you need to understand the context they live in. From this we found that to be able to grasp the concept of a culture you also have to study its contextual environment.}},
author = {{Atroushi, Sharmin and Lindo, Lina}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Interkulturell kunskap i socialtjänsten - En kvalitativ studie av tre socialkontor i Malmö}},
year = {{2009}},
}