Ett kärringjobb med mjuka frågor, känslor och sånt - En kvalitativ studie av män i ett kvinnodominerande yrke
(2012) SOPA63 20121School of Social Work
- Abstract
- A granny job with soft issues, feelings and stuff - A qualitative study of men in a female-dominated profession
The purpose of this study was to examine how professional social workers and students in social work education relates to and understands the idea that social work is considered feminine. Another aspect considered in this study is how the widespread predominance of women in social work can be explained. The study was also used for comparison with previous research in the area. We have used theories in gender and masculinity in order to illustrate society's view of what is considered male or female in the choice of profession. We have also remarked on the gender-divided labor market and gender equality in social work. The study... (More) - A granny job with soft issues, feelings and stuff - A qualitative study of men in a female-dominated profession
The purpose of this study was to examine how professional social workers and students in social work education relates to and understands the idea that social work is considered feminine. Another aspect considered in this study is how the widespread predominance of women in social work can be explained. The study was also used for comparison with previous research in the area. We have used theories in gender and masculinity in order to illustrate society's view of what is considered male or female in the choice of profession. We have also remarked on the gender-divided labor market and gender equality in social work. The study was conducted in qualitative manner, based on six semi-structured interviews with four professional social workers and two social work students. Two of the professional social workers are working in addiction treatment, the remaining two as financial assistants. The two students had just finished their second semester of social work education and would begin their third. The collected material generated themes from which we made our analysis are; masculinity, femininity, sex, careers, power and autonomy, education, barriers, opportunities, expectations, other.
Our results show that men choose a career in social work when they want to work with people and that the choice of education is not based in the desire to combine social work training with other training, nor because it was their only option. However, what is considered to be another great reason why men seek out social work is the possibility of a short career ladder. In the educational choices, companion circuits have been proved to be of great importance as these have helped to bring the prospective student closer to the training content and the profession's work. Furthermore, the men in the study do not consider that they’re going against the general perception of masculinity as the concept is based on past history. Finally, the respondents agreed that social work should be made more equal, but that the focus should not be to equalize the gender segregation in the workplace based solely on gender, but that the skills and experience should take precedence. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/2760173
- author
- Omanovic, Admir LU and Jusufovic, Nina LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOPA63 20121
- year
- 2012
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- social work, masculinity, gender, men, women, female-dominated profession
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 2760173
- date added to LUP
- 2012-06-15 10:52:16
- date last changed
- 2012-06-15 10:52:16
@misc{2760173, abstract = {{A granny job with soft issues, feelings and stuff - A qualitative study of men in a female-dominated profession The purpose of this study was to examine how professional social workers and students in social work education relates to and understands the idea that social work is considered feminine. Another aspect considered in this study is how the widespread predominance of women in social work can be explained. The study was also used for comparison with previous research in the area. We have used theories in gender and masculinity in order to illustrate society's view of what is considered male or female in the choice of profession. We have also remarked on the gender-divided labor market and gender equality in social work. The study was conducted in qualitative manner, based on six semi-structured interviews with four professional social workers and two social work students. Two of the professional social workers are working in addiction treatment, the remaining two as financial assistants. The two students had just finished their second semester of social work education and would begin their third. The collected material generated themes from which we made our analysis are; masculinity, femininity, sex, careers, power and autonomy, education, barriers, opportunities, expectations, other. Our results show that men choose a career in social work when they want to work with people and that the choice of education is not based in the desire to combine social work training with other training, nor because it was their only option. However, what is considered to be another great reason why men seek out social work is the possibility of a short career ladder. In the educational choices, companion circuits have been proved to be of great importance as these have helped to bring the prospective student closer to the training content and the profession's work. Furthermore, the men in the study do not consider that they’re going against the general perception of masculinity as the concept is based on past history. Finally, the respondents agreed that social work should be made more equal, but that the focus should not be to equalize the gender segregation in the workplace based solely on gender, but that the skills and experience should take precedence.}}, author = {{Omanovic, Admir and Jusufovic, Nina}}, language = {{swe}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Ett kärringjobb med mjuka frågor, känslor och sånt - En kvalitativ studie av män i ett kvinnodominerande yrke}}, year = {{2012}}, }