This article investigates representations of single fathers in major Swedish newspapers 2010-2020, the gendered meanings of these constructions, and how they relate to gendered and socio-historically specific situations of single parents in Sweden. In newspapers, the term "single father" is broadly used to reference different familial situations, ranging from "only parent" to "co-parent." There is no vilification of single fathers as a group or as individuals, which stands out in international comparison but is consistent with dominant discourses on single parenthood - and fathers - in Sweden. Single fathers are represented as successfully combining breadwinning and caregiving, flexible in their management of time-with-children, and reflexive regarding their parenthood. Overall, newspapers construct (good) single fathers as spending substantial time with their children and demonstrating "temporal conscience." Seen against demographic statistics, two results stand out: first, that there are so few single fathers in the dailies, and second, that there is an overrepresentation of fathers with sole residential custody, and of fathers who share residential custody equally with a mother. These representations result in an exaggerated picture of single fathers' time and engagement with children, which speaks to national father-friendly and gender-equality-oriented family policy and ideals of fatherhood.

Världshälsoorganisationen (WHO) har sedan 1995 lyft fram vikten av att skolor erbjuder barn och föräldrar stöd genom en elevhälsa med personal utbildad inom vård-, hälso- och omsorgsyrken, så kallade health workers, vilket vi här benämner hälsoprofessioner. Denna studie fokuserar på elevhälsan i Sverige. Elevhälsan ska enligt svensk skollag (2010:800) främst arbeta förebyggande och hälsofrämjande men även åtgärdande och i huvudsak bestå av hälsoprofessioner. Studien undersöker hur hälsoprofessionernas uppdrag formuleras i policytexter som ger vägledning och råd till elevhälsans skolsköterska, skolkurator, psykolog och läkare. Resultaten visar på omfattande och luddigt beskrivna uppdrag. Vidare är det svårt att särskilja och förstå skillnaderna i att arbeta hälsofrämjande, förebyggande och åtgärdande, samt hur ”samverkan” och ”gemensamt arbete” ska gå till. Framåt, för såväl beslutfattare som forskare, blir det viktigt att se över hur dessa begrepp bör och kan förstås och tillämpas, samt hur hälsoprofessionernas uppdrag bör och kan definieras och skrivas fram.

The School Health Services’ Assignment: A “Collaborative Work” Including Promotion, Prevention and Treatment?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has, since the mid-1990s, put emphasis on the importance for schools to provide school health services to children. The present study explores how the Swedish school health services’ mandate is discursively constructed in national policy texts by governmental authorities and in guidelines by organizations and unions for health workers (i.e., school nurses, school counsellors, psychologists, and physicians). The Swedish Education Act stresses that school health services should work primarily on health promotion and preventive interventions, but also on treatment. Our analysis shows that it is treatment that, when exemplified in policy and guideline texts, is formulated in concrete ways while health promotion and risk prevention activities appear harder to define and to connect to interventions that can have a direct influence on children’s health, learning, and well-being. Moreover, the Education Act and the guidelines emphasize “collaboration” without specifying how collaboration can be achieved and for what purposes. This study proposes that the mandate for the Swedish school health services, in how it is discursively construed, should be reformed.

This study explores Middle Eastern men's narratives on how they adapt their fathering to new circumstances during resettlement in Sweden. It is based on individual interviews and diary notes collected over three years. Swedish policies encourage mothers as well as fathers to participate in paid labour and to be involved in household and child-care duties. Migrants who have been granted residency as refugees are entitled to extensive social welfare benefits, but they are also required to participate in language studies, accept trainee positions, and actively search for employment. The results of the present study suggest that the refugee fathers come to share daily chores and childcare with their spouse more equally than prior in their home countries. This new fatherhood is referred to in several ways: as a necessity to make family life work; as positive for the father?child relationship; and, as very time- and energy- consuming. Emerging masculinities and caring masculinities evolve in the analyses, and the results show comprehensive fathering, that is, fatherhood characterized by care, intimacy and love that are the result of hard, straining (reproductive) work that takes place with limited financial and/or cultural resources.

Lone mothers are a diverse group but it has been argued in the previous research that they tend to be homogenised. This article explores representations of single mothers in Swedish newspapers. Material from the two largest morning papers and the two largest tabloids was collected from the years 2015–2017. The results of the study suggest that although the newspaper representations do not fully reflect the diversity of social realities, there are indeed varying images of lone mothers in the sample. A recurring representation is as a comparatively poor and hardworking—even heroic—woman, who in political argumentation is referred to as someone in need of societal support and policy reforms. A less frequent representation, that often occurs in lengthy, in-depth pieces, is the affluent official person who despite her prosperity struggles with combining single (good) motherhood with her career, or the middle-class woman who becomes a lone mother via assisted reproductive technologies. Teenage motherhood (i.e., age), race/ethnicity, sexuality, and welfare dependence are seldom, if at all, alluded to. There is no vilification or condemnation of the lone mother, as has been found in research on other national contexts. 

This article explores refugee girls’ talk about friendship formation. Friendship is a complex process and a subjective experience. The study participants stressed similarity and cultural affinity as important criteria of forming friendships. Those who attended schools with a mixture of students described their native peers as having different temperaments and interests. Relatives were referred to as being best friends who one could trust and confide in. This suggests the need for a broad conceptualisation of friendship in research and practice.

Problem: Early onset, prevalence, and predictors of substance use - tobacco, alcohol-drinking, alcohol-drunkenness, and drugs - were studied in 13 and 14-year-old boys and girls in Sweden.

Methods: Self-reported data in four communities were used (n = 1,716). A large set of psychological and social factors were tried as predictors of early onset use (n = 1,459).

Results: There were few gender differences and low prevalence. Primary predictor for early onset in tobacco use was availability; perceived parental approval for alcohol use, and delinquent behaviors for alcohol-drunkenness and drug use.

Conclusions: Individual behavioral factors and parental norms seem to be most important in this age.

The present paper explores Middle Eastern men’s narratives on everyday family life and fatherhood in Sweden. The analysis is based on individual interviews and diary notes. Swedish society differs from Middle Eastern societies in many respects; it offers comprehensive rights to extensive social welfare benefits, but also demands that newly arrived migrants participate in language studies, accept trainee positions, and actively search for employment. These requirements apply to mothers as well as fathers. Life in Sweden is challenging for refugees; many face long-term unemployment and welfare dependence. The present analysis shows how Syrian and Iraqi fathers’ downward social mobility, with radically changed material and financial means, influences their caring and domestic practices. In part, they take on ‘female’ duties and share chores with their spouse more equally. The study illuminates that fathering is dynamic and prone to change; (migrant) men adjust their strategies to provide the best possible circumstances and future prospects for their children. This challenges the notion that (migrant) fathering and masculinity are fixed.

The present study examines adult–child touch and its functions in a Swedish preschool (for 1 to 5-year-old children). The data are naturalistic observations and video-recorded data of everyday preschool activities. The study describes the frequently occurring functions of educators’ haptic conduct (control, affectionate, affectionate-control, assisting and educative touch), discussing them in relation to the children's age, gender and type of the preschool activity. It reveals the complexity of touch, demonstrating that physical contact is used for a variety of purposes in the educators’ daily work. The educators employed touch without force, and the children did not respond with explicit and forceful resistance (such as pushing back or otherwise protesting). Adult-initiated haptic behaviour served a continuum of social purposes – from social–relational work, such as establishing and building affectively positive, caring, social relations, to practical and educative organisational efforts to manage the complex and busy preschool life. The distribution of adult–child touch categories brings attention to the bodily aspects of the early childhood educational setting and highlights some of the ways in which the requirements of the Swedish curriculum for Preschool and its focus on educare are actualised in the educators’ embodied conduct.

Relational care, interpersonal intimacy and emotional attunement are crucial for children’s development and wellbeing in ECEC. This study examines how they are enacted in a Swedish preschool (1 to 5-year-olds) through recurrent adult-child touch. Research shows that tactile caregiver – child contact is essential for development and wellbeing. However studies on touch in preschools are scarce. Theories on care, intimacy and embodiment inform the study. Care implies to protect, nurture and train. It is relational, depending on the one-caring as well as the cared-for (Nodding). The study is informed by theories of care and sociocultural perspectives. It is based on video-ethnography (35 hours) of naturally occurring preschool activities. Data were coded into: teacher – child touch and functions of touch. Written consent was obtained from parents and teachers. The person video-recording was sensitive to children’s reactions, and stopped when there were signs of discomfort. The study shows that educators’ Affectionate-Comforting touch was used for emotion regulation as compassionate response to children’s distress, amicable touch engaged children in spontaneous affection. Affectionate-Controlling touches mildly controlled and directed the child’s participation in preschool activities, or mitigated verbal disciplining. They were instrumental as compassionate acts that sustained positive relations in potentially challenging situations. The study supports the holistic policies arguing that embodied relational care should be integrated in ECEC, since they provide a fruitful connection between intimacy based social relations children experience in families, and in early childhood education, in contrast to ideas that connect professionalism with emotional distance and lack of physical contact.

Relational care, interpersonal intimacy and emotional attunement are crucial for children's development and wellbeing in ECEC. The present study examines how they are enacted in a Swedish preschool (for 1-5-year-olds) through recurrent adult-child physical conduct, i.e. affectionate and affectionate-controlling touch. The data consist of 24 hours of video-recorded observations of everyday activities. The study shows that educators' Affectionate-Comforting touch was used for emotion regulation as compassionate response to children's distress; Amicable touch engaged children in spontaneous affection; and, Affectionate-Controlling touch was used to mildly control and direct the child's bodily conduct and participation in preschool activities, or to mitigate the educators' verbal disciplining. The study demonstrates the emotional complexity of ECEC enacted through the practices of haptic sociality. It supports the holistic policies arguing that embodied relational care should be integrated in ECEC, contrary to ideas that connect professionalism with emotional distance and lack of physical contact.