Räddaren i nöden : En studie om inividens upplevelser av socialbidrag

• Main Author: Sönnerfors, Madelene
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för tematisk utbildning och forskning 2005
• Subjects: Social assistance; Qualitative interview; Stigmatization; Labour; Socialbidrag; Kvalitativ intervju; Stigmatisering; Arbete
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-465

This essay is about persons who have had social assistance and the individual’s experiences of social assistance. The focus is on how the individual develops in a new life situation and if and how they are motivated to get out of it. The essay has an individual perspective where the relation between society and the individual is important. The result is based on four qualitative interviews with a hermeneutic perspective. The result is also based on the individual’s subjective apprehensions and experiences of the social assistance. Those circumstances withdraws that there can not be any general conclusions made of the result that could be representative for a larger number of people. Important theoretical conceptions are social problems and divergent behaviour, stigmatization, labour and faithful moments. What I have wished to express in this essay is the people behind the social assistance conception and the numbers in studies about social assistance. It is about people with individual life destiny’s that in the Swedish sociality today have not been able to provide themselves and had to use society’s last safety net, social assistance. The society looks on people with social assistance have a historical negative background. Social assistance was developed from welfare and help to the poor. The historical stigma still exists in the Swedish society and it is still considered shameful not to be able to provide yourself. As an unemployed person with social assistance one can need more support and help than just to be paid money because these often have a weak connection to the labour market. The social studies in Sweden describes that the social services assignment is to liberate and develop the individuals and groups own recourses. This means that the social worker should not only make payments. They should also have an interest in the client in some other way. In this essay it is clear that this is not always the case. The most evident result about the individual’s motivation not to have social assistance is the will to support oneself and labour is an important part of the self image and identity.