Abstract
This article explores Swedish secondary school’s strategies for supporting students who lack parental care. The study was designed as a case study of six Swedish urban secondary schools located in different demographic areas in southern Sweden. The study draws from individual interviews with school officials, focus group interviews with schools officials and observations from the schools’ student health team meetings. Contemporary research shows that there are several reasons why children and adolescents are neglected: parents’ mental illness, drug abuse, unemployment and living in poverty are some of the main factors explaining why children are neglected. The aim of this article is to explore school officials’ narratives about supporting students with different class backgrounds who are negatively affected by neglect and lack of parental care. The aim is also to explore schools’ collaborations with families, the social services and child and youth psychiatric care to support this group of students. Analytically the study takes its point of departure in how school officials read and position students and their families as classed subjects. Of interest is also to explore how the school professionals’ narratives connect to discourses on neglected children, social class and the schools’ responsibilities for handling these issues. The results indicate that students’ class background is central to the explanations given for social problems as well as to how different student groups are categorized. Discourses of family disorder and dysfunction are provided as the main explanations for neglect and lack of parental care among students growing up in child poverty, whereas discourses explaining middle-class students’ problems are related to young people’s loneliness and parents’ lack of time.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This metaphor is used in Sweden to describe children who are growing up under very difficult circumstances but who still manage to ’survive’, i.e. who are fighting spirits.
References
Barajas-Gonzalez, R. G., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2014). Income, neighborhood stressors, and harsh parenting: Test of moderation by ethnicity, age, and gender. Journal of Family Psychology, 28(6), 855.
Beach, D., & Sernhede, O. (2012). Learning processes and social mobilization in a Swedish metropolitan hip-hop collective. Urban Education, 47(5), 939–958.
Berntsson, L. T., & Ringsberg, K. C. (2014). Swedish parents’ activities together with their children and children’s health: A study of children aged 2–17 years. Scandinavian Journal of Public Helath, 42(15), 41–51.
Blomqvist, C. (2012). Samarbete med förhinder: om samarbete mellan BUP, socialtjänst, skola och familj [Collaboration with counterchecks: On collaboration between child psychiatry, social services, school and the family]. Göteborg: Gothenburg University.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason. On the theory of action. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cederborg, A.-C. (2014). Utsatta barn och ungdomar. In A.-C. Cederborg (Ed.), Barnperspektiv i socialtjänstens arbete [Children’s perspectives of the social services’ work]. Gleerups: Malmö.
DePanfilis, D. (2006). Child neglect: A guide for prevention, assessment, and intervention. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Abuse and Neglect User Manual Series. Down loaded September, 8, 2015, from: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/neglect/neglect.pdf.
DePanfilis, D., & Dubowitz, H. (2005). Family connections: A program for preventing child neglect. Child Maltreatment, 10(2), 108–123.
Dubowitz, H., Jeonguen, K., Black, M., Weisbart, C., Semiatin, J., & Magder, L. S. (2011). Identifying children at high risk for a child maltreatment report. Child Abuse and Neglect, 35(2), 96–104.
Durand, T. M. (2011). Latina mothers’ cultural believes about their children, parental roles and education: Implications for effective and empowering home-school partnerships. The Urban Review, 43, 255–278.
Foucault, M. (2000). Original published in 1969. The archaeology of knowledge. London: Routledge.
Gholami, K. (2011). Moral care and caring pedagogy: Two dimensions of teachers’ praxis. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 19(1), 133–151.
Gillberg Neuropsychiatric Centre Sahlgrenska Academy (2014). Fetalt alkoholsyndom [Fetal alcohol syndrome]. Downloaded April 4, 2016 from: http://gillbergcentre.gu.se/forskningsomraden/Diagnosgrupper,+metoder+och+vissa+pågående+studier+vid+GNC/fetalt-alkoholsyndrom.
Halgunseth, L. (2009). Family engagement, diverse families, and early childhood education programs: An integrated review of the literature. Young Children, 64, 56–58.
Harju, A. (2008). Barns vardag med knapp ekonomi: en studie om barns erfarenheter och strategier [Children’s daily lives with economic hardship: A study of children’s experiences and strategies]. Växjö: Växjö University Press.
Harju, A. (2013). Skola och föräldrar med knapp ekonomi. In A. Harju & I. Tallberg Broman (Eds.). Föräldrar, förskola och skola. Om mångfald, makt och möjligheter [Parents, preschool and school. Diversity, power and possibilities]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Hill, T. D., Ross, C. E., & Angel, R. J. (2005). Neighborhood disorder, psychophysiological distress, and health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46(2), 170–186.
Jeynes, W. (2012). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of different types of parental involvement programs for urban students. Urban Education, 47(7), 706–742.
Kryger, N. (2015). Barndomskonstruktioner i skole-hjem-relationen i Danmark—et kritisk blik [Constructions of childhood in the school and home relation in Denmark—a critical perspective]. Barn, 1, 9–23.
Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lareau, A. (2015). Cultural knowledge and social inequality. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 1–27.
Lunneblad, J., & Johansson, T. (2012). Learning from each other? Multicultural pedagogy, parental education and governance. Race Ethnicity and Education, 15(5), 705–723.
Majblomman. (2015). Ge en gåva till ett barn som har det svårt [Donate a gift to a child in need]. Down loaded August 7, 2015, from: http://www.majblomman.se.
McWilliam, E. L. (2003). The vulnerable child as a pedagogical subject. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 19(2), 35–44.
Näsman, E. (2012). Barnfattigdom—om bemötande och metoder ur ett barnperspektiv [Child poverty—treatment and methods from a child’s perspective]. Stockholm: Gothia Förlag.
Odenbring, Y., Johansson, T., Lunneblad, J., & Hammarén, N. (2015). Youth victimization, school and family support: Schools strategies to handle abused children. Education Inquiry, 6(1), 191–207.
Sampson, R. J., & Raudenbush, S. W. (2004). Seeing disorder: Neighborhood stigma and the social construction of “broken windows”. Social psychology quarterly, 67(4), 319–342.
Save the Children. [Rädda Barnen]. (2014). Barnfattigdom i Sverige [Child poverty in Sweden]. Annual report 2014. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen.
Skeggs, B. (2002). Formations of class and gender. Becoming respectable (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Skeggs, B. (2004). Class, self, culture. London: Routledge.
Skolverket. (2011). Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet 2011 [Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreation centre, 2011]. Stockholm: Skolverket.
Socialstyrelsen. (2011). Barn som har blivit eller riskerar att bli utsatta för försummelse eller övergrepp. Sammanställning av översikter om insatser till barn och föräldrar [Children who have been abused or are at risk of being neglected or abused. An overview of how to support children and parents]. Stockholm: Socialstyrelsen.
Socialstyrelsen. (2014). Anmälan till socialnämnden vid kännedom eller misstanke om att ett barn far illa [Reports to the social services when indicating or being suspicious of a child being abused].
Strömland, K. (2000). Fetalt alkoholsyndom—onödigt lidande som inte blivit ovanligare [Fetal alcohol syndrome—unnecessary suffering that hasn’t become rarer]. Läkartidningen, 97(45), 5108–5110.
Svenska Dagbladet. (2014). Svenska barn drabbas när företag bryter mot FN-principer [Swedish children suffer when companies break UN-principles]. Down loaded September 10th, 2015, from: http://www.svd.se/svensk-overtid-bryter-mot-fns-barnprincip.
UNICEF. (2014). I välfärdens utkant. Om ensamstående mödrar med socialbidrag och deras barn [In the welfare state’s periphery. Single mothers with social welfare support and their children]. Stockholm: UNICEF Sverige.
Vetenskapsrådet. (2011). God forskningssed [Good research practice]. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.
Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality. Cambridge: Polity.
Weitz Spånberger, Y. (2011). Ungas erfarenheter av skola, samhällsvård och vuxenblivande: en studie av fem livsberättelser [Young people’s experiences of school, out-of-home care and transitions to adulthood: A study of five life stories]. Stockholm: Stockholm University.
Acknowledgments
This project is funded by a research grant from The Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Odenbring, Y., Johansson, T. & Lunneblad, J. Blaming and Framing the Family: Urban Schools and School Officials Talk of Neglecting Parents. Urban Rev 48, 484–498 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0364-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0364-y