Under de senaste hundra åren har betydelsen av goda familjeförhållanden och gott föräldraskap betonats allt mer i debatt och politik. Men vad utgör ett gott föräldraskap, och hur skapas goda mödrar och fäder? Svaret på dessa frågor förändrats under det senaste seklet. Såväl föräldraskapet självt som försöken att påverka det genomgår ständiga förändringar. Adoptionsutredningar, assisterad befruktning för lesbiska par samt föräldrars engagemang i sina barns skolgång är några av de frågor som i boken får belysa samhällsutvecklingen. Att vara förälder till ett barn kan tyckas vara en naturlig och ursprunglig relation, men påverkas i högsta grad av tid, plats och sociala villkor. Bokens författare är historiker och samhällsvetare verksamma vid olika universitet och högskolor runt om i Sverige.

The purpose of this article is to understand the new professional role that male diaconate represented within the Church of Sweden and Swedish society. The primary focus of the study is on the f irst 50 years of the deacon training school, from 1898 to 1948. The article is based on previously unprocessed archival material, periodicals, and prior research. Through the lens of masculinity studies, the analysis explores how the seemingly complex male role within the male caregiving diaconate can be understood from a historical and gender theoretical perspective. The article demonstrates that male diaconate should be understood in the context of the transition from a Lutheran unitary culture and agrarian society to a modern industrial society. At the same time, there was a clear continuity between the organization of the diaconal institution as a home and the Lutheran household concept, which signified a Lutheran masculinity for a new era.

The aim of this article is to contribute to the Swedish debate on popular engagement by studying changes in popular engagement in Swedish society, and particularly look for processes of depoliticisation and politicisation since the beginning of the 1990s, by asking, has popular engagement been depoliticised since the beginning of the 1990s? Popular engagement has historically had different roles and fulfilled different functions; consequently, it is a societal phenomenon with several and competing significances due to varying dominant discourses framing the understanding of popular engagement and structuring the actions of engaged citizens. Obviously, the present composite of popular engagement in Swedish society reflects Swedish history and the various present forms of engagement can be conceived as historical layers. How popular engagement has been framed, valued and understood through history is an indication of what is supposed to be needed and feasible in a particular society at a certain time. This gives popular engagement symbolic meaning that renders it political significance and power that can be studied in cultural history. The article offers a brief historical review of the symbolic meanings of popular engagement in Swedish society from the breakthrough of modernity until the present times, and it demonstrates that it has not had a fixed significance over the years. Particular attention is given to an on-going subtle change of meaning of popular engagement occurring in contemporary Swedish society. This process implies a break with the popular mass movement tradition.

It has been noted how the Ukrainian civil society plays an important role in the full-scale war that is currently raging in the country. Can Swedish actors learn anything from the experiences in Ukraine? Can Swedish civil preparedness be strengthened through more conscious use of civil society as a resource?In this report, the Ukrainian civil society and the efforts currently being made there are discussed, and contrasted with the Swedish ones. A picture emerges of two very different civil societies that differ not least in terms of their histories. It is shown how the Swedish civil society in many respects has better conditions than the Ukrainian when it comes to the possibilities of being a resource in a crisis and ultimately in a war, but also how the Ukrainian civil society quickly changes and adapts to the prevailing situation.

This article explores how men's identity, capacity and responsibility as parents were understood and communicated in Swedish, government initiated, paternity leave campaigns, 1976-2006. Images of the "new father" are analyzed in relation to Swedish equal status policy, emphasizing men's and women's mutual responsibility for child care as well as economic provision. The result indicates that paternity leave campaigns represented something progressive and historically unique. Frequent depictions of men performing and talking about care work challenged traditional notions of men and masculinity. However, the campaigns also reproduced notions of gender relations that undercut, rather than supported, a radical vision of gender equality. In the period 1976-2001, men were positioned as secondary rather than primary parents. The early 2000s, however, saw a shift in the way fatherhood was represented in the campaigns. In contrast to earlier campaigns, men and women were given the same responsibility for parental leave--"Half each!"

I mitten av 1970-talet fram­trädde brottaren Hoa-Hoa Dahlgren på reklampelare landet runt, iklädd blågul t-tröja och med ett naket spädbarn på armen. Bilden ingick i Försäkringskassans kampanj för att övertyga fäder att bli mer ­aktiva och när­varande i familjelivet. Sedan dess har det producerats mängder av liknande kampanjer, riktade till män och fäder och med syftet att skapa moderna, jämställda och barn­orienterade män. Den här boken är både en historisk studie av fyrtio års jämställdhets­arbete för att göra pappa med barn och en studie av dagens fäder och föräldraskap. Hur resonerar män som väljer att stanna hemma och ta ut lång föräldra­ledighet? Det moderna faderskapet visar sig vara en komplex historia.

The Swedish Union of Tenants is known today as perhaps the strongest tenants’ organisation in the world, with an established institutional role in the rent-setting system and a mandate to collectively bargain rents. What is relatively unknown, however, is that this system emerged out of a period of widespread rent struggle during the mid-war period. This was especially noteworthy in the city of Gothenburg. During the 19th Century, Gothenburg had become an important industrial centre and its population multiplied tenfold. Together with other groups, such as clerks and small shop owners, the workers formed a distinct popular class culture with organisational expressions and collective mobilisation that changed the social and political order of the city forever. One of these expressions was the tenants’ unions, seen as a sort of trade unions for the rented home. Tenants’ unions advocated protective legislation for tenants and confronted landlords, both with legal means and with militant methods such as rent strikes and blockades. This militancy reached its highest levels from 1932 to 1937. The collective mobilisation and organisation of the tenants altered the power relations between landlords and tenants, which can be seen both in the concessions made by landlords in numerous conflicts and in the fact that the landlords altered their organisations to defend themselves against the tenant offensive. By the time of the rent control act of 1942, centralised collective bargaining had been largely implemented and the collective organisations had become established and recognised interest organisations. The historical relationship between organised labour and tenants, and the effect of tenant organising on the rental market, are still under-researched subjects. This article is intended to both explore the historic rise of the tenants’ movement and to show the very real historical conflict between independent grassroot organisations and political parties in housing and labour history.

Efter den kollektiva organiseringens genombrott på arbetsmark­naden runt förra sekelskiftet började sådan organisering att bli en viktig faktor även på hyresmarknaderna i vissa industristäder: hyresgäst­föreningarna växte fram. Vad som lätt kommer i skymundan i dag är att dessa föreningar en gång i tiden satte en rad skilda kamp­metoder i bruk i sin strävan att flytta fram sina positioner. Hannes Rolf har gått till arkiven.

This thesis is a study of the collective mobilisation and organisation of tenants in Gothenburg and Stockholm between 1875 and 1942. Of special interest are the power relations and the power struggle between the landlords and the organised tenants in the same period. The similarities and differences between the tenants’ movement in Gothenburg and Stockholm played an important role in the historical process and both cities thus need to be studied and compared to each other. The concept of contentious repertoire, developed mainly in the works of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, is used to explain the methods employed by the tenants in their collective mobilisation. Other important factors considered in the thesis are the opportunity structures available and the periods of international radicalisation where the rent struggle also seems to have intensified worldwide. Both the Swedish organised landlords and tenants modelled their organisations after labour market organisation and both parties came to understand their relation as part of a class struggle. A concept borrowed from Klas Åmark, exchangeability, will be used to illustrate an important factor – the harder it was for a landlord to replace a tenant with another tenant, the better the tenants’ position. The tenants’ unions knew this and tried with militant means as well as with advocacy for tenants’ rights and increased housing construction to make it harder for the landlords to replace their tenants. Episodes of tenant militancy were frequent, in Gothenburg especially between 1923 and 1937 and in Stockholm especially between 1928 and 1936. The collective mobilisation and organisation of the tenants did alter the power relations between landlords and tenants, which can be seen both in the concessions made by landlords in numerous conflicts and in the fact that the landlords altered their organisations to defend themselves against the tenant offensive. By the end of the period, centralised collective bargaining had been largely implemented. Other strategies aimed at reducing the exchangeability were also used by the tenants. Tenant housing cooperative enterprises, first seen as a form of protest action and as an alternative to privately owned housing, eventually took on more centralised form in the organisation HSB. The close ties between HSB and the tenants’ unions gave the latter some economical backing and the former some additional legitimacy. By the end of the research period, the idea of large-scale municipal housing had taken over the role the idea of cooperative housing once had, and even though HSB was to play an important part in the post-war housing projects it would be reduced to a secondary position. When it comes to new legislation, the rent law of 1939 did little to alter the power relations,even though it did recognise the tenants’ movement as the natural representative for the tenants’ cause. The 1942 rent act, however, did give the tenants some leverage but it also overrode the system of collective bargaining that had been worked out by the tenants and landlords. All in all, the directactions, the housing production and the new legislation reduced the exchangeability of the tenants and altered the power relations in favour of the tenants.

I dag riskerar hyresgäster att bli renovräkta när hyror chockhöjs efter renoveringar.

Hannes Rolf analyserar hur vi hamnade där, hur vi bygger en rörelse som på riktigt kan förändra och vilka lärdomar vi kan dra från den stridbara hyresgäströrelse som fanns på 1930-talet.

This article is a comparative study of the two largest individual tenant associations in Sweden during the mid-war period. Stockholms Hyresgästförening largely resembled a political association. Combining political lobbying with housing co-operative projects, the organization tried to reform the institutional foundation of the Swedish housing market. Hyresgästernas Centralförsamling i Göteborg had a more trade union-like organizational structure, frequently employing rent strikes and blockades against the organised landlords. The merging of these two organizations within the national federation Hyresgästernas Riksförbund was not conflict-free. After the purging of radicals within the tenants’ movement and after regulated rents where imposed in legislation 1942, the tenants’ movement abandoned militancy and Hyresgästernas Riksförbund became an increasingly centralised and eventually influential actor in the Swedish corporative system that was to emerge after the Second World War.

Historien om den svenska bostadspolitiken under 1900-talet skrivs oftasom en historia där bostadspolitiken kommit ovanifrån, men vad som glöms bort är att ett starkt tryck underifrån i hög grad spelade in. Inte minst den alls inte konflikträdda hyresgäströrelse som under mellankrigstiden växte fram i Sverige spelade en viktig roll, både politiskt och mer direkt. Hyresstrejker och andra militanta metoder användes här i en inte ringa omfattning, något som i principär bortglömt i dag men som förtjänar att lyftas fram.

Den historiska bilden av arbetarrörelsen har länge varit en bild där framför allt rörelsens politiska och fackliga organisationer har lyfts fram. Utöver detta har andra delar, såsom folkbildningen, med rätta tillskrivits en viktig betydelse för arbetarrörelsens utveckling. Ett exempel på en del av rörelsen som har fått relativt lite uppmärksamhet är hyresgäströrelsen. Att hyresgästernas organisationer har uppmärksammats så pass lite som har varit fallet är intressant. Detta gäller inte minst då den svenska hyresgäströrelsen sedan andra halvan av 1900-talet, internationellt sett har varit anmärkningsvärt stark och inflytelserik och haft en mycket hög anslutningsgrad. Det unika svenska systemet med kollektivförhandlade hyror är bara ett uttryck för rörelsens historiska styrka. Denna styrka var dock inte given utan fick i mångt och mycket erövras i konfrontation med motparten, fastighetsägarna. I denna text undersöks kortfattat några av formerna som dessa konfrontationer tog.

The port city of Gothenburg, Sweden, experienced massive social changes during the 19th century. Gothenburg became an important industrial center and the population multiplied tenfold. The urbanization process led to friction as the amount of factory workers rapidly increased. Together with other groups, such as clerks and small shop-owners, the workers formed a distinct popular class culture with organizational expressions and collective mobilization that changed the social and political order of the city forever. One of these expressions was the tenants´ associations, local organizations that were formed to further the tenants claims against their landlords and to advocate political reforms benefitting for the benefit of the tenants. These organizations, seen as a sort of trade unions for the rented home, rapidly grew in the mid-war period. Tenants´ associations advocated protective legislature for tenants and confronted landlords, both with legal mains and with militant methods such as rent strikes and blockades. The associations were also important in the social life of the working-class communities, organizing studies, social events and summer activities for children. This paper examines the role of the tenants´ association in the everyday life of the Gothenburg neighborhoods and especially the role of the associations in bringing different groups of workers, such as port and factory workers, together. By looking at the tenant movement of Gothenburg and comparing it to similar movements in other cities, such as Glasgow, I hope to show how the geographical and social context in the rapidly changing city of Gothenburg produced organizations that both showed remarkable similarities and notable differences to collective action organizations elsewhere.

In this article, we study the legislative processes that formed the basis for how the state’s role and responsibility to protect and represent children was formulated during the 20th century based on legislative initiatives against corporal punishment. This is the backdrop for an analysis of the scheme to compensate adults that have claimed that they as children had been abused in the care of the state. As a basis for our analyzes, we have used laws and statutes, ordinances, and preparatory works in family and criminal law as well as school and social law. In the process that led up to the compensation scheme a choice was made; child abuse in the past would not be defined according to the norms set by past legislation and government ordinances to protect children from abuse, but in relation to what was believed to be common child-rearing practices. The focus shifted to current understandings of what was normal in the past as well as to how similar abuse would be treated in legal practice in current tort cases disregarding the explicit stands taken by past governments to protect children in care. The opportunity for reconciliation decreased with this development.

Once known as the “English Disease,” hooliganism (or spectator-related football violence) is now a routine feature in most European football leagues. In Sweden, the number of serious violent offences in conjunction with football matches has steadily continued to mount over the last four decades. Presently, one of the worst culprits is Djurgårdens Fina Grabbar – DFG (Djurgården’s Fine Lads), the so-called “firm” (or hooligan group) associated with Djurgårdens Idrottsförening – DIF (Djurgården’s Athletic Association). DIF’s supporters have long looked to Britain for inspiration; and this tendency is very marked in DFG. Yet, in the past few years, a new Italian-inspired variety of hooliganism has likewise become more and more detectable in DFG’s actions. This, in turn, has led to a new hybrid, that is neither wholly Italian nor British in character – though it has unquestionably created a more menacing version of Swedish hooliganism. This article accounts for this change in DFG while simultaneously exploring questions relating to the continued sanctity of local identities in the context of an increasingly globalized football culture. It additionally asks whether Swedish hooliganism should be understood as a response to the challenges facing traditional masculine identities in post-industrial societies like Sweden that also strongly emphasize gender equality.

This article examines the experience of the 1000 or so Americans who sought refuge fromtheVietnamWar in Sweden betweenApril 1967 andMarch 1973. At the time the public discussion surrounding thesemenwas not easily disentangled from the larger political debate being waged between the right and left about the war, and such polemics ultimately distorted the media’s reporting on the exiles. Above all, this politicised coverage exaggerated the war resisters’ adjustment problems in Sweden, and it also obscured the reality that many of the challenges that these men faced in exile were common to those of most newly arrived immigrant groups in Sweden during this period.

The article looks at Sweden as an example of how popular memory of the International Brigades in Western Europe has been shaped more frequently by the Left's postwar political needs than by historical realities. Like elsewhere in Western Europe, the International Brigades' legacy in Sweden was principally informed by the Left's eagerness to embrace an anti-fascist identity after the Second World War. In the Swedish case, this has led to a sanitized historical account of the Swedish Brigadistas ' experiences in Spain that ultimately does the former volunteers' memory a considerable disservice.

The Swedish redress scheme intended for victims of historical child abuse in out-of-home care compensated only 46% of claimants who sought economic compensation for past harms. This article explores the reasons behind this comparatively low validation rate by investigating a) how the eligibility criteria of the Redress Act were evaluated by the Redress Board; and b) the justifications and underlying values used when applications were rejected with reference to the fact that reported abuse was not deemed to be sufficiently severe according to past standards. Victim capital, which determines how vulnerable or credible a victim is perceived to be by others, as well as competence and narration, are essential aspects for this type of legal proceeding. The article demonstrates that the claimants had to traverse a complicated web of criteria to be awarded compensation. The outcomes for claimants were affected by how the past was conceptualized in this legal setting, what competences the victims themselves possessed, what competence and resources the administrative system offered, and the extent to which the decision-making process fragmented victims’ narratives.

This article addresses the Swedish state’s process to provide redress for historical abuse in out-of-home care. The aim is to illuminate how the current state’s responsibility for past child abuse is negotiated in such processes. In Sweden, a temporary financial redress scheme was in effect 2013-16, which compensated fewer than every second applicant. The article demonstrates that the political ambition to recognize symbolically and acknowledge the victims’ suffering and the past society's betrayal of them resulted in unintended consequences when translated into a legal bureaucratic process. The logic of a court assessment is based not on recognition but on establishing legal liability. In the end, redress came to focus on what the state could be deemed responsible for in the past and how modern legal principles could be harmonized with a compensation scheme designed to compensate those for wrongdoings which cannot be redressed by current tort law.