Stockholm university
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Anneli ÖljarstrandSenior lecturer/Director of Studies

Research projects

Reaching secondary school? School's support for parents.

School support for parents to be able to support their children is important, especially for parents of children with different challenges. In the project, we want to develop new knowledge about how schools cooperate with parents of students who risk not being qualified for upper secondary school.

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Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • ”När jag slutar känna, är det dags att byta jobb!” Om begravningsentreprenörers känsloregler och känslohantering

    2020. Anneli Öljarstrand. Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv 26 (1), 70-89

    Article

    Många yrkesgrupper hanterar död och sorg i sitt arbete och en av dem är begravningsentreprenörer som dagligen arbetar med döden. Yrket är dock näst intill osynligt inom arbetslivsforskning så väl som emotionsstudier i Sverige. Föreliggande studie är ett bidra till denna kunskapslucka. Studiens mer specifika syfte är att undersöka känsloregler och känslohantering inom branschen, utifrån ett sociologiskt perspektiv, genom att intervjua sju begravningsentreprenörer. Resultatet visar bland annat på flera känslomässigt svåra arbetssituationer med olika känsloregler. För att hantera sina känslor frontstage använder begravningsentreprenörerna kognitiv-, fysisk- och experessiv känslohantering samt fokuserar på praktiska uppgifter. Backstage kan genuina känslor släppas fram och samtal med kollegor samt humor och skratt, verkar vara viktiga känslomässiga ventiler.

    Read more about ”När jag slutar känna, är det dags att byta jobb!” Om begravningsentreprenörers känsloregler och känslohantering

  • Dirty workers emotional work: A pilot study about Swedish funeral directors

    2019. Anneli Öljarstrand.

    Conference

    Purpose – The purpose of the study is to investigate emotionally challenging situations in Swedish funeral directors’ daily work with death and their emotional work in these situations. Design/methodology/approach – This qualitative pilot study is based on seven in-depth interviews with funeral directors from three funeral office in Sweden. The data was analyzed using the method meningskategorisering (Kvale 1997) e.g. data was coded in several steps that ended up in some empirical themes. Theoretical focus – The study has a symbolic interactionist perspective which means; emotions are accepted as something physiological and valued as a form of cognition, but also understood as an effect of social and cultural forces, shaped by the social world, and located and contextualised within social practice. The analyse is guided by theory about spontaneous and genuine emotional labour, e.g. workers’ natural and spontaneous emotions, complying with social expectations and organizational display rules. Major conclusions – The results show that Swedish funeral directors face several emotionally stressful situations in daily work. The most emotionally challenged situations are taking care of dead children or parents of children and young people. To deal with the genuine feelings of sadness and powerlessness, they use different tools: Frontstage they try to manage their thoughts and pay attention to practical tasks and backstage they talk about difficult experiences with their mates and use humour and laughter as an important emotional vent.

    Read more about Dirty workers emotional work

  • Career counsellors work with parents of students in risky educational transitions

    2025. Åsa Sundelin, Anneli Öljarstrand. Book of Abstracts for the 2024 Conference of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) “Riding the Wave of Change” 12–14 November 2024, Jyväskylä, Finland, 90-90

    Conference

    This paper presents an ongoing Swedish research project on schools’ support to parents of students following a remedial educational trajectory. Swedish primary schools face challenges in supporting students who fail to meet educational goals and must attend introductory (remedial) programs in upper secondary education. The transition to upper secondary education for these students often leads to stigmatization and an institutional gap, causing uncertainty and anxiety for both students and their parents. Schools, and career counsellors in particular, need to address educational disparities and counteract the stigmatization of students not meeting knowledge goals. A crucial aspect of this effort is involving and collaborating with parents. Yet, collaboration with parents during these risky transitions is under-researched. The project’s purpose is to enhance understanding of how schools collaborate with parents of students at risk of not qualifying for upper secondary school. Research questions include: What organizational conditions exist for school staff to collaborate with parents? What methods and strategies do school staff use? The study employs Michael Lipsky’s (2010) theory of street-level bureaucracy and organizational theory concepts to analyze school-parent collaboration. A multiple case study design involving two schools is applied and will use document studies, interviews, and observations for data collection. The results aim to contribute to theoretical understanding and practical recommendations for school development efforts in collaborating with parents of students at risk of not qualifying for upper secondary school. The data collection will start autumn 2024 and preliminary results with focus on career counsellors work will be presented at the conference.

    Read more about Career counsellors work with parents of students in risky educational transitions

  • Förtroendevaldas erfarenheter av att styra i en folkkyrka i minoritet

    2024. Anneli Öljarstrand. Allt har sin tid: folkkyrka under omvandling , 320

    Chapter

    Elected officials’ experiences of governing a folk church in minority

    This text aims to give a voice to elected officials at parish level.

    Church of Sweden has a parallel management structure, one democratic and one episcopal. At the parish level, elected representatives govern the parish, together with the vicar, who leads it. The two leadership hierarchies derive from different institutional systems, democracy and theology, which in turn proceed from two competing institutional logics. Church of Sweden moves between at least three different logics: democracy, theology and capitalism. The question of which logic should have interpretive priority is a key question.

    Two themes are used to make visible the complexity and tension in the material: To fill the church or to be the church, and Reverse the development or accept it. Those who emphasize the importance of filling the church wish to find out what attracts most visitors. Those who believe the primary purpose is to be a church emphasize the experience of God's presence, participation in the service and discipleship. Most elected representatives find themselves on a sliding scale between filling and being.

    Deteriorating finances are a challenge for elected representatives. They have to prioritize financially and at the same time minimize emotional, social and relational costs. Parishes seem to prioritize diaconal activities, open groups and children's and youth activities, at the expense of worship life.

    Elected representatives often fight an uneven battle against the future minority status in an attempt to reverse the development. This can be related to grief. People in grief go through different phases: shock, reaction, processing, and reorientation. Within Church of Sweden we are in different stages in this process. Some are in denial, while others and are in a reorientation phase. Church of Sweden will probably remain a church with the same basic functions, though smaller, and I hope that its survival strategy is to continue being a church, regardless of whether it is full or not.

    Read more about Förtroendevaldas erfarenheter av att styra i en folkkyrka i minoritet

Show all publications by Anneli Öljarstrand at Stockholm University

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