Vacillating between "strange" and "familiar" - representations of children in migrant families and their health in Swedish school health services

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4601288
AutoresEmmie Wahlström (0000-0002-7828-6999, Mälardalen University, autor de correspondencia), Frida Wallander (0009-0002-5533-4051, Mälardalen University), Jonas Stier (0000-0001-7832-2155, Mälardalen University)
Año2024
Volumen348
Páginas116809
Fecha de publicación2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Science & Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116809
PMID38547808
OpenAlexW4393131772
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas26

Representations of migrants influence how they are perceived by others. Hence, how children who have migrated or whose parents have migrated (Children in Migrant Families: CMFs) are represented in clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for Swedish school health services (SHS) may influence how they are perceived by school nurses. Thus, this study aimed to explore representations of CMFs in school nurses' CPGs. Data consisted of 130 CPGs from municipalities in Sweden. Documents were analyzed using the "What is the Problem Represented to be" (WPR) approach - an analytic strategy for investigating embedded assumptions of "problems". In the analysis, Sarah Ahmed's work on "strangers" and "strangeness" was applied. In the CPGs, the CMFs and their health were repeatedly mentioned in conjunction with the need for particular or additional actions, efforts, or routines when assessing or discussing their health, to a degree beyond what is "usually" provided. This need was motivated by representing the CMFs and their health as being the same, yet different in relation to "Swedish" children in general. Thus, the children were not only represented as different, but they were "foreignized". These representations of difference and foreignness placed the children on a continuum in relation to what is recognized as "familiar" in their health, and constructed elastic boundaries between the strange and the familiar. By illustrating how these boundaries were used for difference-making between "familiar" and "strange", this study showed how CMFs are alternately represented as similar and different, and foreignized while provided with SHS aiming to make them "familiar

Developmental psychology · Relation (database · Sociology · Child and Adolescent Health · Computer Science · Health, psychology, and well-being · Migration, Health and Trauma · Psychology