Barn och ungdomar med rörelsehinder deras uppfattningar om roller, relationer och aktiviteter

Sammanfattning: The general aim of this thesis was to describe how children and adolescents with restricted mobility perceived their roles, relations and activities in relation to peers and adults in different settings. The thesis includes six sub-studies, which are based on interviews, observations and field notes with children and adolescents with restricted mobility aged from 6 to 19 years. Using Bronfenbrenner’s theory “the Ecology of Human Development” as the main theoretical framework, the ambition was to understand the children and adolescents’ social world from their perspective. The principal finding was the lack of peers in the children and adolescents’ social network. Furthermore, this tendency of isolation from peers was found to increase during the transition from childhood to adolescence. Their relationships to peers were strained and activities and surroundings in which social contacts could develop were limited. The relationships with peers were also characterised by social barriers in the form of attitudes that resulted in social isolation from the group of persons the disabled children and adolescents most wished to be with. When relations to peers were limited, the disabled children’s social life was restricted to adults. The results further showed that the children and adolescents’ roles and relations often were significantly different from their peers. The children and adolescents’ arrived at a concept of themselves that differed from the way others conceptually saw them. Furthermore, the children and adolescents saw themselves as regular members of their peer group, but the other members of the peer group saw them as different from themselves. Relationships to friends of the same age either were confined or were nonexistent. Relationships to adults were often characterised as ambivalent or asymmetric, i.e. the adults were helpful and supportive while over protective and dominant at the same time. The thesis revealed that, despite the many obstacles facing them, the children and adolescents with restricted mobility had a positive view of their future.