Normaliseringspraktiker i det moderna samhället : en diskursanalys av åtta sociala ungdomsprojekt

Sammanfattning: This study deals with the problem of socialization/re-socialization within modern society and how social workers deal with deviant youth. The empirical study is a stratified case-study including eight different projects within social work with youth. Social workers within the projects were interviewed; reports, articles and TV-programs were analyzed. In one project a participant method was used. The study focuses on how the process of normalization operates within the field and on which different forms of social control there are within the different projects studied. The aim of the study is to describe and analyze the practices and methods/techniques within the normalization work with deviant youth.The statements made in the interviews and in the written documents are analyzed as belonging to different discourses within the field of socialtechnology (Social Work). Discourses found on a general level are: discourses about modernization of society, the generation gap, youth and popular culture and media. In all these discourses the phenomena are described in a negative way. The discourses found within the social practices in the projects are discourses about the project, prevention, social control, socialadministration, treatment and about the close relationship.One form of social control is aiming to observe different places or environments in the city. Another form deals more directly with the social control of individuals, both in a social and a subjective sense. Social control within the projects are interpreted, negotiated, changed and also a source for resistance within the communicative situations and relationships people have.In the analysis the author separates some discourses as more fundamental within the field of socialtechnology. These discourses deal with normality/deviancy, morality, care-taking, confessions and normalization. The discourse of normality/deviancy constructs a dichotomy between normal and deviant and makes the deviant lack normal personality qualities. The discourse of normalization and related practices lead the social workers to change the deviant individual to an average and normal adult. In this work much effort focuses on changing attitudes, morals and decreasing the symbolic influence of subculture and youth culture. Youth participating in subcultures creates an alternative and opposite communication to mainstream society. Signs and symbols from the popular culture are used in a productive way in the process of creating an identity, an alternative identity instead of one expressed by family, teachers and social workers.The basis for the socialtechnological work is the practices of normalization. These can be interpreted as, first of all, initial practices including different methods and techniques as the contents of investigations, measurements, control, prevention, planning and diagnosis. The practices of treatment are: treatment, social control, social support, and supervised labor.The projects also have more or less of a psychological, bureaucratic, informal or ideological position in their communicative practices and discourses. All projects, despite their actual and different activities, express several shared and related discourses, therefore social work with youth can be understood as a discursive formation.