Att motverka segregation - Ett sociologiskt perspektiv av Göteborgs Stads strategier för att bemöta segregation

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to find out how the city of Gothenburg defines segregation and the presented solutions for counteracting the problem. The sub-purpose aims to understand how the strategies are influenced by national directives. By using a qualitative approach, a review of a governance document together with eight semi-structured interviews was conducted amongst municipal employees positioned in the city of Gothenburg. Previous research shows that segregation are a result of that different population groups are systematically distributed in the social space regarding forms of living, workspaces, and schools, according to stereotypical notions caused by media discourses about characteristics such as social class, race, culture, criminality, and religion, which is produced and reproduced through existing class affiliations, territorial stigmatization, racialization and self-otherification. Results of this study shows that the cooperation between those involved is deficient because they tend to focus on the individual issues instead of the social economic profit. Most of the strategies seem to be derived from local political directives, while the national directives provide as conditions for whether the intended local strategies are feasible or not. Further, the employees and the presented strategies, seem to have selective perceptions about vulnerable areas as causing the segregation, and thus the consequences are stigmatizing and discriminatory towards the people who live in the vulnerable areas as problematic for the rest of society. Since underlying socio-economic factors and social class dimensions are not addressed adequately, are thus no proposals for real interventions to be able to change the conditions.