Socialt arbete och mångfald. - Diskurser om mångfald bland socialarbetare

Sammanfattning: The main purpose of this study has been to study what conceptions there are regarding discourses on diversity. By using this purpose in a context the developed purpose of this study has been to capture and describe the discourse/discourses on diversity among social workers, municipal employees, with foreign background. The study has been based on interviews with the social workers, in two different municipalities in Sweden, four social workers has been participating in the study. The method used for the study has been interviews and critical discourse analysis; this has also been the frame of theory. Influences have been taken from Margareth Wetherell, Jonathan Potter and Norman Fairclough. The analysis incorporates the theory with the empirical data, and shows that the social workers are using a “collective we” to describe their knowledge about diversity, but it is also a way to gain knowledge. It also incorporates binary relations between words, such as “swedishness” and “foreignness”, the analysis also includes a discussion on the term ethnicity. As a conclusion the discourse on diversity seems to be vague, ambiguous and diffuse to the social workers. But to the core of it, the discourse on diversity is closely related to ethnicity, and ethnicity applied to the Other. Where the Other seems to be, in the discourse, somebody that has immigrated to Sweden, or are of immigrated origin. Subject: Social Work Key Words: discourse, critical discourse analysis, Norman Fairclough, social work, social workers, ethnicity, diversity, foreign background.