- Marjo Kuronen is a Professor of Social Work and Head of Department in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosoph... moreMarjo Kuronen is a Professor of Social Work and Head of Department in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research interests include the relationships between women, family and the welfare state, local welfare policies and feminist theorising and methodology in social work research, especially institutional ethnography.
Find more at https://www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/yfi/en/staff/kuronen-marjoedit
The empirical findings presented in this book convincingly show that despite differences between the service systems and welfare state models in Finland, Canada, Israel, Slovenia, Spain and the UK, the difficulties that women face with... more
The empirical findings presented in this book convincingly show that despite differences between the service systems and welfare state models in Finland, Canada, Israel, Slovenia, Spain and the UK, the difficulties that women face with the welfare service system and in their encounters with it have striking similarities. Women find it difficult to know how to apply for and receive the services, social support and protection they need to cope in the vulnerable situations they struggle with in their daily lives. They describe service systems as complex, fragmented and complicated, with no clear logic and rules about how to work with them. For these women, the systems look like ‘a jungle with arbitrary rules’, as Virokannas et al. put it in Chapter 3 of this book. Women also said it was merely ‘good luck’ when they encountered an understanding practitioner and received help. More often, they experienced encounters with the welfare system and its practitioners as stigmatising, frustrati...
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Lisensiaattitutkimus / Tampereen yliopist
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Finland has a strong and long tradition of research-oriented doctoral education in social work. Recent general changes in doctoral education, such as increased regulation, internationalisation and time pressures, have had an impact on... more
Finland has a strong and long tradition of research-oriented doctoral education in social work. Recent general changes in doctoral education, such as increased regulation, internationalisation and time pressures, have had an impact on social work as an academic discipline. This article examines the recruitment of social work doctoral students and the perceived value of doctoral dissertations as academic research. The data consist of written responses by Finnish full professors of social work to open-ended questions presented in an electronic questionnaire. The analysis is based on the idea of ‘boundary work’ within and between disciplines, and between science and society and on the professors’ argumentation and reasoning. The results reveal several ambivalences in how the professors see doctoral education and dissertations in social work. Today, social work is seen much as any other (neighbouring) discipline although with some unique features. According to the professors, while the quality of social work dissertations remains good, their value as scientific research has decreased. The societal and practical relevance of social work research present the discipline with a major challenge. The most striking ambivalence concerned the relation between research and practice and thus merits further discussion within the social work discipline.
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The purpose of this article is to examine professional practices in matemity and childhealth care in two countries, Finland and Scotland, concentrating on how motherhoodis located in family context, on how family is defined and worked... more
The purpose of this article is to examine professional practices in matemity and childhealth care in two countries, Finland and Scotland, concentrating on how motherhoodis located in family context, on how family is defined and worked with. Subthemesanalysed are the role of fathers, 'family support' fr mothers and the discussion overlone motherhood. The study was carried out through local case studies using ethnographicmethods, mainly observation and interviews with health professionals. Resultsshow that Finnish health professionals have adopted a family-oriented way of workingemphasising the importance of pair relationships and shared parenthood, comparedwith their Scottish colleagues, who work in a more women-oriented way and emphasisethe role of other women as social support fr mothers. In conclusion the two differentprofessional orientations are connected to wider social and cultural differences betweenthe two countries.
Research Interests: Sociology and Demography
Research Interests: Sociology and Social Work
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Kuronen, Marjo together with Kimmo Jokinen and Teppo Kröger (2010) Social Care and Social Services. Literature review on existing European comparative research. FAMILYPLATFORM WP1 - Major trends of existing research on family life and family policies. Existential field report 6. Available electro...more
We start by comparing the childcare systems in the 11 European cities, looking particularly at whether the childcare provision in these cities follows national provision levels or not. We then focus on analyzing the relationships between... more
We start by comparing the childcare systems in the 11 European cities, looking particularly at whether the childcare provision in these cities follows national provision levels or not. We then focus on analyzing the relationships between local and national childcare policies in four European cities: Bologna (Italy) and Terrassa (Spain) from Southern Europe, and Jyvaskyla (Finland) and Aalborg (Denmark) from the Nordic countries. The availability and use of childcare services are analyzed, as are other factors influencing the possibilities and obstacles of labour market participation for mothers with young children. The aim of this analysis is to demonstrate the significance of local welfare systems in their socio-cultural context and to understand the scope that local authorities have to draft local policies and thus to divert from national policy definitions. Local policy making also brings rigid welfare regime categories into question.
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Social exclusion of young people is a major socio-economic challenge all over Europe. This paper discusses the development and use of ICT applications to tackle the problem. The paper begins with a review to existing research on the... more
Social exclusion of young people is a major socio-economic challenge all over Europe. This paper discusses the development and use of ICT applications to tackle the problem. The paper begins with a review to existing research on the possibilities of the ICT in social inclusion of young people. Secondly, as a way forward, a multidisciplinary approach is suggested, which would combine perspectives from social sciences, information systems, human-computer interaction, information technology and electronic commerce. The suggested approach combines technological and economic parameters of ICT development with social factors related to well-being, quality of life, gender, cultural and social conditions, and community values of young people. Particular emphasis is put into involvement of young people themselves in the development and innovation of ICT applications suggesting that a user-driven approach and participatory methodology are crucial in the successful development of ICT based app...
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The article is based on methodological reflections and recollections from two qualitative cross-national research projects, one of them comparing Finland and Scotland, and the other one Scotland and Spain. One of them was a case-oriented... more
The article is based on methodological reflections and recollections from two qualitative cross-national research projects, one of them comparing Finland and Scotland, and the other one Scotland and Spain. One of them was a case-oriented study of local regeneration strategies in two cities, while the other one used an ethnographic approach for the study of local practices on maternity and child healthcare services. The article is based on the authors’ dialogue and it contributes to the discussion about the value of a qualitative approach in cross-national comparisons and its place in the field of comparative research. It points at its advantages in enabling the analysis of societies and their specific features from inside to recognize cultural and social contexts, but it also draws attention to some specific problems and challenges concerning qualitative cross-national research by providing concrete examples from the two pieces of research.
Research Interests: Education and Qualitative
Finland has become known internationally as one of the Nordic womanfriendly welfare states where extensive public day-care provision for young children has given women an “exit out offamily responsibilities”, thereby offering... more
Finland has become known internationally as one of the Nordic womanfriendly welfare states where extensive public day-care provision for young children has given women an “exit out offamily responsibilities”, thereby offering possibilities to combine family life and paid work. This interpretation has probably always been too ideal. Raija Julkunen (1992: 47) reminded us back in the early 1990s that the woman-friendliness of the Finnish welfare state needed to be critically analysed, because even the “best reforms for women in the whole ...
Social care has since the mid-1990s transformed from a marginal to core issue in social policy and in social research. Amount of research in this field has expanded in the first decade of this century, and social care research has become... more
Social care has since the mid-1990s transformed from a marginal to core issue in social policy and in social research. Amount of research in this field has expanded in the first decade of this century, and social care research has become a specific research field in social policy and family policy research. Social care has also very strongly become a public and political issue.