Thomas Johansson

University of Gothenburg | GU · Department of education, communication and learning

This study aims to examine how healthcare professionals (HCPs) understand the impact prostate cancer treatment can have on patients’ sense of masculinity, sexuality, and intimate life, and how they describe such issues are communicated with patients. Theoretically, HCP narratives are interpreted as part of a reflective process in which notions of h...

This article builds on data gathered through focus group interviews with Swedish men treated for prostate cancer. First, we aim to analyse how the participants talk about and handle sensitive issues and common side effects. Second, we investigate how the participants’ feelings about their disease affect or interfere with their understanding of masc...

This case study aimed to describe and analyse how students and staff at a school in a geographical area with a tradition of high neo-Nazi activism perceived and talked about racism and sexism in particular, and the ‘school climate’ in general. The case consists of 10 school professionals and 14 students. The selected school was located in a traditi...

The aim of this study was to investigate how Swedish men diagnosed with prostate cancer understand the effects of their treatment in relation to sexual health and masculinity. Utilising a phenomenological and sociologically informed approach, the study involved interviews with 21 Swedish men who experienced problems following treatment. The results...

During the 1990s, the sociology of the family was vitalised by new and groundbreaking theories of modernity, identity, and the family. At this time the family was put forward as an example of how modern institutions and identities were transforming and changing. Concepts such as individualisation, choice biographies, and reflexivity brought new per...

This article explores the impacts of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown policies on young fathers and their families. We present analyses from a larger programme of qualitative longitudinal research examining young fatherhood in the UK and Sweden to develop a unique international comparative and empirical contribution. The views a...

This study aimed to analyse how school health team professionals in geographical areas with a long tradition of neo-Nazi activism discursively conceptualise the problem of racism. The participants do not consider racism or neo-Nazi mobilisation to be a central problem at their schools. At the same time, they cited several examples of obvious expres...

This article explores the role of conspiracy theories in the neo-Nazi movement. The focal points of the study are the core conspiracy theories within the movement and the interface with other conspiracy theories of less ideological importance such as ‘Big Pharma.’ The study is based on interviews with six active neo-Nazis in the context of the Swed...

This article explores the way different groups of Swedish men experience and relate to issues concerning fatherhood, paternity leave and gender equality – how they together construct fatherhood in the field of tension between normative societal visions and their own lived reality. The study included four groups of men: men working in a centre for m...

This article presents analyses from an international empirical study of young fatherhood in Sweden and the UK to interrogate how welfare contexts and family policies shape young fathers’ views of parenthood. Our analyses demonstrate that despite differences in constructions of young fatherhood, whereby young parenthood is problematised in UK family...

Although it seems that multiculturalism has been dismissed as a failed experiment or sham in the public debate, there has been an ongoing internal academic discussion of theoretical approaches to multiculturalism. This theoretical dialogue is, of course, parallel to and affected by developments in society. This article dissects and analyses some ke...

This chapter explores ninth grade students’ experiences and understanding of everyday racism in a rural lower secondary school in Sweden. Focus of our analysis is the narratives and situations that revolve around incidents when students are exposed to racist comments and positioned as the Other. The results indicate that immigrant students, regardl...

This chapter draws on a meta-analysis of data from two different research projects conducted in two lower secondary schools in Sweden. The chapter explores teenage boys’ narratives of existing joking cultures and lad cultures in the everyday life of school. Using the concepts of vertical and horizontal homosociality, the study demonstrates that the...

This chapter explores how teenage students living in of Sweden’s most socially deprived urban neighbourhood talk about violence and the teacher’s role in preventing violence at school. The analysis reveals that the students are aware that the neighbourhood and school are situated in a ‘problematic area’, but nonetheless they refuse to let this colo...

This article aims to explore the connections between bodybuilding, (hyper)masculinity, sexuality, and the construction of subcultural and sexual spaces among Swedish male fitness dopers. Analytically, the article employs the perspectives of hardcore masculinities—and the potential harms to relationships and health involved in the use of doping—as w...

This study examines how ideology is narrated in the life stories of former and active Swedish neo-Nazis. Employing a social psychological and generational perspective toward the meaning-making process of the neo-Nazi ideology, this study investigates the role ideology plays in both former and active adherents’ narratives of engagement in the neo-Na...

Violence is a significant element in the constitution, emotional structure, and reproduction of right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism. This article examines the life histories of former neo-Nazis and explores the roles of violence in the Swedish skinhead culture and neo-Nazi organizations. We conducted individual and group interviews with seven forme...

This edited collection focuses on different aspects of everyday violence, harassment and threats in schools. It presents a number of in-depth studies of everyday life in schools and uses examples and case studies from different countries to fuel a discussion on national differences and similarities. The book discusses a broad range of concepts, fin...

The paper investigates the experiences, perceptions and responses of immigrants with a Palestinian background in relation to learning about the Holocaust and the Palestinian cause in Swedish schools and visiting Holocaust sites. Data were collected from 50 immigrant students using audio-recorded and open-structured interviews. The results indicate...

This article explores the relationship between disengagement and deradicalization processes among 15 individuals who have left the neo-Nazi movement. The participants in this study were initially interviewed in 2015, and the interview process is still ongoing. In this particular study, the differences between individuals who disengaged publicly, th...

the segerstedt institute, university of gothenburg, goteborg, sweden ABSTRACT Research has shown that a young person's situation at school, and pupils' relationships with their teachers, have a clear impact on the processes which lead to young people being radicalized. The present study is a retrospective study based on interviews with former neo-N...

The present article, addresses and discusses thin line between teasing, and violence in lower secondary school. The main aim of the study is to highlight and explore different types of “joking cultures” and lad cultures. This study draws from interviews with ninth grade students conducted at three schools in various geographic locations in Sweden....

This article is part of a larger investigation looking into recent changes in the demographics of fitness doping and the possible consequences of such changes. Contesting the historical alliance between masculinity and fitness doping, the article focuses on women’s narratives and experiences of fitness doping in a male-dominated open online communi...

In this chapter, we pull together some of the key themes and conclusions of the book, focusing on future developments of fitness doping and disrupted doping trajectories in the context of gym and fitness culture. The chapter also picks up some of the book’s other principal themes: its theoretical contribution to the debate on doping trajectories as...

In this chapter, the processes involved in becoming and ‘unbecoming’ a fitness doping user are analyzed. Employing a cultural and sociological perspective, we describe fitness dopers’ training background and beginnings at the gym. The chapter also touches on how fitness dopers gradually develop their knowledge about doping and how the process of be...

In Sweden, but also internationally, official regimes and public health organizations are conducting fairly comprehensive anti-doping measures. As a consequence, numerous ‘new’ ways of learning about and accessing these types of drugs have emerged. For example, social media and various Internet forums have become part of a new self-help culture in...

In this chapter, we will present an outline of the methods and methodology used in the studies on which this book is based. The chapter includes, among other things, a discussion of our ethnographic approaches, sampling, interview and observational data, usage and sampling of narratives published on the Internet, and some ethical considerations.

Women’s muscle-building has long been considered a threat to the ‘natural’ gender order. This applies particularly to women’s gender boundary-crossing into the realm of muscular masculinity, through drug use practices and bodybuilding. On the basis of qualitatively gathered interview material and data from various postings on a pro-doping online co...

The aim of this chapter is to present a dissection and analysis of how fitness doping can be understood in relation to the notion and doing of masculinity. Among other things, the chapter discusses the ways in which users conform to gender fantasies that rest on binary understandings of gendered, doped bodies. However, the chapter also develops a l...

In this chapter, we will present an overview of, but also an analytically developed approach to, doping research, in general, and fitness doping, in particular. Different approaches to the use of doping will be situated in a historical and sociocultural framework. Consequently, from a historical perspective, the chapter aims to present a general ba...

Starting from the general historical and sociocultural framework of fitness doping, and the national variations discussed in previous chapters contextualizing the book’s focus, this chapter allows the reader to become acquainted with some of the participants who have contributed their stories. Through some highly personal portraits, we will outline...

Situated within a framework of a globalized gym and fitness culture, this chapter aims to investigate and compare how fitness doping can be understood in relation to, and how it is affected by, different national and local contexts. Representing different forms of welfare state regimes, the comparative analysis focuses on policy, practice, and prev...

This book compiles several years of multi-faceted qualitative research on fitness doping to provide a fresh insight into how the growing phenomenon intersects with issues of gender, body and health in contemporary society. Drawing on biographical interviews, as well as online and offline ethnography, Andreasson and Johansson analyse how, in contex...

On the basis of qualitatively gathered interview material and data from various postings on a pro-doping online community called Flashback, the aim of this article is to describe and analyse how female users of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIED) understand and negotiate their use in relation to gender and the body. Positioned within post-...

This study aims to explore how adolescent girls with minority backgrounds experience different forms of sexual harassment in school. The study draws on semi-structured interviews conducted in a lower secondary school located in one of Sweden’s most socially disadvantaged urban areas. The results reveal that the girls repeatedly experienced misogyni...

During the past decades, behaviour among students in the Swedish schools once described as teasing and fighting has become part of a legal discourse. It is possible to follow a transitional process and development, during this period, in which schools have become increasingly regulated by legal rules. This transition has been defined as the juridif...

Regarding criminality and subversive behaviour, young people are seen both as a risk group and as a security risk. Consequently, there is a need to investigate categorizations and definitions of young people ‘at risk’. This chapter is based on a study designed as two interlinked case studies. The cases consist of principals and school health teams...

The widespread availability of doping and its growing prevalence among fitness groups has contributed greatly to the realization of an emergent public health issue. Emanating from an ethnographic study in Sweden, the purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the processes involved in becoming and “unbecoming” a fitness doping user. The stud...

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the oral history of disengagement processes of former neo-Nazis in Sweden. The main aim is to take a holistic approach to their narratives. This means that these narratives need to be placed in relation to significant others – such as teachers, parents, and siblings – in order to contextualize the indiv...

This article describes and analyses the historical development of gym and fitness culture in general and doping use in this context in particular. Theoretically, the paper utilises the concept of subculture and explores how a subcultural response can be used analytically in relation to processes of cultural normalisation as well as marginalisation....

Behaviour among students in Swedish schools that was previously described as teasing and fighting has, during the last decade, become part of a legal discourse. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how school officials at nine schools described various measures taken to handle school violence. The results showed that the school offic...

This article explores how schools define situations in which students have been exposed to violence at school. The purpose of the study is to explore and investigate whether and how school violence is gendered and whether acts of violence are being coded as either masculine or feminine. The data were gathered at Swedish secondary schools. The resul...

This chapter brings the previous chapters together and develops some of the examples used from those chapters further by using Giddens’ discussions about the double hermeneutic in discussions about youth and theory. Giddens shows how the conceptual tools and perceptions used in social theory are gradually implemented into everyday life. Concepts an...

This chapter discusses the impact of postcolonialism on youth studies and research on young people’s lives. It focuses particularly on how young people’s lives are affected by racialization and the social constructions of race, but also on how research on youth has traditionally been criticized for ignoring such race relations, ethnicity, and power...

This chapter briefly presents and discuss three influential traditions in youth studies. We begin by discussing key concepts, such as youth, teenager, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. The chapter also addresses the status of the field of youth studies and its relationship to child and youth studies. Thereafter, three sections will present overv...

This chapter focuses on the concept of generation and similar attempts to capture an age group and a specific cohort’s social and cultural consciousness. Such attempts have a long history. Beginning with Mannheim’s classic concept of generations and generational units, we trace the discussions about generations and cohorts in various directions. Th...

In this chapter, the book concludes by drawing together some of the key themes, focusing on bodies in motion, in practice and in theory. The chapter also picks up some of the other principal themes of the book: the theoretical contribution to the debate on extreme bodies in extreme sports, and a reflection on the empirical data and the methodologic...

In the second part of the book, we have focused on the everyday life and corporeality of bodybuilding. In this chapter, we will in a more summarising and theoretical manner bring forward some of our central arguments for this part and neatly position these in a culturally wider context. Initially, we will look closer at the historical development o...

This chapter explores how bodybuilders and dedicated gym goers negotiate and conceptualise the notion of an idealised muscular and gendered body. Utilising both interview material and discussions presented in an online bodybuilding community, the chapter analyses how the acceptance of certain forms of illicit drug use (steroids and human growth hor...

In the third part of the book, we have zoomed in on the extreme sport of Ironman triathlon and how dedicated athletes negotiate everyday life consisting of endurance training and family life among other things. In this chapter, we will in a more summarising and theoretical manner bring forward some of our central arguments presented in our analysis...

Drawing on qualitative interviews, the aim of this chapter is to analyse the gendered constructs and understandings that male Swedish mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes attach to their sport and the body in combat. Using a conceptual framework inspired by Bourdieu (transformational habitus) and by Ahmed (on lived emotions), the chapter presents an e...

This chapter focuses on the physical expressions and intensity embodiment that occur in the Ironman triathlon. More specifically, the chapter investigates the transformational bodily experiences taking place during Ironman competitions. Theoretically, it focuses on how triathletes’ bodies progress from a disciplined ethos, via the abject and animal...

The arguments presented in this chapter are based on an ethnographic study of bodybuilders. Through a carnal sociology, the chapter analyses the learning processes preceding a bodybuilding lifestyle and focus on how such a lifestyle is formed by specific and differentiated knowledge of and in the body. The chapter departs at the point at which know...

Departing from a qualitative research approach, this chapter focuses on Ironman triathletes and their family life. The main purpose of the chapter is to investigate how an elite amateur lifestyle is upheld and balanced with the demands of a sustainable family and social life. The results indicate that the process of becoming and staying an Ironman...

In the fourth part of the book, we focus on MMA as an extreme sport and increasingly growing phenomenon and physical enterprise culture in contemporary Western society. In this chapter, we, in a summarising and theoretical manner, discuss some key findings for our studies on the everyday life of MMA athletes and how they understand their sport. Amo...

When introduced in the 1990s, the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) was heavily criticized in public discourse, among politicians and within the international sports community. The sport was said to be violent and barbaric, and not a sport at all. Since the turn of the century, however, the development of the sport has been enormous and the cultura...

In this chapter, we will situate and contextualise the book in relation to a growing literature on the sociology of the body as well as relevant embodiment literature and theories found within a more carnalising sociology. An overview of different theories of the body is presented, as well as the researchers own ideas about the lived and the social...

This book investigates extreme sports, defined as sports in which athletes challenge and transgress societal perceptions of what is humanly possible to achieve, in terms of physical training and bodily development/performance. Situated within a growing body of literature analysing the impact of new training trends on an individual’s body, identity,...

This chapter directs our attention at the media and young people’s consumption. We are primarily interested in what key concepts can help us untangle young people’s ways of relating to and using the media. Initially, we will focus on more general changes and transformations in society and in the media industry. The recent media revolution has been...

This chapter explore the notion of plastic and transformable bodies. Using a wide range of examples, such as fitness, plastic surgery, and the makeover culture, we will explore the contemporary body project. A key question is also how education, class, and contemporary learning processes are contributing to forming young people’s relationships with...

This chapter recapitulates the theoretical discussions about subcultures and the strained relationships between subcultures and mainstream culture. We introduce the concept of a transitional space in order to bring together concepts from transition theories and cultural studies. By reading transitions in relation to subcultures and styles, we will...

This book provides an updated and fresh introduction to recent theoretical developments in youth studies. It expands upon these developments and introduces new discussions and perspectives. It presents three central theoretical traditions in youth studies, and explores the possibilities of redefining some of the central concepts, but also of combin...

The focus of this study is on the development of a globalised and localised gym and fitness culture. The article takes its point of departure from three distinct levels. These are (1) organisational aspects of the culture, (2) fitness professionals’ individual trajectories, and (3) national variations and gender regimes. The findings indicate that...

Drawing on qualitative interviews with Mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes and stakeholders, this study aims to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, MMA as a spectacle and imaginary world, and on the other, the fighters’ experiences of violence, pain and ‘the real’. Analytically, we are influenced by the literature on the spectacle...

The actions and behaviour among students in Swedish schools previously described as teasing, fighting and ‘school trouble’ have gradually come to be positioned and understood within a legal discourse. Self-assessment surveys conducted with students in grade nine, from 1995 onwards, do not, however, reveal any marked increase in violence among young...

The present study explores how officials in Swedish secondary schools define and categorize situations in which students have been exposed to violence in the school. The study is designed as a case study of two secondary schools, situated in two demographically different urban neighbourhoods. The results indicate that different socio-economic condi...

This study focuses on the physical expressions and intensity of embodiment that occur in the Ironman Triathlon. More specifically, the study investigates the transformational bodily experiences taking place during Ironman competitions. Using an ethnographic approach, a total of 29 Ironman triathletes participated in the study (15 men and 14 women)....

This paper examines Swedish secondary school’s strategies for supporting students who lack parental care, and what explanations school professionals use to describe and categorize this group of vulnerable students. The results indicate that students’ family backgrounds are central to the explanations given for social problems, as well as to how dif...

Socialpsykologi för förskolelärare!

Departing from a qualitative research approach, this article focuses on Swedish amateur Ironman triathletes and their family life. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how an elite amateur lifestyle is upheld and balanced with the demands of a sustainable family and social life. The results indicate that the process of becoming and staying an...