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While research on youthful drinking is extensive, the literature has been geographically skewed towards urban settings. As a potential corrective to this, our focus in this paper is on youthful drinking in rural Denmark. Based on 22 in-depth interviews with young drinkers, this paper explores the drinking practices of rural youth. More specifically, drawing on Antonsich's [2010. "Searching for belonging–an analytical framework." Geography Compass 4 (6): 644–659] notion of place-belongingness, we examine how sentiments of belonging relate to locally embedded drinking practices. We highlight the extent to which rural drinking places are characterized by the participation of young men, whose educational and professional aims are predominantly tied to the local community and activities within it. In so doing, we show that these contexts are primarily associated with 'drinking a single', as opposed to drinking to intoxication like their urban peers. We argue further that these 'lighter' but frequent forms of alcohol use, which we term 'congenial drinking', are related to accomplishments of place-belongingness and stand out as a gendered, classed and place-bound phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown an increase in the experience of educational pressure among students in contemporary Western societies and also, in their use of pharmaceuticals, for enhancement purposes. Based on qualitative interviews with 60 Danish students conducted in 2016, this article analyses student narratives about their use of pharmaceuticals to meet the expectations they experience in the educational settings. Though many students find pharmaceuticals useful, interesting gender differences exist regarding their motives and legitimations of use, and regarding pharmaceuticals of choice. By using two paradigmatic, narrative cases the article suggests that a 'male strategy' of augmentation is more in accordance with the overall requirement to perform and succeed in the 'performance society' than a 'female strategy' of normalisation. The article argues that there may be a parallel between the increasing numbers of women in Danish society diagnosed with stress and anxiety, the media representations of achieving women being more vulnerable than men, and the gender differences in pharmaceutical use. The paper aims to contribute to a nuanced discussion of the relations between educational pressure, gender and use of pharmaceuticals for enhancement purposes in contemporary Western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on two in-depth stories of an Arab-Danish Muslim woman and an Arab-Danish Muslim man to explore how they 'do gender' when 'doing care' for their elderly parents in their everyday lives. Analysis of ethnographic material reveals that for the Arab-Danish Muslim woman, 'doing care' is regarded as a right which provides her with the opportunity to become irreplaceable and enables her to realize herself. In her self-realization, it is argued, lies a reproduction of gendered understanding of caregiving that seems to prevent the Muslim man from performing the desired role as caregiver, leaving him to struggle with the entrenched gender norms and structured ideals of masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimism that accompanies the voyage into social science-related fieldwork is sometimes confronted by the 'unanticipated' of the field, which surges out of a perceived (in)congruence between the researcher and the settings of the site of fieldwork. Using theoretical framings from Pierre Bourdieu, I show how my habitus as a 'Black African Male' was perceived in a field of research that is both racialized and gendered, accounting for the several surprising and awkward moments that marked my fieldwork in Denmark and New Zealand. I begin by showing how the origins of migration studies effected the racialized composition of this field of scholarship, as well as its subsequent gendered turn. I then present my sites of fieldwork and the several encounters of the 'unanticipated' that engendered fieldwork reflexivity, especially as regards the unequal power relations existing in various sites of research engagements. I suggest a few fieldwork navigation strategies for researchers with comparable identities and lastly recommend that fieldwork's awkward moments engendered by stereotypes of race and gender be made productive by way of 'creative confrontations'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how municipal care managers negotiate tensions in policy logics and state discourses in encounters with ethnic minority families in Denmark. It focuses on the "self-appointed helper arrangement", an option in the Danish Social Service Act under which municipalities can employ family members to care for older citizen at home. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine the consequences of this care arrangement from the perspective of care managers, focusing on gender dynamics and state-family divides in need assessments and care provision. I demonstrate how care managers slip in and out of their roles as administrators, health professionals and morally concerned citizens in encounters with different caregivers. While they focus mainly on equal access to care for all older citizens, sometimes they shift perspective and focus more on the wellbeing of the self-appointed helper in question. These shifts in moral registers are triggered by empathetic encounters with young ethnic minority women. However, care managers' empathy is double-sided and ambivalent. Although striving to undo difference and include these women in a community of independent Danish female citizens, they also tend to place them and their families in a different category than the majority population and thus risk further marginalizing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nordic universalist welfare states place great value on promoting gender equality among immigrant minorities. Yet, as this article demonstrates, there is a tension in the Danish asylum regime between the gender mainstreaming objective that is prominent in the integration discourse and policy and the actual practices of migrant camp employees tasked with activation and preparing asylum seekers for integration into Denmark. Based on four extracts from a qualitative study of the Danish 'activation' program for adult asylum seekers, this study identifies the lack of structural and social support for familial care work as the main barrier to the equal access of women to the program's activities (education and vocational training). I find that the objective of gender equality is thwarted by two primary frames: exceptionalism and bureaucratization. These intersect to reinforce 'traditional' gender roles and exclude asylum-seeking women with dependent relatives from out-of-home activities. The findings add to our understanding of how migrant women are excluded from citizenship through subtle and complex forms of power at play in cross-cultural encounters between migrant women and welfare state employees who are individualizing the responsibility for women's success or failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a study examining the self-perceived roles of journalists covering the #MeToo movement in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on qualitative interviews with journalists, editors and activists (N = 20) and participant observation at various #MeToo events, we examine the professional journalism cultures underpinning differences in the coverage and the broader public debate spurred by the movement in the two countries. The analysis is informed by the theoretical framework of role performance [Mellado, C. 2015. "Professional Roles in News Content: Six Dimensions of Journalistic Role Performance". Journalism Studies. ; Mellado, C., L. Hellmueller, and W. Donsbach. 2016. Journalistic Role Performance Concepts, Contexts, and Methods. Routledge) in combination with Tuchman's (1972. "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual". American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–679) seminal work on "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual". This combined framework enables an analysis of how journalists negotiate ideals of objective reporting and activist imperatives when covering the movement and issues of gender (in)equality more broadly. Our study shows that journalists, to a varying degree, felt torn between ideals of impartiality and objectivity and ideals of active reporting oriented towards action and problem-solving but that these experiences differed between the two countries and between newsrooms. We discuss these findings in light of differences in the political climates around issues related to gender in the two countries and partially diverging normative ideals and professional journalistic cultures regarding the extent to which journalism and activism can and should be combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, grassroots disability movements in many countries changed the thinking around disability and disability politics. Nonetheless, they were also part of larger political upheavals in the western world. How were they inspired by the socialist, feminist, and gay and lesbian movements? In addition, how did they relate to non-disabled allies? Organisations in Denmark and Sweden are investigated and compared to early disability-rights movements in the United Kingdom. Independently of each other, all groups developed materialist models, although only in Sweden and the United Kingdom did this lead to a linguistic distinction between 'impairment' and 'disability'. Danish activists would rather use provocative language, while developing a social understanding of disability. They were also the only ones to discuss gender and sexuality. There are more similarities than differences between the movements, although the Danish specificities contributed to improvements in how Danes with disabilities can develop a positive sex life. In the 1970s, new political ideas grew about ways of living, equality between the sexes, gay and lesbian rights, and sexual freedom. New groups started to talk about how to understand disability. This article investigates whether the new disability groups in Denmark and Sweden talked about these ideas and whether they involved non-disabled people. Danish and Swedish disability groups are compared to early disability rights organisations in the United Kingdom. The Danish and Swedish disability groups were more open to non-disabled members than groups in the United Kingdom. The article also found that the Danish group discussed sexuality a lot. In Sweden and the United Kingdom, the disability groups did not talk about sex at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study draws on the concept of cultural capital to determine whether the cultural capital of students is related to their perceptions of classroom interactions, specifically teacher–student feedback practices. The analysis of new data in 'Feedback and Cultural Capital,' a Danish survey of feedback practices among 14-year-old and 15-year-old students (N = 1101), showed a positive and practically linear relationship between the cultural capital of the students and the amount of feedback they perceived in lower secondary mathematics classrooms. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in education, I argue that this inequality stems from either or both of two mechanisms: differences in treatment by teachers and/or differences in the perceptions of students. I link both mechanisms to the cultural capital of the students. Furthermore, the results indicate that the relationship was stronger for boys than for girls. The implications of the findings for practice and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark, primarily among Iraqi women and secondarily among Iraqi men who are either direct or indirect victims of torture, I explore how the memories of torture are distributed in the everyday lives of Danish families originating from Iraq. I argue that torture is folded into kin histories and the everyday work of bearing and resisting painful memories. Consequently, torture affects not only the mental and physical health of the singular survivor, but also the entire texture of kin relatedness around him or her, to the extent that kinship normativity may be disrupted. Leaning on the metaphor of a rugged cloth, I conclude by arguing that the way in which torture makes and unmakes kin relatedness congeals in what I term tattered textures of kinship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the dynamics of ‘cultural difference’. It is based on the fieldwork among a group of Danish seniors at a three-week adult education course entitled ‘Global Citizenship’ in Tanzania with the Danish NGO Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke. The article analyses encounters between the Danes and their Tanzanian teachers. The article explores the training centre Danish, which hosted the course, as a chronotope in which ‘being Danish’ holds special meaning, and analyses how gender became a lens for depicting culture. The article concludes that normative hierarchical positionalities of gender equality vs. inequality were created in the interplay between students and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Pyelonephritis is a common infection in childhood and may cause renal scarring. The aim was to determine an effective oral antibiotic treatment of first time pyelonephritis in children. Methods:The study is a retrospective analysis of positive urine cultures collected at a Danish paediatric department from 2010–2013. Urine samples from 378 children aged 0–15.9 years, without renal anomalies and treated for first time pyelonephritis, were included. The urine pathogens and antimicrobial susceptibilities were analysed. Results:The most common aetiologic agents found wereEscherichia coli(85%),Klebsiellaspecies and other Enterobacteriaecea (9.7%) andEnterococcusspecies (5.3%).Escherichia coliwas significantly more common in girls than in boys (90% vs 74%,p < 0.001) and in children older than 6 months (89% vs 77%,p < 0.001). Children younger than 6 months had a higher prevalence of other Gram-negative rods (16% vs 7%,p < 0.001). These differences may be due to boys representing 63% of patients in the youngest age group compared to 16% of older children (p < 0.001). For all urine isolates, piv-mecillinam and amoxicillin-clavulanate had the lowest resistance rates of 6.9% and 7.2%, respectively, and 6% for both antimicrobials in patients older than 6 months. Uropathogens from boys above 6 months of age were more resistant to piv-mecillinam compared to girls (25% vs 2.4%,p < 0.001). Conclusion:This study recommends piv-mecillinam or amoxicillin-clavulanate as empirical treatment of first time pyelonephritis in Danish children from 6 months of age. Age and gender of patients should be taken into consideration when initiating empirical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective:This study aims to describe the determinants related to gender differences in the GP utilization in Danish population aged 50–65 years. Design:Cohort-based cross-sectional study. Setting:Danish general practice. Subjects:Totally, 54,849 participants of the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort (50–65 years). Main outcome measures:The sum of cohort members’ face-to-face consultations with general practitioner (GP) at the cohort baseline year (1993–1997). We obtained data on GP visits from the Danish National Health Service Register at the cohort baseline (1993–1997), when information on lifestyle (smoking, body mass index (BMI), alcohol use, physical activity), medical conditions (somatic and mental), employment, education, gravidity, and hormone therapy (HT) use was collected by questionnaire. Results:Women had on average 4.1 and men 2.8 consultations per year. In a crude model, women had 47% higher rate of GP visits than men (incidence rate ratio: 1.47; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.45–1.50), which remained unchanged after adjustment for lifestyle, socio-demographic and medical factors, but attenuated to 18% (1.18; 1.13–1.24) after adjustment for female factors (gravidity and post-menopausal HT. In a fully adjusted model, subjects with hypertension (1.63; 1.59–1.67), mental illness (1.63; 1.61–1.66), diabetes (1.56; 1.47–1.65), angina pectoris (1.28; 1.21–1.34), and unemployed persons (1.19; 1.18–1.21) had highest rates of GP visits. Conclusions:Gravidity and HT use explain a large proportion, but not all of the gender difference in GP utilization. Medical conditions (somatic and mental) and unemployment are the main determinants of GP utilization in men and women, while lifestyle has minor effect.Key pointsFemale gender remained a dominant determinant of GP utilization, after adjustment for lifestyle, socio-demography, medical and gender specific factors, with females consulting their GP 18% more often than males.Female reproductive factors (use of postmenopausal hormone therapy and gravidity) explained a large proportion of the gender variation in use of GP.Strongest determinants for GP use among Danish adults aged 50–65 years were the presence of medical conditions (somatic and mental) and unemployment, while lifestyle factors (e.g., body mass index, alcohol consumption and smoking) had minor effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The last two decades have seen an increasing political concern in the high dropout rates and low performance in education of boys compared to girls – at times in the form of a ‘moral panic’. This has also been the case in Denmark where ‘the boy problem’ in education now is placed high on the agenda of education policy. The purpose of this article is to examine this ‘boy problem’ in relation to the dual system of vocational education and training (VET) in Denmark. By considering the gender divisions and the value of the VET programmes on the labour market, it explores what kind of problems boys have in VET. Secondly, it explores the role of VET for students at risk of dropping out based on individual qualitative interviews with 106 students, two-thirds male, attending vocational schools in Denmark. The analyses show that most students experience the dual system of VET as a valuable alternative to general education, but social and institutional processes of differentiation in the vocational schools place a significant group of students in a position where they have little chance of completing the programme. In the conclusion, some reflections are made on the effect of a recent reform of VET in relation to these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Traditionally, football and fandom have been male domains and celebrations of masculinity. So far there has been some sociological and historical research on women's football; however, little is known about women's fandom, in particular about its formation and development. This article focuses on the historical development of a Danish women-only fan group called ‘The Female Vikings’, which support a professional football club, Lyngby Boldklub (BK), in a city north of Copenhagen. The article explores the backgrounds and motivations of female fans, as well as their ways of staging femininity in a man's world. Drawing on available information about football and fans in Denmark, we have reconstructed the developments of both Lyngby BK and its supporters. Special focus was placed on the histories and cultures as well as the experiences of female fans in this club. Insights into the foundation of the women's fan group were provided by problem-centred interviews which also contained open questions. The foundation and activities of the Female Vikings show how women can perform gender in the fan's stands and how they play a significant role in the fan movement. The interviews also reveal the loyalty of the female fans during the club's ‘crisis’ and their ‘collective memories’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]