Title of Docent and Associate Professor in Social work with responsibility for PhD postgraduate education and the higher seminar series at the department
I work in the role as Associate Professor and hold a title of Docent in Social Work. A particular field of responsibility alongside own research and teaching is the PhD postgraduate education and the higher seminar series at the department.
My research is focused on making the views of older people and attitudes towards ageing visible. These are challenges sometimes expressed in terms of (middle) aged paranoia or age discrimination. The subject is known in terms of ageism since the late 1960-ies in academic contexts and late 1990-ies to a higher extent in Swedish societal debate. The challenge is meaningful since it is both difficult to reliably investigate what ageism actually is and since an increasing number of scholarly publications have shown that it affects peoples´ physical as well as mental health.
My participation in ongoing studies aim to find out if ageism is of importance for social participation, in situations in which older persons partake in high intensity training, for persons in the role as caretaker of close relatives and for older peoples´ excessive use of alcohol. The research is conducted together with other researchers mainly within the GERDA research collaboration initiative and with other researchers from other Faculties. My teaching at the Social Work program partly aims to spark the students´ curiosity of ageism since their thoughts about their own ageing probably is meaningful for their choice of future professional careers and whether to work with older people or not. Social Work in a wider sense requires raising age-awareness since the prevalence and character of social problems increases and changes as a consequence of populations ageing.
It is particularly heart-warming to communicate ageism research to a wider society outside academia. It has been and continues to be of value to raise awareness by writing debate articles in daily press, give lectures for pensioner organizations nationally as well as in other countries, give lectures at venues such as the Umeå municipal “Seniortorget” and when the occasion is offered to communicate ageism research through different media channels.
My academic career so far includes a licentiates degree in Social Policy from Åbo Akademi University in Finland in 2005. I defended my PhD thesis in Social Work at Umeå University in Sweden in 2009. During the years 2012-2013 I was employed at the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki in Finland. During the years 2014-2018 I was one of the Swedish representatives in the European ageism research network IS1402 – Ageism – a multi-national, interdisciplinary perspective.
