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The aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of the disability category in Swedish welfare policies. The paper seeks to focus on two cases that illustrate how the social dimension in the understanding of disability permitted the inclusion of individuals, previously considered as “unwanted strangers”, in the Swedish welfare context. The first case is that of refugees classified as unfit for work after the Second World War. The second deals with the Roma groups who obtained the right of formal Swedish citizenship during the same period.

The analysis is based on data collected during two research projects. The first concerning the Roma policy of the Swedish Government from 1880 to 1970, primarily based on the analysis of public documents collected in the Swedish National Archives, including government reports and accompanying background material. The second research project deals with the development of an institutionalised reception of refugees by the Swedish welfare services after the Second World War. This research mainly uses documents produced during the international negotiations dealing with refugees interned in different camps in Europe and related documents in the Swedish National Archives related to the history of the organised reception of refugees in Sweden. In the case of refugees, the analysis focuses on the construction of disability in the classification system of the international refugee camps and in the organised reception of these refugees in Sweden. In the case of Swedish Roma, the analysis focuses upon the construction of social disability both in the arguments elaborated by Swedish authorities for the inclusion of Roma and in the practical organisation of their inclusion in the Swedish welfare system.

The paper provides insights about the crucial importance on the disability category in the organisation of Swedish social welfare after the Second World War. The policies developed raise important questions about basic requisites to obtain citizenship and also call into question the unequal conditions of citizenship. The case of Swedish Roma and the refugees interned in international camps illustrated how changing perceptions of poverty and deviance were strongly influenced by medical representations of disease and disability. Disability, previously perceived as a principally medical category with social consequences, now acquired a social dimension that enabled new refugees and Roma groups to be considered as members of the nation state.

This paper is primarily descriptive. Further research is needed in order to develop a better understanding of how the social dimension of disability is constructed and how this social dimension was used to include new groups. The contents focus on the emergence of new social policies in Sweden after the Second World War; further research should focus on how these policies and processes still have a considerable influence on present policies and representations on migrants and Roma groups.

The paper provides important insights on taken for granted representations in Swedish welfare authorities' work with refugees and Roma groups. The institutionalised representation of Roma and refugee groups as disabled probably is an obstacle in the social incorporation of these groups.

Based on two cases the paper discusses how the concept of social disability, with its origins in medical sciences, was adopted by the Swedish welfare authorities and applied to groups considered deviants. In later policies the authorities widened social disability to include culture and ethnicity. Refugees and Roma groups classified as disabled were treated according to established practises created for people classified as unable to be incorporated into a “normal” social life.

In recent years, the use of dating and hook up apps has become an increasingly socially acceptable and commonly used method of seeking romantic and sexual partners. This has seen a corresponding rise in media and crime reports of sexual harms facilitated through these services, including sexual harassment, unsolicited sexual imagery, and sexual assault. Emerging empirical research shows that experiences of sexual harms in this context are common and predominantly impact women and girls. The aim of this chapter is to examine the sociocultural and sexual norms that underpin online dating and which perpetuate a “rape culture” within which sexual harms become both possible and normalized. This chapter also considers how the discourses that minimize and legitimize sexual harms are encoded within the responses undertaken by dating and hook up apps to sexual harms. It is argued that together these norms and discourses may act to facilitate and/or prevent sexual harms, and may normalize and excuse these harms when they occur.

Drawing on accounts from 22 lesbian couples with children conceived using donor insemination, this chapter explores how the respondents’ selection of parent terms, such as “momma” and “mommy,” influences day-to-day negotiation of parenthood. Term selection was affected by personal meanings respondents associated with terms as well as how they anticipated terms would be publicly received. Couples utilized personalized meanings associated with terms, such as terms used by families of origin or reflected in a parent’s cultural background, to help non-biological mothers feel comfortable and secure in their parenting identities. Some families also avoided terms that non-biological mothers associated too strongly with biological motherhood and felt uncomfortable using for themselves. Families also considered whether parent terms, and subsequently their relationships to their children, would be recognizable to strangers or cause undue scrutiny to their family. However, not all of the families selected terms that were easily decipherable by strangers and had to negotiate moments in which the personal meanings and public legibility of terms came into conflict. Overall, these accounts illustrate the importance of parent terms for lesbian-parent families, and other nontraditional families, as a family practice negotiating both deeply personal meanings surrounding parent–child relationships and how these terms, and the families, are normatively recognizable in public spaces.

Research examining young people’s experiences of harassment has tended to focus on the school and digital environment. Despite street harassment being identified as a common experience for adult women, very few studies have explored adolescents’ experiences of street harassment. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A person-centred analytical approach, based on experienced reporting, was used to create a typology of street harassment. The reports of street harassment were received from 118 (68 female, 43 male, no gender reported in 7) 11-15-year olds over a 6-8 week period.

Cluster analysis revealed four distinct groups: “predominately verbal”, “non-verbal/non-direct”, “other incident”, and “all forms”. Young women and those in the “all forms” group reported experiencing greater negative emotions following the episode of street harassment. Young men were equally as likely as young women to report experiencing street harassment.

The findings uniquely highlight that adolescents experience distinct types of street harassment, some of which are associated with negative emotions.

Social engineering is crucial in today’s digital landscape. As technology advances, malicious individuals exploit human judgment and trust. This study explores how age, education and occupation affect individuals’ awareness, skills and perceptions of social engineering.

A quantitative research approach was used to survey a diverse demographic of Egyptian society. The survey was conducted in February 2023, and the participants were sourced from various Egyptian social media pages covering different topics. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including independent samples t-test and ANOVA, to compare awareness and skills across different groups.

The study revealed that younger individuals and those with higher education tend to research social engineering more frequently. Males display a higher level of awareness but score lower in terms of social and psychological consequences as well as types of attacks when compared to females. The type of attack cannot be predicted based on age. Higher education is linked to greater awareness and ability to defend against attacks. Different occupations have varying levels of awareness, skills, and psychosocial consequences. The study emphasizes the importance of increasing awareness, education and implementing cybersecurity measures.

This study’s originality lies in its focus on diverse Egyptian demographics, innovative recruitment via social media, comprehensive exploration of variables, statistical rigor, practical insights for cybersecurity education and diversity in educational and occupational backgrounds.

THE new library building has been open for six months now. It is pleasantly situated in an area of new buildings, and occupies a prominent island site just on the edge of the shopping centre. The old library was in the middle of a shopping area, and it has been interesting to note that our removal from that site has had a more considerable effect on the traffic pattern than one would have thought.

Interactive media strategies and digital tools have enabled advertisers to target children with promotional offers and creative appeals.

Based on theories related to metaphors in advertisements, cognitive comprehension by children, promotional appeals, and presentation techniques, the research for this study comprised a content analysis of 1,980 online banner advertisements with reference to use of metaphors, promotional appeals, creative content, and selling techniques.

The research study concludes that online advertising to children, in contrast to traditional advertising vehicles, is characterized by (a) a vibrant visual metaphor, (b) surfeit of animated content, (c) interactive features, (d) myriad product types, and (e) creative content for a mixed audience of adults and children.

This study argues that the impact and content of the Internet as a new advertising medium are distinctly different from traditional characteristics of television and print.

Purpose: This chapter outlines a cultural critique of the Gangsta as an exemplary figure to investigate the performance of social media identity. The main goal of the chapter is to illustrate some of the implications that social media have on the contemporary dramatization of the criminal, here framed as a collective techno-cultural process at the threshold between social stigma and branding. Despite using the term “Gangsta,” the author’s intent is not to “fix” this figure as an identity or a class of people, but rather to identify a broad cultural context that emerges from a glocalized hip-hop imaginary, stemming from gangsta rap and evolving alongside trap and drill.

Methodology/approach: The contribution is not intended as an empirical sociological study, but a critical cultural exploration of convergent media that bring together a glocalized gang culture and everyday social media interactions. In the second section, the author outlines his theoretical framework by identifying a point of convergence between recent studies of Instagram celebrities and criminological takes on the selective nature of gang identity. The author also explores the relationship between the “dissing,” a cultural form that is very relevant to the more aggressive sub-genres of rap, and the practice of tagging, a key affordance of social media platforms. In so doing, the author frames social media tagging as a form of identity labeling.

Findings: In light of the theory previously outlined, the author explains how tagging is used alternately to enforce social stigma and engage in recursive branding. The final section examines the aforementioned forms of tagging more in detail, in relation to specific media ecologies of YouTube videos that feature compilations of Instagram Stories originally posted by emerging Italian rappers.

Research limitations: Although it is aimed at offering an interdisciplinary contribution, this chapter adopts an admittedly media-focused perspective. Rather than producing more evidence about the use of social media by gangs, the author comments on existing sociological insight in relation to the affordances and esthetics of social media ecologies, re-problematizing certain forms of online interaction.

Originality/value: By focusing on the commonplace practice of tagging in relation to the figure of the Gangsta, the author emphasizes how online labeling practices can be more fraught that they appear, emphasizing the need for further critical reflections on the stereotyping potential of social media branding practices.