scholarly journals Are you content with being just ordinary? Or do you wish to make progress and be outstanding?' New ritual practices in contemporary Sweden

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 111-127
Author(s):  
Anne-Christine Hornborg
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
The Self ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
Ideal Self ◽  
Employment Service ◽  
Authentic Self ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Modern

This article examines the emergence and features of new practices in contemporary Sweden, which are being sold to individuals as therapy or coaching in order for them find their ‘inner potential’ as a means to achieve health, self-realisation and prosperity in life as well as in work. The focus on the inner self and the formation of a new personhood demands new ritual creativity, responding to the individual’s longing for intense experiences of transform­ation and the authentic self. The development of a new outlook on the self is thus the focus of these practices, that is to say, individuals are encouraged to stage new ways to perform themselves. In this construction of a new self, or the image of an ideal self, the layman therapist or coach is very much in demand. In order to discuss these new practices, the Health Academy Europe (Hälsoakademin Europa) is chosen. One reason for a closer study of this enterprise is that it was one of the coaching enterprises chosen in 2009 by the Swedish public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) to give employment coaching, when the Swedish government allocated 300 million euros to buy the services of 1,500 coaches to help approximately 250,000 unemployed Swedes to get work.These new practices could be classified as new rituals, adapted to late modern society with a focus on the individual, the inner self and prosperity. The ambition is to encourage the participant to design a new, empowered self in order to turn dreams into reality and to find hope for better circumstances in life.

scholarly journals Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Behaghel ◽  
Bruno Crépon ◽  
Thomas Le Barbanchon
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Experimental Program ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
Employment Service ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Selection Of

We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized résumés for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous résumés or name-bearing ones. We find that participating firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous résumés. We show how these unexpected results can be explained by the self-selection of firms into the program and by the fact that anonymization prevents the attenuation of negative signals when the candidate belongs to a minority. (JEL J15, J68, J71)

scholarly journals Politics of Makeover: Initiating Organisational Change and Positioning the Unemployed in a Swedish Reality TV Series

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Dahlstedt ◽  
Viktor Vesterberg
Keyword(s):  
Organisational Change ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
Employment Service ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
Individual Citizen ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Welfare Model

AbstractThis article reports on a reality TV series, Sweden’s best employment service, broadcast on Swedish public service television in 2018. The purpose was to investigate ongoing political transformations in the Swedish welfare model. The series focuses not only on unemployment, the unemployed and their life situation but more specifically on the organisation of the Swedish Public Employment Service (PES) as reflected at a local PES office. Informed by a cultural studies approach to the politics of popular culture, the aim of this article is to examine how the makeover is staged in the series. The article focuses on how the unemployed are positioned in the series in a setting of organisational change initiated at the local PES office. The analysis provides insights into how the makeover is staged and initiated in reality TV and illustrates how the unemployed are positioned as willing and able to work and to actively seek opportunities. The unemployed are not the primary target for the makeover in the series. The makeover is primarily directed at the organisation of the PES and its managers. Consequently, unemployment is presented in the series as not only a concern for the individual citizen but also for society. Nine o’clock on channel sixGet the beer and get the chipsDeath is live upon the screenIt’s reality TV!Tankard, R.T.V., 1994

Delivering Employment Services to Vulnerable Customers: A Case Study of the UK's Employment Service

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Stafford ◽  
Simon Roberts ◽  
Deirdre Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
Employment Service ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
Customer Services ◽  
Self Service ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the impact of a more individualised public employment service on vulnerable people. It analyses a system Jobcentre Plus implemented in 2008, Accessing Jobcentre Plus Customer Services (AJCS), to improve customer services by minimising ‘footfall’ in local offices, encouraging the use of self-service facilities and targeting service delivery to the requirements of customers. The article shows that certain vulnerable groups, notably people with disabilities, are not necessarily well served by the new system. The article highlights tensions between managing a large and complex service and addressing the individual needs of vulnerable members of society adequately.

Self, Indian theories of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.S. Rukmani
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Spiritual Energy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Ultimate Principle ◽  
Ultimate Nature

Hindu thought traces its different conceptions of the self to the earliest extant Vedic sources composed in the Sanskrit language. The words commonly used in Hindu thought and religion for the self are jīva (life), ātman (breath), jīvātman (life-breath), puruṣa (the essence that lies in the body), and kṣetrajña (one who knows the body). Each of these words was the culmination of a process of inquiry with the purpose of discovering the ultimate nature of the self. By the end of the ancient period, the personal self was regarded as something eternal which becomes connected to a body in order to exhaust the good and bad karma it has accumulated in its many lives. This self was supposed to be able to regain its purity by following different spiritual paths by means of which it can escape from the circle of births and deaths forever. There is one more important development in the ancient and classical period. The conception of Brahman as both immanent and transcendent led to Brahman being identified with the personal self. The habit of thought that tried to relate every aspect of the individual with its counterpart in the universe (Ṛg Veda X. 16) had already prepared the background for this identification process. When the ultimate principle in the subjective and objective spheres had arrived at their respective ends in the discovery of the ātman and Brahman, it was easy to equate the two as being the same spiritual ‘energy’ that informs both the outer world and the inner self. This equation had important implications for later philosophical growth. The above conceptions of the self-identity question find expression in the six systems of Hindu thought. These are known as āstikadarśanas or ways of seeing the self without rejecting the authority of the Vedas. Often, one system or the other may not explicitly state their allegiance to the Vedas, but unlike Buddhism or Jainism, they did not openly repudiate Vedic authority. Thus they were āstikadarśanas as opposed to the others who were nāstikadarśanas. The word darśana for philosophy is also significant if one realizes that philosophy does not end with only an intellectual knowing of one’s self-identity but also culminates in realizing it and truly becoming it.

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