Inclusion and Participation in a Support Programme for Bereaved Adolescents – Relational Perspectives From an Ethnographic Field Study in a Swedish Context

Abstract

The death of a parent is a life-changing event, and different programmes are developed to support children. This study explored how parental bereaved adolescents were included and (inter)acted in a Swedish support programme. The conducted ethnographic field study included six adolescents, their parents, and eight volunteers. The empirical material was thematically analysed through a theoretical lens inspired by Bourdieu. Three themes emerged: ‘ Different strategies for adolescents’ inclusion in the programme,’ ‘ Medico-psychological understanding of grief and suffering,’ and ‘ Reproduction of the logic of the school.’ Adolescents were included in the programme through different strategies, where adults functioned as gatekeepers. The programme reproduced the school logic and was based on a medico-psychological grief/bereavement understanding. Volunteers had pedagogic authority and concomitant symbolic power, ruling adolescents to do what they must do in the meetings, silently socialising them into the medical logic. The adolescents only interacted and communicated with each other during breaks.