School's Treatment of "Honour-related" Violence

Abstract

In the wake of two high-profile murders in 1999 and 2002, which involved the killing of two young women of Kurdish background by close family members, the situation of and the victimisation experienced by “immigrant girls” in their families has been transformed into an important issue in Sweden. The murders came to bo defined as “honour murders” and the situation showed that there was an acute need for conrete measures to combat this violence. The project analysis the Swedish school system´s efforts to combat “honour-related” violence. The study is ethnographic and the empirical material is based on interviews with student welfare staff at different compulsury schools and colleges of further education. There are also some participant observations at study days focused on “honour-related” violence. An important result is that the violence is understood as related to the Other, located to a “traditional” and “patriarchal” culture. A consequence of this is that the violence is homogenized. That will say the violcene is attributed to clear-cut explanations and signs, which makes alternative explanations and interpretations invisible. “Honour-related” violence is distinguished and separated from other gender-based violence, whereby whole groups will be stigmatized as victims or perpetrators of violence.

Keywords

Ethnicity, Gender, Nation and Nationalism, Honour-Violence, School

Publications

Gruber, Sabine (2007). I skolans vilja att åtgärda “hedersrelaterat” våld: etnicitet, kön och våld. Centrum för kommunstrategiska studier, Rapport 2007:1. Linköping: Linköpings universitet

Gruber, Sabine (2011). Nationella föreställningar och gränser i skolans insatser mot ‘hedersrelasterat’ våld. Nordisk Pedagogik, (in press).

Gruber, Sabine (2011). I namn av heder. Kontinuitet och variation i skolans fostran till svenskhet. I: Fostran av framtidens medborgare. Normer och praktiker bortom välfärdsstaten. Lund: Sekels förlag (forthcoming).