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Formålet med denne artikel er at få introduceret begrebet »health literacy« (sundhedskompetencer på dansk) for en sociologisk interesseret læserskare. Begrebet har de seneste år fået større international bevågenhed i forskerkredse, hos World Health Organisation (WHO) og blandt sundhedsmyndighederi flere europæiske lande. Interessen blandt danske sundhedsmyndigheder er imidlertid meget beskeden, og der har hovedsageligt været et fokus i forskningen og begrebsudviklingen fra sundhedsfaglige forskere.Sundhedskompetencer betragtes som en »social determinant« i sundhed, der kan bidrage til at få reduceret den sociale ulighed i sundhed de kommende år. Det er min overbevisning at sociologiske teorier og analyser kunne bidrage til en gunstig videreudvikling af begrebet i de kommende år. I artiklen argumenteres der for at begrebet bør indlejres i sociologisk teori og forstås som en »sociokulturel« ressource sundhed fremfor som en individuel, rationel adfærd med fokus på det enkelte individs evne til at finde, forstå, vurdere og anvende sundhedsinformationer. Dette fokus har fyldt mest i den eksisterende begrebsudvikling.Bourdieus kapitalinteraktioner og særligt social og kulturel kapital kobles med Cockerhams kollektive livsstilsteori og bidrager med en forståelse af sundhedskompetencer som en sociokulturel ressource i sundhed. Artiklen inddrager resultater fra forskellige empiriske studier af, hvordan sundhedskompetencer spredes i sociale netværk, og hvordan kulturel kapital og kollektiv livsstil påvirker sundhedskompetencer.

The German Sociologist Ulrich Beck is best known for his book "Risk Society" which has been discussed extensively; however Beck's claims about modern poverty have not received the same attention among poverty researchers. The individualization perspective views poverty as a relatively transient phenomenon and the democratization perspective views the risk of poverty as spread equally in the population. Both perspectives challenge the mainstream tradition of class analysis, and therefore both view poverty as largely independent of traditional stratification factors. In this article, I argue that Beck's thesis about the individualization and democratization of poverty is based on narrow income based definitions and that (possible) empirical verification depends on the definitions of poverty and approaches used to examine poverty. My analyses show that the dynamic perspective (using income as measure of poverty) largely supports the democratization of poverty. But my other analyses of relative poverty and social exclusion do not support Beck's argument.

Carsten Kronborg Bak:
Democratisation of poverty: an analysis of dynamic poverty studies

The German Sociologist Ulrich Beck is best known for his book about "Risk Society" which has been discussed extensively; however Beck's claims about modern poverty have not received the same attention among poverty researchers. The individualization perspective views poverty as a relatively transient phenomenon and the democratisation perspective views the risk of poverty as spread equally in the population. Both perspectives challenge the mainstream tradition of class analysis, and therefore both view poverty as largely independent of traditional stratification factors. In this article, I argue that Beck's thesis about the democratisation of poverty is based on narrow income based definitions and that (possible) empirical verification depends on the definitions of poverty and approaches used to examine poverty. My analyses show that the dynamic perspective (using income as measure of poverty) largely supports the democratisation of poverty. But my other analyses of relative poverty and social exclusion do not support Beck's argument.

We live in a modern society where working life both is a source to identity and wealth and at the same time occupy our time and energy. But how is it to be unemployed and excluded from this working community? And why is it so hard to reintegrate people at the labour market? Based on theory of social exclusion these questions are explored by analysing socially vulnerable citizens' everyday lives and the complex social problems that have been accumulated through out their lives. We demonstrate how these accumulated risk profiles create barriers to be included in working life and often involves a high degree of marginalisation.