Department of Social Work, ASA

At the Department of Social Work (ASA), teaching and research are primarly conducted in the field of social work. The subject deals with the living conditions of vulnerable people, the causes of social problems, and the design of interventions to alleviate social problems.

Department of Social work

Thorbjörn Ahlgren
Monika Allgurin
Staffan Bengtsson
Disa Bergnehr
Agnetha Borell
Klas Borell
Pia Bülow
Anneli Edin
Aimée Ekman
Helena Engkvist
Arne Gerdner
Mats Granlund
Nina Gunnarsson
Malin Johansson
David Johansson
Diana Kajic
Torbjörn Kalin
Sandra Lindström
Tina Olsson
Roger Sandberg
Michael Sjökvist
Mikael Skillmark
Pernilla Stark Burensjö
Nina Åkerlund
Frida Åström

Visiting address: Barnarpsgatan 39, Jönköping
Postal address: School of Health and Welfare, ASA, Box 1026, 551 11 Jönköping
Fax: 036 - 10 12 22

Head of Department:
Thorbjörn Ahlgren

Deputy Head of Department:
Nina Åkerlund

Program Manager, Socionom Program:
Agnetha Borell

Program Manager Student Affairs at the Socionom Program:

Roger Sandberg

Program coordinator for the Master's and Master's program in Social Work:

Nina Gunnarsson

Program manager Child Interventions:

Staffan Bengstsson and Nina Gunnarsson

Thorbjörn Ahlgren, PhD in Social Work, has previously worked as a social worker with children, adolescents and families in outpatient and institutional care. His research is about social services' efforts to children and their families, supervision in social work, but mainly about following children who are harmed by extensive lack of care and behavioral problems within the framework of the research project LoRDIA and LoRDYA. Thorbjörn is head of department at the Division of Social Work.

Monika Allgurin, Professor of Social Work. Her research and teaching focuses on social inequalities, especially gender and age. She works from a discourse and narrative perspective. Monika has experience of researching in different countries, such as Japan, Poland, Sweden and the UK.

Staffan Bengtsson, PhD, is a senior lecturer in social work. Bengtsson's research focuses on disability with a particular emphasis on cultural norms and values linked to social policy and to a wider societal context. Staffan is, together with his colleague Nina Gunnarsson, program manager for Child Interventions.

Agnetha Borell, is a social worker and master's degree in social work, licensed health care counselor and basic psychotherapist with a focus on CBT. She is the program manager for the social work program, is a lecturer in social work and has also been tasked with coordinating and responsible for the main part of the School of Health and Welfare's curriculum for interprofessional learning (IPL), which today includes an introduction to IPL, improvement knowledge and a clinical teaching clinic that has been developed in collaboration with the medical program at Linköping University over the past two years. The interprofessional teaching now also includes elements on domestic violence. Parts of the School of Health and Welfare's IPL teaching are given in collaboration with organizations outside the university, such as regional and municipal activities. As a lecturer, Agnetha teaches communication and psychology, mainly in the socionom program. Since January 2022, Agnetha is also one of the members of Educate, the university's pedagogical center and active as a university pedagogical developer.

The driving force for Agnetha as a university teacher is to include students with different backgrounds and enable all students - and teachers - to have opportunities to develop and learn new insights and skills. This includes developing higher education pedagogical methods and approaches that enable higher education teachers to design and develop courses where all students' abilities are included but with high quality.

Klas Borell, is a senior professor in sociology and social work. His research has often touched on issues that lie at the intersection of the disciplines of sociology and social work, such as social exclusion and social conflict, integration issues, the social significance of religion and changes in family life.

Borell leads the SimChild training project, an interactive computer-based simulation of child welfare investigations. In the simulation, participants - both students from the basic social work program and professional social workers - are given the opportunity to be realistically confronted with problematic choices and decision consequences,

Klas Borell received his PhD in sociology from Uppsala University in 1989 with the thesis Disciplinary Strategies (new edition 2004). He has previously worked at Uppsala University and Mid Sweden University. He has also been a visiting professor and visiting researcher at several universities in the United States and at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, the University of Turin, Italy, and the Swedish Institute in Istanbul, Turkey.

Klas Borell participates actively in international sociological and other social science associations, is often hired as an expert by international journals and book publishers and has been a member of several review panels at Swedish research councils. Klas Borell was editor of the Swedish Sociological Association's journal Sociologisk Forskning during the years 2012-2014 .

Pernilla Stark Burensjö is an assistant professor, MA in social work, sociologist and teaches in the sociology program.

Pia H. Bülow is a professor of social work. Her research and teaching focuses on conversations in and about welfare and is based on empirical data such as: institutional meetings, interviews, focus groups and documents. Bülow mainly uses analysis of social interaction and narratives.

Anneli Edin, social worker and Master of Social Work, works as a lecturer in social work. She teaches in the law courses in the social work program, in the teaching of the course for supervision of internship students, and in the planning for the clinical placement. The work involves collaboration with the county's municipalities, Region Jönköping County and other branches of social work.

Aimée Ekman, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Doctor of Philosophy in Health and Society, teaches social science perspectives and qualitative methods. Her research interests mainly concern experiences of living in an overweight body with a focus on interaction and social construction. She is also involved in research projects on health promotion and sustainable working life, internationalization at home and collaboration between municipality and region on children and young people's mental health. Aimée is also chair of the School of Health and Welfare's International Council and works actively with pedagogical issues around internationalization and user participation in higher education.

Helena Engkvist, Lecturer, MA in Sociology and teaches in the Sociology program.

Mats Granlund, professor of disability science and psychology, leads the research environment CHILD. which in about thirty projects studies the life situation of children and young people in need of special support. A special focus in many projects is participation in everyday activities and the factors in the individual and in the environment that increase the likelihood that the child is involved.

Nina Gunnarsson is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Doctor of Philosophy and Program Director of the Master's Program in Social Work. Her research interests include self-harm and shame, and identity and social interaction. She is also involved in a research project on food allergy and mental health. Nina is the program manager for the Master of Social Work program and together with her colleague Staffan Bengtsson the program manager for Child Interventions.

David Johansson, PhD student, social worker, Master of Philosophy in Psychology and assistant professor at the Division of Social Work. The research studies focus on individuals with mental disabilities who have the intervention Housing Support. Johansson also participates in studies that focus on the relationship between physical activity and mental health. Johansson teaches several courses within the socionom program but also teaches psychology for other programs at the School of Health and Welfare. Johansson works half-time as an assistant professor and half-time as a PhD student.

Malin Johansson, PhD student, social worker and international master in social work and active as lecturer in social work. She teaches communication, ethics and psychology and is responsible for clinical placement during semester 5 of the social work program. Previous experience, among other things, from student health and work with children and young people's mental health. Interest in, and continued contacts in, the school curative field.

Diana Kajic, assistant professor, MA in social work and social worker teaches in the socionom program.

Torbjörn Kalin, senior lecturer and PhD in social work, social worker and teaches in the social work program. Kalin's research concerns the social care of children. Kalin teaches mainly about child welfare and change-oriented work with individuals and families. He has a background as a research assistant and R&D leader as well as a professional in child welfare. Kalin is a collaborator in the research projects Longitudinal Research on Development In Adolescence, LoRDIA and LoRDYA.

Tina Olsson, is professor of social work and chair of social work. Her research concerns issues relevant to the development, implementation and testing of social interventions in practice and how the study of issues relevant to this line of research can be advanced. Professor Olsson is a member of the Research on Social Work Practice's editorial board and the developer and author of the prevention program My choice-my way! A support for young people leaving community care.

  1. Presentation page Tina Olsson.
  2. e-mail: tina.olsson@ju.se

Roger Sandberg, Lecturer in Law in Public Administration, teaches legal courses in the Social Work Program at HHJ but also in other departments within JU and is also the program manager for student affairs in the Social Work Program. His areas of interest are basic civil law, administrative law, labor law, human rights and the equal value of the individual.

  1. Presentation page Roger Sandberg
  2. e-mail: roger.sandberg@ju.se

Michael Sjökvist, Assistant Professor and MA. Sjökvist teaches courses in the social work program but also teaches psychology in other programs at the School of Health and Welfare. He participates in research on children with disabilities in the research group CHILD.

Mikael Skillmark is a social worker, lecturer and PhD in social work. Mikael defended his doctoral thesis in the spring of 2018 and his thesis is about standardization in social services and its importance for social work as a profession and field of practice. In 2018, the research project "Constructions of male crime victims in conversations with crime victim support social workers" was initiated, funded by the Swedish Crime Victim Authority. Currently, the project "What works and why? The importance of interventions and organizational collaboration for the health and well-being of women exposed to violence", funded by FORTE. Mikael also collaborates with several municipal activities on issues related to local development and research work. The teaching at the socionom program is focused on courses at advanced level and related to the thesis area.

Nina Åkerlund, PhD in social work, is deputy head of department. She has previously worked in municipal, regional and state activities. As a lecturer in social work, Nina works with research and development issues. Her research focuses on domestic violence, men's violence against women and children who experience violence.

Affiliated staff

Ulrika Börjesson, PhD in Welfare and Social Sciences and Senior Lecturer in Social Work. Börjesson's research focuses on the role of knowledge for staff in the everyday life of elderly care.

Arne Gerdner, Affiliate Professor Emeritus of Social Work, leads the research program Longitudinal Research on Development In Adolescence, which follows adolescents from the age of 12 until they are adults. The Impact of Stress research program examines the effects of stress on alcohol consumption, mental health and physical health, and a longitudinal study focuses on substitution treatment for opioid dependence.

Magnus Jegermalm, Professor of Social Work, is affiliated with the Division of Social Work (ASA) and runs a Forte-funded project in Applied Welfare Research at the School of Health and Welfare. Jegermalm also works at Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University as Head of the Department of Social Work.

Irene Josephsson's research concerns institutional meetings, mainly in social services (substance abuse, social child care and income support), and development(Parents at a distance) and implementation of new ways of working(New ways to work). Forte funded the latter two projects. Research collaborations have taken place with the University of Gothenburg and the Gothenburg region, and the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Nils Stenström, social worker, received his PhD in social work in 2008 with a longitudinal study of participants in the syringe exchange in Malmö. Stenström's research has mainly focused on the effects of prevention and treatment in the field of harmful use and dependence. Since 2020, he has mainly worked with systematic reviews of effect studies, most recently on interventions for comorbidity.

Socionom Program

Program manager Basic program: AgnethaBorell

Education Officer: Anna Oliw

Program Manager Master and Magister Program: Nina Gunnarsson

Education Officer: Anna Oliw

Program Manager Student Affairs: Roger Sandberg

Our vision for internationalization is for students to gain awareness and knowledge of international conditions that affect people's social reality in different situations and countries, reflect on this and compare with Swedish conditions.

ASA has a number of collaborative partners both within and outside the country. The ambition is to broaden the collaboration further through direct research collaborations and exchanges of experiences gained through research. The internationalization work at ASA is aimed at creating a broad network of contacts both in terms of subject, social field and geography.

Students will:

  • acquire an international perspective with a focus on social work
  • in a broad sense, be given the opportunity to gain personal experience of social work abroad
  • have the opportunity to study and exchange experiences with foreign students in their own department.

Teachers in the department should be given opportunities for contacts and cooperation with colleagues in similar programs in other countries.

The international perspective includes the inclusion of current international research in the course literature, translated or in the original language.

See the university's partner universities
Read more about the School of Health and Welfare's international activities

Head of department

Thorbjörn Ahlgren