Att möta fördomar : En kvalitativ studie om några finska och utomnordiska romers upplevelser på bostads- och arbetsmarknaden

The aim of this study has been to examine how a few members of the Finnish and non- Scandinavian Romani subgroups experience their own, and their groups, situation on the Housing- and Labour Market. We´ve studied our respondents’ experiences of discrimination, which difficulties they think there are, what strategies can be used to deal with these difficulties and also their own ideas on how to improve the situation for the Romani people in the Swedish society. This has been done by six individual structured interviews which have been analyzed with concepts from Symbolic Interactionism, including Goffman’s Dramaturgical Role Theory, definition of Stigma and Kelly’s theory of Personal Constructions. Our results show that the respondents either have been victims of discrimination themselves, or have family/friends that have, which has led to adjustments to the expectations of how an employee or a houseguest should be. Our respondents believe that difficulties getting/keeping a job/house are a result of prejudice towards the Romani people and the main strategy that can be used is hiding their ethnic identity on these arenas. Ideas for improvement include members of the majority population and Romanies working together long term to develop knowledge about the Romani people