Is It Racism? Skepticism and Resistance Towards Ethnic Minority Care Workers Among Older Care Recipients

The study investigates the occurrence and character of skepticism and resistance towards ethnic minority care workers among older care recipients in a municipality in Sweden. Twelve representatives of caregiver organizations were interviewed about their experience of this phenomenon. Three additional interviews were conducted with ethnic minority care workers. Representatives described the problem as rare and mostly occurring as language difficulties or as a temporary problem characterized as a fear of the unknown among some care recipients. They tended to apply a pragmatic or pathologizing approach when talking about causes of and solutions to the problem. These approaches enabled care providers to comply with potential racism without challenging an official ideology of anti-racism. In contrast, staff of foreign descent described the problem as more frequent and severe, particularly for short-term employees who experience many first-time encounters with care recipients. (C) 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.