Staying quiet to stay in: Young women’s narratives from a Swedish municipal activation programme

This article explores how two young women enrolled in a Swedish municipal activation programme narrate and negotiate their gendered experiences in an institutional setting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork—including interviews, field notes, and audio recordings of everyday interactions—the study applies a discursive narrative approach informed by gender theory to examine how subject positions are constructed in relation to institutional norms, peer dynamics, and dominant discourses of femininity, responsibility, and employability. The analysis reveals how the young women navigate a programme environment shaped by soft surveillance, normative expectations, and everyday exposure to disruptive and sometimes harassing male behaviour. Despite being formally encouraged to participate and take initiative, the women are met with institutional passivity and informal peer control that undermine their agency. Their narratives illuminate how attempts to appear composed, responsible, and employable are undercut by gendered expectations of self-regulation and silence. The findings highlight the need to critically examine how activation programmes reproduce gendered power relations and patriarchal structures, and to develop gender-aware and norm-critical strategies in social work practice.