Kim Sune Karrasch Jepsen

Kim Sune Karrasch Jepsen

Postdoc

Primary fields of research

My research focuses on how diagnosed impairment (including a psychic illness)constrains social participation and inclusion in reference groups of identification in the local environment. Advanced medical diagnosis and technological treatment enable many individuals to regain functional health, but groups with disabilities are systematically more marginalised or excluded from mainstream participation than the population norms, e.g., core institutions schools, education, and work. Persons with diagnosed disabilities face persistent social barriers. 

My research focuses on why and whether people with the same diagnosis experience different participatory barriers (or none) in the close group they identify with, interact with and invest in. I utilise basic principles from micro-sociology and findings in social psychology to investigate how barriers arise from behavioural face-to-face interaction and inherent emotional relationships.

Disability is medically conditioned: diagnosed and treated. Therefore, treatment effects must also be basic to analyze inclusion/exclusion in group life. I use quantitative and qualitative methods, including video methods.

Current research

My current research explores the inclusion/exclusion of adolescents with hearing loss in school environments. My research forms part of a larger research project "How do we belong together?" (Inge Kryger Pedersen PI, financed by the Velux Foundation). In collaboration with the Danish Centre for Social Scientific Research, we examine why children, young people, and adults with hearing loss often and persistently encounter barriers to social participation and preventive social mechanisms. 

I explore why young people with hearing loss more often have psychosocial difficulties than control groups without. I examine clinical research results and explanations but the focus is on the social mechanisms supporting or breaking with behavior and interaction in close groups (peers) at school. Micro-sociology has shown that the group is a necessary condition for inclusion, but not sufficient. It all depends on what goes on in group space - I examine this in three areas:

Problem 1: From Outsider to Insider: social status, psychosocial conditions, group's interactional behavior in the school space 

Problem 2: Many adolescents with hearing loss are good in two-person conversations. However, they find social group communication (multi-talk) difficult. The project explores the importance of the group's composition (number, location, characteristics). Video-based. 

Problem 3: Psychosocial difficulties are frequent for young people with hearing loss. How can this be explained by certain emotional relationships at stake in communication, and can special considerations in communication prevent difficulties from arising?

ID: 132226420