Empowerment, Meaningful Learning and Social Entrepreneurship in Work Training at a Non-governmental Organization in Sweden

The purpose of this study is to describe empowerment processes and meaningful learning in social entrepreneurial work training at a non-governmental organization in Sweden from a participant perspective. The social entrepreneurship investigated in this study was constituted by work training that took place within the framework of a non-governmental organization in Sweden. The study is theoretically grounded in ethnographic methodology, where the researchers cohabited with the participants and conducted nineteen semi-structured life-world interviews with twenty-three participants. The interviews were subjected to a qualitative content analysis. The main findings are the participants’ accounts of how they underwent positive transformation through various means. The positive transformation in the results section is discussed in terms of four main themes: (i) undergoing change together; (ii) undergoing change through helping others; (iii) changing one’s self-perception; (iv) changing hope for the future. The most important success factor for the empowerment and meaningful learning processes that the participants underwent was the simultaneous emphasis on both individual adaptation and flexibility as well as togetherness and solidarity.