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Kindergartens are institutional arenas for raising the nation through educating children in an every-day setting. With the implementation of the Framework Plan of 2017 (FP), the notion of "Sàmi culture" became part of the mandatory curriculum in all Norwegian kindergartens for the first time. All kindergartens are now expected to ensure that children develop respect for, and solidarity with, the diversity of Sàmi culture. This paper based on policy analysis and interviews in kindergartens investigates how the notion of "Sàmi culture" is part of the national Framework Plan (FP) for kindergartens and how it is understood and implemented in kindergartens. The concept of everyday nationalism sheds light on tensions involved in including indigenous rights and perspectives in a national Framework Plan. Including indigenous rights and cultures as part of a national Framework Plan can widen the content of what it means to belong in a national state as well as sharpen the lines and maintain boundaries. Conceptions of diversity are an integral part of the messiness involved in drawing boundaries and in the making of the everyday nationalism, suggesting that the relationship between diversity and everyday nationalism deserves more interrogation.

One long-standing characteristic of schools in Norway is inclusive education as a primary goal. The last years, the Norwegian government has emphasised increased parent-school cooperation as a way to limit risks, i.e. of drop-outs. This article focuses on how parent-school relationship is played out in an economic and socially diversified urban borough in Bergen, Norway. It draws on fieldwork and interviews among parents, teachers and principals in three different schools. As this article shows, the increased focus on parents' active engagement in the school encourages and creates expectations of an intensive parenting model. Yet, not all parents are ready, willing or have the capacity to pursue the intensive parenting model. We suggest that the current promotion of middle-class intensive parenting by schools, in practice, shifts the responsibilisation of equal education away from the state towards individual families and undermine the ideals of inclusive education and equal opportunities in Norway.

Background: Child poverty rates are rising in Norway with potential negative consequences for children. Services for families with low income are often fragmented and poorly integrated, and few coordinated initiatives have been implemented and evaluated in Norway. Aims: The aim of the current study is to evaluate how integrated and coordinated services provided over a prolonged period by a family coordinator are related to changes across a wide range of health, wellbeing and home environment indicators for the participants. Methods: The study uses a mixed methods approach utilising survey and register data, as well as information from interviews and shadowing, to document and evaluate outcomes associated with the intervention and the process of implementation. Data are gathered at baseline and annually throughout the duration of the study. Participants are identified to facilitate longer-term follow-up using register data. Conclusions: This project will develop important knowledge about the implementation of coordinated services to families with a low income, and how this way of organizing services influences important outcomes for the family members in the short and long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy tools have become widespread in education, which indicates efforts to standardise content and professional practices. However, such standardisation might be in contrast to Nordic early childhood education and care (ECEC) traditions of diversity and local variation. We therefore study the distributors and enactment of policy tools in ECEC in light of content regulations and calls for evidence-based practices in ECEC through comparative case studies of 14 Norwegian centres. We identify the tools that are used in ECEC centres and analyse how they are enacted by staff. The material consists of documents from ECEC centres and semi-structured interviews with heads and staff. By employing a theoretical framework based on discursive institutionalism, we find that efforts are being made to standardise didactical practices. The tools are distributed by a range of actors, but our analysis reveals that staff shape and develop tools through coordinative discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how parents include other people's children in intensive parenting practices. Increased diversification of Norwegian society calls attention to opportunities for social mobility and the risk of greater inequality. However, insufficient research has been carried out into how parents pursue parenting in such a context. How are parenting practices informed by increased diversity? Why and how do parents become engaged with other people's children? This study explores the concept of intensive parenting, which researchers view as commonplace among Western middle-class parents, and which leads to individualizing parenting. It argues that for some, intensive parenting also incorporates inclusive parenting – a responsibility not only towards their own child, but a concern for and time investment in other people's children. This parenting style is linked to a desire to create a more egalitarian society, and a belief that a child's upbringing and future depends upon the wellbeing of other people's children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian state supports and organizes couple courses as part of public family policy - maintained and enforced through a period of often bitter political controversy over a diverse range of family policy issues. Through the lens of «French pragmatism», we analyse parliamentary debate in Norway regarding partner courses in the period 1993 until 2007. These political debates are viewed as public critical situations with actors seeking support through various appeals and justifications. The study identifies two main axes of debate and argument of varying weight during the period. Arguments relate to the role of non-governmental organizations in family care, borders between the state and private family sphere, and the question of public policy in favour of particular forms of family structure and partnership. The political consensus of public partnership policies has been possible through justifications appealing to commonly shared values of good and lasting relationships and healthy childhood. Implementation has been based on «soft» policy. increasing the role of family life and responsibilities of the individual, at the same time signalling public responsibilities in preventing social problems and promoting well-being in families with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]