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This book provides an original approach to the connections of race, racism and neoliberalisation through a focus on ‘postethnic activism,’ in which mobilisation is based on racialisation as non-white or ‘other’ instead of ethnic group membership. Developing the theoretical understanding of political activism under the neoliberal turn in racial capitalism and the increasingly hostile political environment towards migrants and racialised minorities, the book investigates the conditions, forms and visions of postethnic activism in three Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden and Finland). It connects the historical legacies of European colonialism to the current configurations of racial politics and global capitalism. The book compellingly argues that contrary to the tendencies of neoliberal postracialism to de-politicise social inequalities the activists are re-politicising questions of race, class and gender in new ways. The book is of interest to scholars and students in sociology, ethnic and racial studies, cultural studies, feminist studies and urban studies.

Nordiske studier har vist at minoritetsforeldre oftere enn majoritetsforeldre legger begrensninger på ungdom, og særlig jenter. Slike restriktive foreldrepraksiser utfordrer kjønnslikestilling og økende selvbestemmelse som premisser for foreldrepraksis i den norske velferdsstaten. Samtidig handler foreldrerestriksjoner også om beskyttelse, og grenseoppgangen mellom legitim beskyttelse og illegitim kontroll kan være vanskelig å trekke. I denne artikkelen undersøker vi omfanget av ulike former for foreldrerestriksjoner og hvordan disse varierer med minoritetsstatus, kjønn og alder, samt hvilke faktorer som kan bidra til å forklare forskjellene. Analysene er basert på data fra Ung i Oslo-studien 2018. I tråd med tidligere studier finner vi at det er særlig jenter med bakgrunn fra land i Asia og Afrika som utsettes for restriksjoner. Foreldres landbakgrunn, opplevd risiko i nabolag og religiøs tilhørighet bidrar til å forklare variasjon i restriksjoner knyttet til fritid. For skoleaktiviteter er det kun tilhørighet til islam og grad av religiøsitet som bidrar til å forklare restriksjoner. Et av studiens bidrag er å vise at andelen minoritetsjenter som opplever restriksjoner, reduseres lite ved myndighetsalder. Implikasjonene av dette funnet diskuterer vi avslutningsvis. Nordic studies have shown that minority parents more often than majority parents are restrictive with regard to young girls’ participation in gender-mixed activities and relationships. Such restrictions challenge norms for child-rearing in the Nordic welfare state: gender equality and increasing self-determination with age. Parental restrictions may also involve protection, and the boundary between legitimate protection and illegitimate control may not always be clear-cut. In this article we explore the prevalence of parental restrictions and variation with regard to minority status, gender and age based on data from the Young in Oslo 2018 survey. We also analyse factors that contribute to explain restrictions statistically. In line with previous Nordic studies, we find that girls with backgrounds from countries in Asia and Africa experience more restrictions compared with other young people. The analyses also show that parents’ country of origin, religious affiliation, degree of religiosity, as well as perceptions of neighbourhood risk contribute to explaining restrictions outside of school. Only affiliation with Islam and degree of religiosity contribute to explaining restrictions on participation in school activities. A contribution of this study is to show that while the level of restrictions decreases with age for young people in general, this is not the case for minority girls. Implications of the findings are discussed. Artikkelen er finansiert av Kunnskapsdepartementet gjennom prosjektet Ungdom, ærbarhetsnormer og sosial kontroll under Voldsprogrammet ved NOVA, OsloMet

In Norway, immigrants receive higher levels of social assistance than natives. How can we explain this difference? After controlling for differences in take-up rates through a two-step Heckman procedure, we attempt to answer this question by exploiting rich data from administrative registers. We operationalise social assistance in the Norwegian context by employing a composite variable that includes: (a) financial assistance, (b) housing allowance and (c) qualification benefit. We quantitatively analyze the difference in benefit levels of social assistance between the first and second generations of immigrants and the benchmark levels of the non-immigrant population through a Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder (KOB) decomposition exercise. The results of the analysis indicate that a significant portion of the gap in benefit reception between immigrant groups and natives is due to observable characteristics (42% for immigrants and 69% for their descendants), with unobservable cultural and behavioural factors explaining the remaining portion of the gap.

Nordic welfare states are known for their universalistic and all-encompassing approach to welfare and having a long tradition for active labour market policy as tool in economic crises with adverse impact on employment. They have had a long tradition for strong egalitarian approaches and their residents are consistently among the happiest in the world. A key issue is whether a crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak is changing the Nordic welfare states. This article focuses on providing a description of what instruments the Nordic countries have taken or expect to use as part of dealing with the welfare challenges resulting from rising unemployment and greater social and economic insecurity in the wake of the crisis. The tentative conclusion is that the crisis so far has strengthened key characteristics of the Nordic welfare states by the state taking on a strong central role not only for the functioning of the market but also continued in a path-dependent way with universal and relatively generous benefits such as for those who become unemployed or have reduced income because of the crisis.

The Nordic states have extensive welfare systems in which the local social services are an important component. Despite a growing research on disaster resilience, we lack research examining in systematic way whether and how local social services in the Nordic countries contribute to resilience. Aiming to fill this gap, this article asks whether we can identify a common Nordic model of the role of local social services in disasters, or whether the countries have taken different paths. We use policy documents and legislation to examine the extent to which roles for local social services are embedded in the disaster management systems of the five Nordic countries. We analyze the institutional organization in each country, as well as the models of social services related to disasters from a comparative perspective. We find that the Nordic countries have chosen quite different paths regarding local social services’ role in disaster management and conclude that there is no Nordic model. Another general conclusion is that a more robust position of local social services within the disaster management system might enhance disaster resilience in the Nordic countries as a whole.

This article explores how families with young children arrive at and live with different work–family adaptations within a welfare state that strongly supports the dual earner/dual carer model—that of Norway. It draws on a qualitative study among Norwegian-born and Polish-born parents, representing respectively ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ views on this model. The analysis aims at capturing the dynamic interplay between structures and policies, and everyday practices. We found that both Norwegian and Polish parents embraced the cultural ideal of the dual earner/dual carer model, but that their perceived scope of action differed. Within the Norwegian group there were differences related to class, however. Among middle-class Norwegian parents, the model was internalised as a moral obligation and part of identity, making it difficult to voice and cope with work–family conflict. Working-class parents in this group, varied more in their identification with this model. Across class, Polish parents, in contrast, used welfare state entitlements eclectically to shape new and more gender equal family practices in Norway, and to adjust to changing circumstances. The article illustrates how enabling structures may represent both opportunities for and limitation to individual agency, undermining the assumption of a simple ‘fit’ between work–family policies, work–family adaptations and gender equality in the family. This article was funded by the Polish–Norwegian Research Programme under the Norway Grants funding scheme. Grant number EOG78.

I de skandinaviske landene er mangfold og individuell tilrettelegging viktige mål for den offentlig finansierte velferden. Derfor er det et paradoks at velferdspolitikken ikke i større grad støtter opp om de ideelle organisasjonenes særpreg og videre utvikling. Her legges for første gang fram sammenlignbare tall som viser utvikling av fordelingen mellom ideelle, kommersielle og offentlige tjenesteytere på områdene utdanning, helse og sosiale tjenester i Skandinavia. Kommersielle aktører har den sterkeste veksten, særlig på sosialområdet. Dette skyldes økt bruk av åpne anbud og andre markedslignende styringsmekanismer. I Sverige har denne utviklingen blitt kraftig framskyndet av at stadig flere tjenester organiseres med en kombinasjon av brukervalg, fri etableringsrett og ingen begrensninger på overskudd til eierne. De ideelle tjenesteyterne gir i størst grad valgmuligheter med et innhold som skiller seg fra det offentlige og kommersielle tilbudet. De ideelle er også gode på individuell myndiggjøring og demokratisk medvirkning hvis rammebetingelsene gir rom for det. Når veksten i første rekke fremmes med økonomiske insentiver, begrenses utviklingen av disse særpregete valgmulighetene.

Symposium abstract, authored by organizers: Christina Osbeck & Mette BuchardtPresenters: Mette Buchardt (Denmark), Oddrun Marie Hovde Bråten (Norway), Christina Osbeck (Sweden), Geir Skeie (Sweden/Norway), Martin Ubani (Finland) Respondent: Bernd Krupka (Norway)Chair:Karin Sporre (Sweden)Related to the conference subtheme: Borders between research methodsGeneral subject didactics in the Nordic countries has developed in relation to teacher education and the need to bring questions about teaching and learning closer to specific subject-content areas. The discussions started at slightly different times in the different countries, for instance in the 1970s in Norway and in the 1980s in Sweden (Kroksmark 1989, Ongstad 2006). However, at that time religious education was already an academic field in the faculties of theology in many of the Nordic countries, namely as religionspedagogik[k] (e.g. Osbeck & Lied 2012). Since then the development of RE and its current position have been rather different in the separate countries, but also the conditions within the same country have varied largely. This symposium explore and discuss the conditions for scholarly based knowledge production about and in relation to the subject didactics of RE in different national contexts in the Nordic sphere.Aim and main questions:The aim of this symposium is to examine different conditions for knowledge re/production concerning Religious Education in the Nordic countries and discuss how disciplines work as frames for ongoing developments of knowledge, primarily research contributions. There are several academic disciplines related to RE, and an interesting question is of course how these scholarly communities influence RE. What consequences does it have for the contribution of knowledge – e.g. for research questions asked, examined and answered – if the study is done in history of religion, comparative religion, sociology of religion, theology, pedagogy of religion in a faculty of theology, sociology, communication studies, or psychology or in the educational sciences, and thus in e.g. sociology, history, psychology or philosophy of education? What does it mean for the discussion of quality in the field and the direction of the development that the research area is that varied? And how does that affect the applied didactics of religion? Osbeck, C., & Lied, S. 2012. RE research in Hamar and Karlstad in a subject didactical and international context. Religionsdidaktisk arbeid pågår! Religionsdidaktikk i Hamar og Karlstad. Vallset: Oplandske Bokforlag.Kroksmark, T. 1989. Didaktiska strövtåg. Didaktiska idéer från Comenius till fenomenografisk didaktik. Goteborg: Daidalos.Ongstad, S. 2006. Fag i endring. Om didaktisering av kunskap. I S. Ongstad (red.). Fag og fagdidaktikk i lærerutdanning. Kunnskap i grenseland (s. 19-57). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Form and task for the presentations: The presenters are asked to use their own dissertation in relation to one or two additional work from the country, where the presenter is institutionalized, preferably in a way where the dissertations discussed are from different periods of time. Alternativelty handbooks of RE-didactics/pedagogy of religion can be examined. The presentation will draw on examples from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and sheet light the questions stated above from this basis.Time frame: 1h45minutes (105 minutes)Opening + 13 minutes to each of the five presenters + 13 minutes response on all papers together from Berndt Krupka (85 minutes)Final answers from presenters and discussion (20 minutes)

As the Nordic welfare states evolve – with ideologies that focus on an increased consumption of health services – citizens are required to be productive throughout their life course. And because fewer economic resources are being invested into basic health care, and there is a move to shift more responsibility onto the individual (patient), it is becoming essential to illuminate practices that showcase the creative ways that people engage in self-care and agency in everyday-life. This conference aims to discuss how to develop new perspectives on health and illness in the Nordic welfare states. The emphasis will be on creativity and ableism as key elements in people’s and patients’ constructions of meaning, especially with regard to questions about health and rehabilitation. Among other things, the concept of creativity encompasses energy, liveliness, artfulness and agency – on both an individual and a collective level. Moreover, creativity refers to activities that are performed and practiced by able citizens and organisations. However, ableism is also a scholarly perspective that criticises traditional perceptions of normativity, particularly embodied normativity. The conference organisers would like to invite papers that critically examine the challenges and opportunities prompted by such creativity: What sort of creative practices do people apply to attain a good life for themselves while ill or frail? In what terms and under what circumstances are bodies perceived as being able – or not? How do such practices and attitudes affect people’s experiences and expressions of health and illness? How do we as researchers contribute to the articulation of creativity and ableism, and how do these concepts affect us as professionals and fellow human beings?

Significant changes regarding work and family patterns in post-industrial societies have rocked the foundations of the gendered division of labour in family life. Nevertheless, the focus of attention has thus far mainly been on women's roles and entitlements, and has not implied a parallel focus on men's roles as fathers and caregivers. This article redirects attention to the role of men as fathers by exploring the economic incentives for fathers to take up parental leave in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). It also highlights the great variety of circumstances relating to education and jobs among fathers. It constructs a more ‘realistic’ representation of the material conditions facing families with children through an in-depth policy analysis that takes into account not only public leave schemes but also the private layer of welfare entitlements for broad categories of workers, representing different socio-economic groups and employment sectors. The results indicate that there are different economic incentives for fathers to take up parental leave across countries - with Sweden being the most ‘father-friendly’ – as well as class-based and sector-based inequalities within countries. In-depth policy analysis of public and private layers of welfare entitlements reveal dissimilarities in access to participation in family life between fathers in the Nordic countries.

With the theme of the research conference of the NNHSH network we want researchers, both at doctoral and post-doctoral level, to reflect on how health practices and health policies in the Nordic Welfare States are being transformed and have been transformed in the past. The Nordic countries are all, more or less, in the midst of a transformation from a social democratic health care system, based on universal access for all citizens with no regard to their position, class or previous health practices, to a more neoliberal oriented health care regime with new - or perhaps in some ways very old - ideas about the body, health, and health care responsibilities. Sociologist S.N. Eisenstadt (1956) once suggested that the idea of "citizenship" in the development of a societal structure like the Western states of today served to establish a historically new position for individuals in preference to kinship and family status. Within different forms of government, such responsibilities are balanced differently between individual, family and state. For more than a century responsibility for health and healthiness in the Nordic countries has to a great extent been incumbent on the state. At the same time transformations of political ideologies have led to more pressure on individual - and familial - responsibilities. The conference aims at encouraging scholarly discussions highlighting the transformations of health politics in the Nordic countries and the consequences as observed and experienced by people in this context. Topics discussed can revolve around the role of governments in the furthering of transformations - be it regarding patient education, expectations of empowerment of the elderly in elderly care, or negotiations about the right to biological parenthood. It can also be about peoples´ embodied, verbalized and negotiated responses to the changes taking place. Furthermore, any health situation does not only concern patients or other people in need of care or help, but it also includes family-members as care providers, who may be drawn in to this role due to increasing expectations of kinship obligations and responsibilities.

Several empirical papers have indicated that the health inequalities in the Nordic welfare states seem to be at least as high as health inequalities in other European countries even if the Nordic states have a more egalitarian income structure. This is in contrast to standard economic theory that predicts that income equality should lead to health equality everything else equal. We argue that there may be a straightforward explanation why Nordic countries appear to have a steeper health gradient than other countries. Health and income are related, and the correlation between income and health will be weaker the more noise there is in terms of other determinants of income. If the Nordic countries have succeeded in reducing the impacts of other determinants of income, like social class, then the correlation between income and health will be stronger in the Nordic countries. This story also holds for other measures of health inequality. However, if the causality is running from income to health, there may be a reason why health inequality is higher in more egalitarian states based on cognitive stress theory. We argue however, that even in this case the difference between Nordic states and the rest of Europe may be a result of poor measures.