Gomez-Gonzalez, C., Nesseler, C., & Dietl, H. M. (2021). Mapping discrimination in Europe through a field experiment in amateur sport. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00773-2 Societies are increasingly multicultural and diverse, consisting of members who migrated from various other countries. However, immigrants and ethnic minorities often face discrimination in the form of fewer opportunities for labor and housing, as well as limitations on interactions in other social domains. Using mock email accounts with typical native-sounding and foreign-sounding names, we contacted 23,020 amateur football clubs in 22 European countries, asking to participate in a training session. Response rates differed across countries and were, on average, about 10% lower for foreign-sounding names. The present field experiment reveals discrimination against ethnic minority groups, uncovering organizational deficiencies in a system trusted to foster social interactions.
PDF: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00773-2
Tag: discrimination
Batsaikhan et al. Daycare Choice and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from a Randomized Survey. (2019) [PDF]
Batsaikhan, M., Gørtz, M., Kennes, J. R., Lyng, R. S., Monte, D., & Tumennasan, N. (2019). Daycare Choice and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from a Randomized Survey. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3507520
Discrimination among individuals is very well documented in the literature, but much less is known about how discrimination is passed down through generations. By designing and conducting a randomized survey to study daycare choices and ethnic diversity, we provide evidence of how biases against ethnic minorities affect parental choices of early childhood education. We asked parents in Copenhagen to choose between two daycares — structured vs. free-play. Each daycare had testimonials from (fictive) parents whose child allegedly attended the daycare, and the survey randomized the names of the testifying parents across the sample. Another novelty of our study is that we are able to capture how discriminatory attitudes towards ethnic minorities interact with preferences for specific teaching styles. In our results we find bias against ethnic minorities among parents who prefer the structured daycare. We validate our results through data on willingness to travel to the preferred daycare, which is higher for parents who prefer the structured daycare when there was an ethnic minority name associated with the free-play daycare.
PDF: https://www.econ.ku.dk/cebi/publikationer/working-papers/CEBI_-_WP_14-19.pdf
Tygstrup, Tea Hansen, & Olsen, Asmus Leth Citizens’ Discrimination against Street-level Bureaucrats. (2019). [PDF]
Tygstrup, Tea Hansen, & Olsen, Asmus Leth (2019). Citizens’ Discrimination against Street-level Bureaucrats. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WTN3S
Extensive experimental work documents discrimination against minorities in their interaction with the state. The increased reliance on citizen choice of service provider increasing allow discrimination to run the other way: Do citizens discriminate against street-level bureaucrats? Using two discrete choice designs in a single survey (N=1,027) we study ethnic discrimination in citizens’ choice of general practioner (GP) in a Nordic welfare state. We find strong evidence of discrimination as GPs with Muslim names are chosen 14 percentage point less than Danish named GPs with similar characteristics. Choice models are often accompanied with quality performance indicators but additional analysis show that discrimination is not reduced if a performance measure for the GP is provided to citizens. The results question the effectiveness of traditional policy tools to combat discrimination in increasingly more diverse public sector with more emphasis on citizens choice.
Hassani, Amani. “European Islamophobia Report 2019: Denmark.”
Hassani, Amani. “European Islamophobia Report 2019: Denmark.” European Islamophobia Report 2019, edited by Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez, pp. 225–46,
PDF: https://setav.org/en/assets/uploads/2020/06/EIR_2019.pdf.
Larsen, Mikkel Haderup, and Merlin Schaeffer. ‘Healthcare Chauvinism during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. (2020) [PDF]
Larsen, Mikkel Haderup, and Merlin Schaeffer. ‘Healthcare Chauvinism during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Routledge, Dec. 2020.
Social science research has produced evidence of welfare chauvinism whereby citizens turn against social policies that disproportionately benefit immigrants and their descendants. Some policymakers advocate welfare chauvinism as a means to incentivize fast labour market integration and assimilation into the mainstream more generally. These contested arguments about integration incentives can hardly be extended to the case of hospital treatment of an acute COVID-19 infection. On that premise we conducted a pre-registered online survey experiment among a representative sample of the Danish population about healthcare chauvinism against recent immigrants and Muslim minorities during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic of spring 2020. Our results show no evidence of blatant racism-driven healthcare chauvinism against acute COVID-19 patients with a Muslim name who were born in Denmark. However, we do find evidence of healthcare chauvinism against patients with a Danish/Nordic name who immigrated to Denmark only a year ago. Moreover, healthcare chauvinism against recently-immigrated COVID-19 patients doubles in strength if they have a Muslim name. Our findings thus suggest that there is general reciprocity-motivated welfare chauvinism against recent immigrants who have not contributed to the welfare state for long and that racism against Muslims strongly catalyses this form of welfare chauvinism.
Dinesen, Peter Thisted, Malte Dahl, and Mikkel Schiøler. ‘When Are Legislators Responsive to Ethnic Minorities? Testing the Role of Electoral Incentives and Candidate Selection for Mitigating Ethnocentric Responsiveness’. (2021) [PDF]
Dinesen, Peter Thisted, Malte Dahl, and Mikkel Schiøler. ‘When Are Legislators Responsive to Ethnic Minorities? Testing the Role of Electoral Incentives and Candidate Selection for Mitigating Ethnocentric Responsiveness’. American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Previous studies have documented ethnic/racial bias in politicians’ constituency service, but less is known about the circumstances under which such ethnocentric responsiveness is curbed. We propose and test two hypotheses in this regard: the electoral incentives hypothesis, predicting that incentives for (re)election crowd out politicians’ potential biases, and the candidate selection hypothesis, stipulating that minority constituents can identify responsive legislators by using candidates’ partisan affiliation and stated policy preferences as heuristics. We test these hypotheses through a field experiment on the responsiveness of incumbent local politicians in Denmark (N = 2,395), varying ethnicity, gender, and intention to vote for the candidate in the upcoming election, merged with data on their electoral performance and their stated policy preferences from a voting advice application. We observe marked ethnocentric responsiveness and find no indication that electoral incentives mitigate this behavior. However, minority voters can use parties’ and individual candidates’ stances on immigration to identify responsive politicians.
Coming of Age in Exile: Health and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Young Refugees in the Nordic Welfare Societies. (2020) [PDF]
Coming of Age in Exile: Health and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Young Refugees in the Nordic Welfare Societies. NordForsk, 2020,
Coming of Age in Exile (CAGE) has been a multidisciplinary research project, funded by the Nordic Research Council (NordForsk) during 2015-2020, for more information see https://cage.ku.dk/. CAGE has been led by the Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity and Health (MESU) at the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen and carried out in collaboration with researchers at the Migration Institute of Finland, Turku; the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS), Oslo; the University of South-Eastern Norway, University of Bergen, University of Gothenburg, and the Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet.
During the last fifty years, the number of people moving to the Nordic countries has increased. From the 1970s onwards, a large part of non-Nordic immigration has consisted of refugees and their families. Children below 18 years of age comprise a sizable proportion of refugee immigrants, i.e. 25-35% of the refugees in the Nordic countries, and about twice as many when children born in exile are also included. In welfare typologies, the Nordic countries are often considered as similar in terms of their welfare state policies, but there are also important differences between countries in terms of immigration policy and economic context. The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), a comparative policy analysis tool used by the European Union, has shown that during the period in which the CAGE study was conducted, Denmark ranked far behind the other Nordic countries, with more restrictive integration policies related to financial support, family reunification, and possibilities for naturalisation. Key economic factors also differ considerably between countries, with Sweden and Finland having had higher rates of youth unemployment during recent decades. The Nordic countries, with their excellent national registers, provide a unique arena for comparative studies of refugee children and youth in order to obtain an understanding of contextual factors in the reception countries for the integration of young refugees.
The aim of the CAGE project has been to investigate inequalities in education, labour market participation, and health during the formative years in young refugees, and how they relate to national policies and other contextual factors. CAGE has used a mixed methods strategy built around a core of cross-country comparative quantitative register studies in national cohorts of refugees who were granted residency as children (0-17 years) during 1986-2005 in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, with follow-up until 2015. These quantitative register studies have been complimented with policy analyses and qualitative studies of key mechanisms involved in the development of these inequalities.
Thomsen, Jens Peter, Bolette Moldenhawer, and Tine Kallehave. Ethnic Differences in Education in Denmark: Survey Report. (2010) [PDF]
Thomsen, Jens Peter, Bolette Moldenhawer, and Tine Kallehave. Ethnic Differences in Education in Denmark: Survey Report. EDUMIGROM, 2010.
The primary purpose of this report is to give a descriptive and analytical account of the lives of minority urban youth at the end of their primary schooling by looking at their school experiences and achievements, plans for future education and work life, attitudes towards school, and relations to peers, as well as the shaping of identity among minority students. Focusing on youth in the 8th and 9th grades in primary school in Copenhagen, Denmark, the report not only differentiates among ethnic groups in order to identify significant social patterns among groups, but also explores how ethnic differentiations intersect with other variables relating to the students’ background (gender, parents’ socio-economic status and educational level, and so on), and characteristics of everyday social life (social interaction, peer relations, etc). The report aims to contribute to a growing body of research on early identity formation and interethnic relations among young people in primary schools as a way of understanding how and why social positions of young people are structured the way they are.
Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘The Democratic Consequences of Anti-Immigrant Political Rhetoric: A Mixed Methods Study of Immigrants’ Political Belonging’. (2019) [PDF]
Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘The Democratic Consequences of Anti-Immigrant Political Rhetoric: A Mixed Methods Study of Immigrants’ Political Belonging’. Political Behavior, May 2019.
Anti-immigrant political rhetoric is proliferating in Europe, inspiring research to examine the potential effects on public opinion. However, studies of the reactions of first- and second-generation immigrants—the objects of this rhetoric—remain scarce. This article argues that political rhetoric should be treated as a context of integration affecting political outcomes, in particular political belonging. To that end, the article combines qualitative evidence from focus group discussions conducted in Denmark, a high-salience context, and quantitative evidence from cross-national survey and party manifesto data from 18 Western European countries over a 12-year period. In addition to demonstrating a negative mean effect, the analyses show that those most in focus of contemporary political messages (Muslims and immigrants with shorter educations) are most affected, suggesting a sophisticated processing of political rhetoric. In contrast, traditional explanations concerning structural incorporation, generational integration, and exposure to rhetoric are not supported. The article discusses the implications of the results for democratic inclusion in contemporary Europe.
Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘Ripple Effects: An Exclusive Host National Context Produces More Perceived Discrimination among Immigrants’. (2016)
Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. ‘Ripple Effects: An Exclusive Host National Context Produces More Perceived Discrimination among Immigrants’. European Journal of Political Research, vol. 55, no. 2, 2016, pp. 374–390.
This article examines the perceived discrimination of immigrants – a group for whom experiences of discrimination can be damaging for their long-term commitment and identification with the national core group. Taking its point of departure in the literature on national identity, the article argues that perceived discrimination should be strongest among immigrants in host national societies with an exclusive self-image. This hypothesis is examined by use of multilevel regressions on cross-national survey data from 18 Western European countries. It is found that where exclusive attitudes are widespread in the host population, the percentage of immigrants who perceive themselves to be part of a group discriminated against is significantly greater, all else being equal. In addition, there is a cross-level interaction effect of host national inclusivity and ethnic minority identity which suggests that individual-level determinants of perceived discrimination do not ‘work’ in the same way in normatively different contexts. In terms of the implications of these findings, the article points to the importance of contextualising individual-level accounts of perceived discrimination, with particular focus on the power of a society’s attitudinal milieu to affect individual feelings of inclusion and exclusion.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12131.
https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1475-6765.12131.
Gilliam, Laura. Minoritetsdanske drenge i skolen: modvilje og forskelsbehandling. (2018)
Gilliam, Laura. Minoritetsdanske drenge i skolen: modvilje og forskelsbehandling. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2018.
Minoritetsdanske drenge eller ’indvandrerdrenge’, som de typisk kaldes i den offentlige debat, forbindes ofte med dårlige skoleresultater, ballade og kriminalitet. Samtidig peger flere undersøgelser på, at drengene mødes med negative forventninger og oplever at blive set skævt til og forskelsbehandlet i skolen.
I Minoritetsdanske drenge i skolen. Modvilje og forskelsbehandling ser Laura Gilliam nærmere på drengenes position, selvforståelser og skolestrategier og diskuterer de sociale og kulturelle dynamikker, der er omkring etnicitet, racialisering, køn og skole. Med afsæt i interviews med 18 minoritetsdanske drenge beskriver hun, hvordan drengenes oplevelser af lærernes forventninger, modvilje og velvilje får betydning for deres præstationer og engagement i undervisningen. Positive forventninger og dialog om etnicitet og forskelsbehandling er afgørende, hvis de onde cirkler skal brydes.
https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/m/minoritetsdanske-drenge-i-skolen/
PDF med forord og indholdsfortegnelse: http://samples.pubhub.dk/9788771848274.pdf .
Enheden for Brugerundersøgelser, editor. Etniske minoriteters oplevelser i mødet med det danske sygehus: en kvalitativ undersøgelse af forældres oplevelser under deres barns indlæggelse på en børneafdeling. (2007) [PDF]
Enheden for Brugerundersøgelser, editor. Etniske minoriteters oplevelser i mødet med det danske sygehus: en kvalitativ undersøgelse af forældres oplevelser under deres barns indlæggelse på en børneafdeling. København: , 2007.
PDF: https://patientoplevelser.dk/files/dokumenter/artikel/etniske.pdf.
Brodmann, Stefanie, and Javier G. Polavieja. ‘Immigrants in Denmark: Access to Employment, Class Attainment and Earnings in a High-Skilled Economy’. (2011) [PDF]
Brodmann, Stefanie, and Javier G. Polavieja. ‘Immigrants in Denmark: Access to Employment, Class Attainment and Earnings in a High-Skilled Economy’. International Migration, vol. 49, no. 1, 2011, pp. 58–90.
This study examines employment access, class attainment, and earnings among native-born and first-generation immigrants in Denmark using Danish administrative data from 2002. Results suggest large gaps in employment access between native-born Danes and immigrants, as well as among immigrant groups by country of origin and time of arrival. Non-Western immigrants and those arriving after 1984 are at a particular disadvantage compared to other immigrants, a finding not explained by education differences. Immigrants are more likely to be employed in unskilled manual jobs and less likely to be employed in professional and intermediate-level positions than native-born Danes, although the likelihood of obtaining higher-level positions increases as immigrants’ time in Denmark lengthens. Class attainment and accumulated work experience explain a significant portion of native-immigrant gaps in earnings, but work experience reduces native-immigrant gaps in class attainment for lower-level positions only. The Danish “flexicurity” model and its implications for immigrants living in Denmark are discussed.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2010.00608.x.
PDF: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2010.00608.x.
Nielsen, Helena Skyt, Michael Rosholm, Nina Smith, and Leif Husted. ‘Qualifications, Discrimination, or Assimilation? An Extended Framework for Analysing Immigrant Wage (2004) [PDF]
Nielsen, Helena Skyt, Michael Rosholm, Nina Smith, and Leif Husted. ‘Qualifications, Discrimination, or Assimilation? An Extended Framework for Analysing Immigrant Wage Gaps’. Empirical Economics, vol. 29, no. 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 855–883.
In this paper, we analyze immigrant wage gaps and propose an extension of the traditional wage decomposition technique, which is a synthesis from two strains of literature on ethnic/immigrant wage differences, namely the ‘assimilation literature’ and the ‘discrimination literature’. We estimate separate wage equations for natives and a number of immigrant groups using panel data sample selection models. Based on the estimations, we find that the immigrant wage gap is caused by a lack of qualifications and incomplete assimilation, and that a large fraction of that gap would disappear if only immigrants could find employment and thus accumulate work experience.
Herby, Jonas, and Ulrik Haagen Nielsen. Omfanget Af Forskelsbehandling Af Nydanskere: Et Felteksperiment På Lejeboligmarkedet. (2015) [PDF]
Herby, Jonas, and Ulrik Haagen Nielsen. Omfanget Af Forskelsbehandling Af Nydanskere: Et Felteksperiment På Lejeboligmarkedet. Holte: Ankestyrelsen, 3 Nov. 2015,
Boligsøgende med mellemøstligt klingende navne skal i snit søge om 27 % flere boliger end boligsøgende med et danskklingende navn for at have ligeså gode chancer for at få tilbudt en lejebolig eller en fremvisning. Det vil sige, at når en boligsøgende med et danskklingende navn har sendt 4 ansøgninger, skal en boligsøgende med et mellemøstligt klingende navn søge om 5 boliger for at have lige så gode muligheder for at se eller få den tilbudt.
Gilliam, Laura. ‘Ballade Og Muslimsk Rettro Som Oppositionel Kulturel Form: Etniske Minoritetsdrenges Kulturkonstruktion i Skolen’. (2007) [PDF]
Gilliam, Laura. ‘Ballade Og Muslimsk Rettro Som Oppositionel Kulturel Form: Etniske Minoritetsdrenges Kulturkonstruktion i Skolen’. Tidsskriftet Barn, vol. 25, Jan. 2007, pp. 59–76.
I den københavnske skoleklasse 4a oplever såvel etniske minoritetsbørn og etnisk danske børn at udlændinge, indvandrere og tilmed muslimer er ballademagere, og at danskere opfører sig godt og er dygtige elever. Lærerne opfatter også de etniske minoritetsdrenge i klassen som ballademagere, der tilmed går alt for meget op i religion. De forklarer drengenes adfærd som forårsaget af et problematisk kulturmøde mellem drengenes familiers hjem og den danske skole. Artiklen argumenterer i stedet for, at de etniske minoritetsdrenges ballade og religiøse rettro er kulturelle former, der langt hen ad vejen er konstrueret gennem deres erfaringer i skolen og med den magtrelation de her indgår i. At være muslimsk indvandrerdreng er blevet en oppositionel identitet, der finder sit kulturelle indhold gennem oppositionen til den danske identitet.
PDF: https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/BARN/article/view/3850.
Jaffe-Walter, Reva. ‘“Who Would They Talk about If We Weren’t Here?”: Muslim Youth, Liberal Schooling, and the Politics of Concern’. (2013) [PDF]
Jaffe-Walter, Reva. ‘“Who Would They Talk about If We Weren’t Here?”: Muslim Youth, Liberal Schooling, and the Politics of Concern’. Harvard Educational Review, vol. 83, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 613–635.
With the growing number of immigrant youth moving into new communities and host nations across the globe (Suarez-Orozco, 2007), it is critical that we deepen our understanding of the ways in which schools enable either the civic engagement or the social marginalization of these young people. In this article Reva Jaffe-Walter presents the results of an ethnographic case study of Muslim students and their teachers in a Danish secondary school. Her findings reveal how liberal educational discourses and desires to offer Muslim immigrant students a better life can slide into processes of everyday exclusion in schools. Jaffe-Walter theorizes that immigrants in liberal democracies face technologies of concern—that is, policies and practices that champion the goals of fostering the engagement and social incorporation of immigrant students while simultaneously producing notions of these youth as Other, justifying practices of coercive assimilation (Foucault, 1977; Ong, 1996). She argues that beyond just producing negative representations, technologies of concern position youth within hierarchical schemes of racial and cultural difference that complicate their access to educational resources in schools (Abu El-Haj, 2010; Ong, 1996). This article has implications for the education and social integration of Muslim immigrants within liberal societies, as it reveals the troubling persistence of exclusion buried within practices of concern.
Jagd, Christina B. Når fordomme bliver til racediskrimination. (1997)
Jagd, Christina B. Når fordomme bliver til racediskrimination. 1. udgave, Kbh.: Dokumentations- og rådgivningscenteret om racediskrimination, 1997.
https://bibliotek.dk/da/work/870970-basis%3A21936545
Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Mette Kirstine Tørslev, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. The Geography of (Anti-) Racism and Tolerance: Local Policy Responses, Discrimination and Employment in Denmark. (2011) [PDF]
Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Mette Kirstine Tørslev, Kathrine Vitus, and Kristina Weibel. The Geography of (Anti-) Racism and Tolerance: Local Policy Responses, Discrimination and Employment in Denmark. Working paper produced within the TOLERANCE project, 2011, pp. 57–110,
Summary of part 1:
Although ethnic minorities’ participation in the Danish labour market has increased over the last years, a strong focus rests on particularly young ethnic minority men, who tend to drop out of school and have lower labour market participation. Danish research reveals different barriers to the labour market for ethnic minority youth; e.g. lack of language skills; lack of knowledge about the labour market; professionals ́ clientelisation focusing on problems rather than on skills, discrimination and expectances of discrimination.
In 2010 the Ministry of Integration launched a new ‘Action plan on ethnic equal treatment and respect for the individual’ focusing on information disseminating campaigns and monitoring of discrimination. The municipality of Copenhagen aims at counteracting discrimination and improve equal opportunities among citizens, focusing on three areas: documentation, information and handling of cases of discrimination. Authorities distinguish between objective/factual discrimination and subjective/experienced, but they remain reluctant to acknowledge subjective discrimination referring to it as a matter of feelings.
The young ethnic minority men in this case study tell about job-seeking and being confronted with stereotypes of ethnic minority men as violent, criminal and dangerous, and they experience a need to perform better than everybody else in order to get a job or get accepted. Thus, they indicate experiences of what can be labelled ‘Everyday racism’ that connects structural forces of racism with routine situations in everyday life. While the social street workers also see discrimination and racism as a barrier to 58employment, they view the young men’s social marginalization and lacking knowledge about cultural and social codes on the labour market as the main barrier. Not knowing basic written and unwritten rules at the workplace is, according to the social street workers, a common cause of conflicts and misunderstandings, and the youth tend to be ‘over sensitive.’ The professionals thus recognize that structural discrimination exists, but they seem to perceive discrimination as potential self-inflicted. This ambiguity reflects the general caution with defining and recognizing problems as related to discrimination. Thus, diverse perceptions and understandings exists and a continuously discursive struggle goes on: are ethnic minorities objectively discriminated against at the labour market, or do their difficulties in finding and keeping a job rest on self-inflicted reasons like their attitude/behaviour or lack of education and relevant networks? In these struggles it becomes a matter of arguing for the authenticity of one’s own subjective experiences and accounts of race relations, while de-legitimizing the truthfulness of other discourses
Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Kristina Weibel, and Kathrine Vitus. ‘“There Is No Racism Here”: Public Discourses on Racism, Immigrants and Integration in Denmark’. (2017)
Jensen, Tina Gudrun, Kristina Weibel, and Kathrine Vitus. ‘“There Is No Racism Here”: Public Discourses on Racism, Immigrants and Integration in Denmark’. Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 51, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 51–68.
Jensen, Weibel and Vitus’s article critically discusses contemporary Danish policies aimed at the elimination of ethnoracial discrimination, drawing on policy analyses and qualitative interviews with local and national authorities in Denmark. It illustrates how questions of discrimination and racism are marginalized and de-legitimized within the dominant integration discourse, resulting in the marginalization of anti-racism in policymaking. The side-stepping of racism is being naturalized in public policies through strategies of denial and by addressing discrimination as a product of ignorance and individual prejudice rather than as embedded in social structures. The authors examine how immigration, integration and (anti-)racism as concepts and phenomena are understood and addressed in Danish public policies and discourses. Despite denials of racism in Denmark, Jensen, Weibel and Vitus show that, based on re-definitions of identities and relations, it continues to exist and is evident in public debates and policies on immigration and integration.
Lindekilde, Lasse. ‘The Mainstreaming of Far-Right Discourse in Denmark’. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies’ (2014)
Lindekilde, Lasse. ‘The Mainstreaming of Far-Right Discourse in Denmark’. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, vol. 12, no. 4, Routledge, Oct. 2014, pp. 363–382.
Building on two recent case studies of public debates concerning political meetings arranged by or involving controversial Muslim actors in Denmark, this article argues that an observed mainstreaming of intolerant discourses, most forcefully expressed by the Danish People’s Party, can be explained by the proliferation of a new form of “liberal intolerance” that has transformed old racist or nationalist intolerance into a discourse stressing liberal reasons (autonomy, gender equality, social cohesion, public-private divide, security risks) for not tolerating particular Muslim practices. By comparing the two cases, the different toleration/intoleration positions and arguments in the two debates are brought out, and four different modalities of “liberal intolerance” are identified. Further, the article shows how the spread of liberal intolerance discourses across the political spectrum in Denmark has significantly affected Danish (liberal) Muslim actors’ possibilities of political participation and room for maneuvering.
Johnsen, Helle, Nazila Ghavami Kivi, Cecilie H. Morrison, Mette Juhl, Ulla Christensen, and Sarah F. Villadsen. ‘Addressing Ethnic Disparity in Antenatal Care: A Qualitative Evaluation of Midwives’ (2020) [PDF]
Johnsen, Helle, Nazila Ghavami Kivi, Cecilie H. Morrison, Mette Juhl, Ulla Christensen, and Sarah F. Villadsen. ‘Addressing Ethnic Disparity in Antenatal Care: A Qualitative Evaluation of Midwives’ Experiences with the MAMAACT Intervention’. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, vol. 20, no. 1, Feb. 2020, p. 118.
In Denmark, 13% of all children are born by non-Western immigrant women. The public antenatal care has not adapted to this increased diversity of women. Compared to women coming from Western countries, non-Western immigrant women have an increased prevalence of severe maternal morbidity and higher risks of maternal death, stillbirth and infant death. Suboptimal care is a contributing factor to these ethnic disparities, and thus the provision of appropriate antenatal care services is pivotal to reducing these disparities and challenges to public health. Yet, little is known about the targeted interventions which have been developed to reduce these inequities in reproductive health. The MAMAACT intervention, which included a training course for midwives, a leaflet and a mobile application, as well as additional visit time, was developed and tested at a maternity ward to increase responses to pregnancy warning signs among midwives and non-Western immigrant women. Aim: To explore the feasibility and acceptability of the MAMAACT intervention among midwives and identify factors affecting midwives’ delivery of the intervention.
doi:10.1186/s12884-020-2807-4.
PDF: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12884-020-2807-4.pdf
Christensen, Marianne Brehm, Sarah Fredsted Villadsen, Tom Weber, Charlotte Wilken-Jensen, and Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen. ‘Higher Rate of Serious Perinatal Events in Non-Western Women in Denmark.’ (2016) [PDF]
Christensen, Marianne Brehm, Sarah Fredsted Villadsen, Tom Weber, Charlotte Wilken-Jensen, and Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen. Higher Rate of Serious Perinatal Events in Non-Western Women in Denmark. Dan Med J. 2016 Mar;63(3).
INTRODUCTION: To elucidate possible mechanisms behind the increased risk of stillbirth and infant mortality among migrants in Denmark, this study aimed to analyse characteristics of perinatal deaths at Hvidovre Hospital 2006-2010 according to maternal country of origin. METHODS: We identified children born at Hvidovre Hospital who died perinatally and included the patient files in a series of case studies. Our data were linked to data from population-covering registries in Statistics Denmark. Timing, causes of death as well as social, medical and obstetric characteristics of the parents were described according to maternal country of origin. RESULTS: This study included 125 perinatal deaths. The data indicated that intrapartum death, death caused by maternal disease, lethal malformation and preterm birth may be more frequent among non-Western than among Danishborn women. Obesity and disposition to diabetes may also be more prevalent among the non-Western women. CONCLUSIONS: The role of obesity, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and severe congenital anomalies should be a main focus in improving our understanding the increased risk of perinatal death among non-Western migrant women in Denmark. Six of 28 perinatal deaths in the non-Western group were intrapartum deaths and warrants further concern.
Jonker, Merel, and Sigtona Halrynjo. ‘Multidimensional Discrimination in Judicial Practice: A Legal Comparison between Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands’. (2014) [PDF]
Jonker, Merel, and Sigtona Halrynjo. ‘Multidimensional Discrimination in Judicial Practice: A Legal Comparison between Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands’. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 32, no. 4, SAGE Publications Ltd STM, Dec. 2014, pp. 408–433.
The concept of multidimensional discrimination is claimed to pose considerable challenges for judicial practice. The methods for tackling discrimination on more than one ground have been extensively discussed in the literature but not yet comprehensively analysed empirically. The present study compares and analyses the case law of the Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish equality bodies concerning gender-plus discrimination in the labour market. Based on 74 cases, the comparison shows that neither integrated equality bodies nor anti-discrimination legislation is a prerequisite to protect against multidimensional discrimination, and that the appointment of comparators occurs on pragmatic grounds. These findings suggest that multidimensional discrimination can be adequately dealt with in judicial practice.
doi:10.1177/016934411403200405.
PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016934411403200405
Keskinen, Suvi, Ov Cristian Norocel, and Martin Bak Jørgensen. ‘The Politics and Policies of Welfare Chauvinism under the Economic Crisis’. (2016) [PDF]
Keskinen, Suvi, Ov Cristian Norocel, and Martin Bak Jørgensen. ‘The Politics and Policies of Welfare Chauvinism under the Economic Crisis’. Critical Social Policy, vol. 36, no. 3, Aug. 2016, pp. 321–329.
The ongoing economic crisis that emerged in the wake of the global recession in 2008, and was followed by the more recent crisis of the Eurozone, has introduced new themes and remoulded old ways of approaching the welfare state, immigration, national belonging and racism in Northern Europe. This article identifies two main ways of understanding welfare chauvinism: 1) as a broad concept that covers all sorts of claims and policies to reserve welfare benefits for the ‘native’ population; 2) an ethno-nationalist and racialising political agenda, characteristic especially of right-wing populist parties. Focusing on the relationship between politics and policies, we examine how welfare chauvinist political agendas are turned into policies and what hinders welfare chauvinist claims from becoming policy matters and welfare practices. It is argued that welfare chauvinism targeting migrants is part of a broader neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state and of welfare retrenchment.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018315624168.
PDF: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0261018315624168