Tag: velfærdsstaten

Gilliam, Laura. Being Muslim “without a fuss”: Relaxed religiosity and conditional inclusion in Danish schools and society. (2022). [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Gilliam, Laura. Being Muslim “without a fuss”: Relaxed religiosity and conditional inclusion in Danish schools and society. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(6), 2022, 1096–1114.

The ethnic boundary between majority Danes and Muslim minorities has become increasingly impermeable in recent decades, restricting Muslim minorities to conditional inclusion, adapting to the majority’s conditions of good citizenship. This article looks at the “conditions of inclusion” for Muslim pupils in multi-ethnic schools, focusing on what pupils express as an ideal of being a “relaxed Muslim”. This condition of “relaxed” religiosity reflects the dominant discourse on integration in Denmark with its anxiety about Islamism and demands that Muslims adjust to the moderate secularism that typifies Danish society. Yet it is argued that it also points to a more general condition of being a good minority citizen in the Danish welfare society and its institutions, as well as in other similar societies, linked to ensuring the smooth running of everyday practices, ideas about civilized interaction, and maintaining the cultural dominance of the majority, and thus to a majoritydefined harmony.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1971733

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354323399_Being_Muslim_without_a_fuss_relaxed_religiosity_and_conditional_inclusion_in_Danish_schools_and_society

Brodersen, Marianne & Trine Øland. Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. (2023) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Brodersen, Marianne & Trine Øland. Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. (2023) [PDF] Gendered racism: The emancipation of ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ women in Danish welfare politics and professionalism. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 35(2), 2023, 130–146.

This article examines the intersecting oppressions of Danish welfare politics and its emerging interest in emancipating ‘immigrant’ women and girls. It draws on Patricia Hill Collins’ notion of controlling images and, based on a documentary text corpus, it identifies how the images of the unfree immigrant housewife and the inhibited immigrant girl are formed through oxymoronic liberal arguments of care and control. The article demonstrates how this plays out in an assemblage of policy documents and suggests why welfare professionalism is called upon to ‘rescue’ ‘immigrant’ women and girls, situating welfare politics and professionalism within the racial welfare state and its racial capitalist and Orientalist logics. The analyses demonstrate how gendered and racialized signifiers help to structure welfare politics and professionalism, and how a space of emancipation is intertwined with a global economic division of labor. The article suggests that racialized welfare politics and professionalism are permeated by the desire to emancipate women, which remains a powerful impulse within Danish welfare state capitalism, liberalism and social-democratic reasoning.

PDF: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/134282

Bischoff, Carina Saxlund & Anders Ejrnæs. From Homogeneity to Diversity: Societal and Political Responses to Immigration. (2021)

~ mortenstinus

Bischoff, Carina Saxlund & Anders Ejrnæs. From Homogeneity to Diversity: Societal and Political Responses to Immigration. In A. Hagedorn Krogh, A. Agger, & P. Triantafillou (Eds.), Public Governance in Denmark, 2022, (pp. 227–245). Emerald Publishing Limited.

International migration is a global challenge affecting peoples and nations all over the world. In the advanced economies and welfare states of Western Europe, integrating migrants presents political, social as well as economic challenges. Over the past 50 years, Denmark has made a remarkable U-turn on the immigration question. Once the author of one of the most liberal immigration policies in Western Europe, Denmark presently has one of the strictest. This chapter addresses the causes behind the Danish policy U-turn, and how it has affected the social, economic and political integration of immigrants in Denmark. The chapter shows how Danish immigration politics have turned from low to high salience and have undergone radical changes resulting in a tightening of both internal and external immigration policies. It has become far more difficult to obtain residence and citizenship in Denmark. These measures have limited influx although international refugee crises are difficult to control at the borders. Moreover, Danish integration policies have focused increasingly on obligations and incentives, primarily by cutting benefits. The Danish case however shows that reduction of social benefits only has a marginal positive short-term effect on employment but with some negative side effects. When it comes to education, the Danish welfare state has been relatively successful in integrating immigrants and descendants in the educational system.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-712-820221013

Padovan-Özdemir, Marta, and Trine Øland, Racism in Danish Welfare Work with Refugees: Troubled by Difference, Docility and Dignity. (2022)

~ mortenstinus

Padovan-Özdemir, Marta, and Trine Øland, Racism in Danish Welfare Work with Refugees: Troubled by Difference, Docility and Dignity (Routledge, 2022)

This book explores contemporary Danish relations of colonial complicity in welfare work with newly arrived refugees (1978-2016) as recursive histories that reveal new shapes and shades of racism.  Focussing on super- and subordination in helping relations of postcoloniality, the book displays the durability of coloniality and the workings of raceless racism in welfare work with refugees. Its main contribution is the excavation of stock stories of colour-blindness, potentialising and compassion, which help welfare workers invest in burying that which keeps haunting welfare work with refugees, i.e., modern ghosts of difference, docility and dignity.  The book dismantles the global myth of the Danish benevolent, universalistic welfare state and it is of interest to every scholar and student, who wants to make inquiries about Danish exceptionalism and the hidden interaction between past and present, the visible and invisible in Danish welfare work with refugees.

https://www.routledge.com/Racism-in-Danish-Welfare-Work-with-Refugees-Troubled-by-Difference-Docility/Padovan-Ozdemir-Oland/p/book/9780367563356

Pedersen, Sofie, Poster Children of Integration and the Question of Being a ‘Good Danish Muslim’. (2017) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Pedersen, Sofie, Poster Children of Integration and the Question of Being a ‘Good Danish Muslim’, Scandinavian Journal of Islamic Studies, 11.1 (2017), 30–47

This article explores the intersection of subjectivity construction among Muslim youth with Danish welfare state governmentality. More specifically, it looks at campaigns in which successful professionals and students of non-Western descent, primarily Muslims, are used strategically as role models to target ethnic minorities in general, and Muslims in particular. By communicating their life stories, the role models become real life examples of successful integration meant to inspire others to follow their path. Thus the campaigns are a part of the prevalent discourse that views minorities (i.e. non-Danish and non-Christian) as particularly problematic to integrate and therefore needing special attention for becoming “compatible” with the values of the Danish welfare state. Taking its departure in these campaigns and applying a governmentality-inspired approach, this paper seeks to investigate normative state-prescribed forms of being a “good Danish Muslim.” It analyses how this image is being constructed and negotiated in a matrix combining welfare state policies and individual self-interpretation.

Denne artikel undersøger krydsfeltet mellem subjektivitetskonstruktion blandt unge muslimer og den danske velfærdsstats governmentalitet. Mere specifikt ser artiklen på kampagner, hvor unge studerende og erhvervsaktive med anden etnisk baggrund end dansk, primært muslimer, bruges strategisk som rollemodeller for etniske minoriteter generelt og muslimer i særdeleshed. Ved at fortælle egne livshistorier bliver rollemodellerne levende eksempler på succesfuld integration til inspiration for andre. Således er kampagnerne del af en eksisterende diskurs, inden for hvilken minoriteter (altså ikke-danske og ikke-kristne) anses for at være særligt vanskelige at integrere og dermed en gruppe, der kalder på en særlig indsats for at blive “kompatible” med den danske velfærdsstats værdier. Med afsæt i disse kampagner og en governmentalitetsinspireret analyse undersøger denne artikel sta tens normative bud på, hvordan man kan være “en god dansk muslim”. Analysen viser, hvorledes denne forestilling konstrueres og forhandles i et felt, der forbinder velfærdsstatens forskrifter og individers selvfortolkning.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7146/tifo.v11i1.102871

PDF: https://tifoislam.dk/article/view/102871

Schierup, Carl‐Ulrich, The Right to Be Different: Multiculturalism and the Racialization of Scandinavian Welfare Politics; The Case of Denmark. (1994)

~ mortenstinus

Schierup, Carl‐Ulrich, The Right to Be Different: Multiculturalism and the Racialization of Scandinavian Welfare Politics; The Case of Denmark, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 7.3 (1994), 277–88

‘Multiculturalism’ as an influential ideology for structuring ethnic relations has become exposed to increasing critique also in the Scandinavian context. The paper discusses a racialized political debate, legislation, and institutional practices, taking Denmark as the prime example. An increasingly ‘dual welfare’ is becoming legitimized through a hegemonic culturalized language, consistently interpreting ‘the right to be different’ as ‘being different’, and ‘being different’ as being ‘non‐integrated’. In a society where public debate on ethnic and racial discrimination is less than rudimentary, tolerant claims of multiculturalist relativism are effectively turned upside down in the service of neo‐racism, the preachings of which are imperceptibly becoming adopted as the conventional wisdom. This calls for a discussion on ‘politics of recognition’ which brings the debate on the universalism and particularity out of the abstract, while focusing on the vicissitudes of contemporary democracy in a changing welfare state.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.1994.9968409

Papadakis, Yiannis, Belonging in a Welfare State: Greek and Greek Cypriot Immigrants in Denmark. (2022)

~ mortenstinus

Papadakis, Yiannis, Belonging in a Welfare State: Greek and Greek Cypriot Immigrants in Denmark, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 0.0 (2022), 1–20

A central question in migration studies concerns how communities of belonging can exist beyond communities of identity. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with Greek and Greek Cypriot immigrants in Denmark and theoretical discussions on “translocational belongings”, this article suggests that security, equality and a sense of ownership are key factors that contribute towards an enhanced a sense of belonging premised on solidarity, even in the presence of cultural differences related to identity. Migrant belongings, it is further suggested, should not only be treated as plural but also as comparative vis-à-vis the country of origin. The immigrants’ narratives often focussed on comparisons between Denmark with Greece or Cyprus emphasizing how their interactions with the Danish welfare state contributed to a, comparatively-speaking, more profound sense of belonging in Denmark. Yet, the rise of anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, along with the persistent challenges to the welfare state, have led to rising feelings of alienation.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2085524

Koefoed, Lasse, Kirsten Simonsen, and Anniken Førde, Everyday Hospitality and Politics. (2021) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Koefoed, Lasse, Kirsten Simonsen, and Anniken Førde, Everyday Hospitality and Politics, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 11.4 (2021), 444–58.

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.387

Hjorth, Frederik. Ethnicization in Welfare State Politics. (2016)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hjorth, Frederik. Ethnicization in Welfare State Politics. Copenhagen: Dissertation. University of Copenhagen, 2016.

A class of countries, so-called universal welfare states, distinguish themselves by having developed encompassing welfare states with high levels of economic redistribution. In recent decades, these countries have also experienced considerable immigration from non-Western countries and, accordingly, rising levels of ethnic diversity. Since higher levels of ethnic diversity are globally associated with lower levels of economic redistribution, scholars have hypothesized that rising ethnic diversity will put downwards pressure on redistribution levels in universal welfare states. In the literature on this question, the case of the United States has become a near-universal analytical template for how to think about the effects of diversity on redistribution. Americans’ attitudes toward welfare are widely considered ‘racialized’, i.e. in part based on attitudes toward racial outgroups. By the same token, we can think of political attitudes in universal welfare states as potentially ‘ethnicized’, i.e. in part based on attitudes toward ethnic outgroups. In this dissertation, I examine when and how ethnicization occurs. The dissertation’s frame, chapters 1–3, presents my argument and ties the dissertation’s papers together. I begin by outlining empirical patterns which challenge the predictions of prevailing theoretical approaches. Contrary to typical predictions, changes in ethnic diversity are not robustly associated with changes in welfare spending. At the same time, citizens in universal welfare states readily subscribe to anti-immigrant attitudes. I argue that this confusion stems in part from insufficient attention to citizen psychology. I outline a framework based on evolutionary psychology which accounts for why citizens’ policy attitudes can be ethnicized, but also why some issues are more likely to be ethnicized than others. In short, attitudes are ethnicized when citizens are exposed to group cues, from local contexts or mass media, that provide a meaningful link between the policy and stereotypes about an ethnic outgroup. By this criterion, welfare is not likely to be ethnicized, but other issues – e.g., European integration and crime – are. The existing literature, often too mechanically applying the American experience onto universal welfare states, has tended to miss this point.

The dissertation includes four academic papers, presented in chapters 4–7. In paper A, ‘Who benefits’, I demonstrate the role of stereotypes in opposition to European cross- border welfare rights, often denoted ‘welfare chauvinism’. In an original large-scale survey experiment, respondents’ evaluations of the policy are sensitive to cues about recipients’ country of origin and family size.

In paper B, ‘European integration’, I argue that political salience of immigration can ethnicize attitudes toward European integration. I first compare two euro referendums, showing that only where immigration was salient did ethnic prejudice predict vote choice and a subset of voters explain their vote in terms of identity. I then demonstrate a similar pattern in cross-national time-series data, showing that immigration attitudes and support for European integration are more closely associated when immigration is politically salient.

In paper C, ‘Immigration debate’, I analyze media coverage of immigration in Danish news media across 25 years. Many accounts characterize coverage as having grown increasingly negative over time. Analyzing the full text of a sample of 68,000 newspaper articles, I provide evidence against the posited negative trend. I also show that the most negative newspapers, tabloids, disproportionately cover immigration through stories about crime.

In paper D, ‘Local contexts’, I propose that exposure to rising ethnic diversity in the local context can in itself give rise to group-centric attitudes. Using two large data sets on citizen attitudes and local ethnic diversity, I show that crime and immigration attitudes are more closely associated in ethnically diverse localities. The finding challenges prevailing explanations of group-centric attitudes, which have tended to emphasize the role of elites. Altogether, these papers illustrate the influence of group identities in political cognition. They suggest that compared to predictions in the existing literature, ethnicization is at once more limited (in that it occurs for some issues, but not the widely studied case of welfare) and more pervasive (in that in can arise from local contexts as well as from media). It is an important mechanism by which immigration can influence political life, even when the agenda ostensibly revolves around something else.

https://polsci.ku.dk/ansatte/PHD/?pure=da%2Fpublications%2Fethnicization-in-welfare-state-politics(d8da00fa-9756-4149-9757-4c46863c85ef)%2Fexport.html

Batsaikhan et al. Daycare Choice and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from a Randomized Survey. (2019) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

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]

~ mortenstinus

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.   

PDF: https://osf.io/wtn3s/

Larsen, Mikkel Haderup, and Merlin Schaeffer. ‘Healthcare Chauvinism during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. (2020) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

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.

PDF: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1860742.

Johansen, Mette Louise. In the Borderland – Palestinian Parents Navigating Danish Welfare State Interventions. (2013)

~ mortenstinus

Johansen, Mette Louise. In the Borderland – Palestinian Parents Navigating Danish Welfare State Interventions. Dissertation. Aarhus Universitet, 2013,

This PhD thesis offers an account on processes of marginalization at the interface between the Danish welfare state and migrant families of Palestinian descent living in the largest so-called migrant ghetto in Denmark, Gellerupparken. Empirically, the thesis asks how marginalized Palestinian refugee parents with troubled children perceive and cope with welfare state interventions in order to keep their family together. The thesis focuses on Palestinian refugee parents who are marginalized in the Danish state and society as well as in the Palestinian community and ‘ghetto’ population in Gellerupparken, and who may in this sense may be defined as ‘extra-marginalized’. A basic point of departure for the thesis is that the study of marginalized citizens in Denmark can shed light on general contemporary state-society relationships. A key analytical optic in interpreting marginalization rests on Veena Das and Deborah Poole’s (2004) notion of state-margins as presenting the wild and uncivilized counterpart and necessary opposition to the state. According to Das and Poole the state and the margin is continuously redefined in opposition to each other through the invocation of images of the proper citizen and society (Das and Poole 2004: 8). The thesis explores the constitutive mechanisms characterizing the nature of the relationship between the Danish welfare state and the marginalized Palestinian parents in Gellerupparken, and revolves around issues on parenting, intimate everyday lives, and proximate state control. The thesis is based on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork among Palestinian families whose children are approached as troubles and a threat by the Danish authorities. The research was conducted in Gellerupparken in 2009 and 2010. The neighborhood is characterized by a heightened commerce and interaction between different ethnic groups, but it is also known as a public outrage on the basis of increasing crime-rates, violence, social problems, and socio-economically disadvantaged families living off the Danish labor market and in isolation from the larger civil society. Since 2005, the housing project has officially been a ‘ghetto’, fulfilling certain criteria and calling for thorough state intervention and marked by the presence of a vast number of welfare institutions, and policing and surveillance.  The thesis proposes three central arguments: First, I argue that the relationship between the state and the margin is fundamentally unstable. This is so because both the state and the margin appear as internally diverse and unstable with no clear social, cultural, or internal practice-based cohesion, and because the boundaries that demarcate their divide may be just as porous as they may be impermeable. The highly unstable relationship between state and margin is mirrored in the Palestinian parents’ ambiguous practices of searching for the state when it is not there to meet their needs, and simultaneously trying to escape the state when it is perceived to be ‘intruding’ into the family in ways that are not welcome.  Secondly, I argue that marginalization is enacted between state, family, and community, and we need to include the complexity of concerns at stake in this triangular interrelationship in order to understand how marginality is locally produced. Empirically, the thesis shows that the parents perceive their parental position as caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place – between the practices and expectations of the state, the community, and their own children. This position is imbued with insecurity, despair, and a continuous quest for possible ways to keep the family together.  Thirdly, I argue that ways of coping with the interrelationships between state, community, and family is constitutive of the parents’ subjectivity. The thesis shows that borderland formations between these different agencies form the basis for the parents’ imperative to keep the family together. This struggle implies keeping the closest family from being split up and preventing the physical distance, absence, or loss of a family member from the home in the face of ‘threats’ of imprisonment, removal of children, punitive expulsion of their sons from school, or eviction of the families from their homes. It also implies avoiding break-ups between family members, including between parents and children. Furthermore, to the parents keeping the family together entails keeping relatives from breaking down. In this context, the families are under pressure from impulses that they perceive to be threatening the family’s self-preservation, such as severe illness, depression and despair.

https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/projects/phd-project-in-the-borderland–palestinian-parents-navigating-danish-welfare-state-interventions(1b244739-d48d-442b-99be-3ef35460ed33).html. https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/projects/phd-project-in-the-borderland–palestinian-parents-navigating-danish-welfare-state-interventions(1b244739-d48d-442b-99be-3ef35460ed33).html.

Coming of Age in Exile: Health and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Young Refugees in the Nordic Welfare Societies. (2020) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

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.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ketil_Eide/publication/348357687_CAGE_Final_Report_2015-2020/links/5ffa113692851c13feffbbe2/CAGE-Final-Report-2015-2020.pdf.

Borevi, Karin, Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen, and Per Mouritsen. ‘The Civic Turn of Immigrant Integration Policies in the Scandinavian Welfare States’. (2017) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Borevi, Karin, Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen, and Per Mouritsen. ‘The Civic Turn of Immigrant Integration Policies in the Scandinavian Welfare States’. Comparative Migration Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, Physica-Verlag, Dec. 2017.

This special issue addresses the question of how to understand the civic turn within immigrant integration in the West towards programs and instruments, public discourses and political intentions, which aim to condition, incentivize, and shape through socialization immigrants into ‘citizens’. Empirically, it focuses on the less studied Scandinavian cases of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In this introduction, we situate the contributions to this special issue within the overall debate on civic integration and convergence. We introduce the three cases, critically discuss the (liberal) convergence thesis and its descriptive and explanatory claims, and explain why studying the Scandinavian welfare states can further our understanding of the nature of the civic turn and its driving forces. Before concluding, we discuss whether civic integration policies actually work.

doi:10.1186/s40878-017-0052-4.

PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/the-civic-turn-of-immigrant-integration-policies-in-the-scandinav-2.

Bech-Danielsen, Claus, and Gunvor Christensen. Boligområder i bevægelse: Fortællinger om fysiske og boligsociale indsatser i anledning af Landsbyggefondens 50 års jubilæum. (2017) [PDF]

~ mortenstinus

Bech-Danielsen, Claus, and Gunvor Christensen. Boligområder i bevægelse: Fortællinger om fysiske og boligsociale indsatser i anledning af Landsbyggefondens 50 års jubilæum. Landsbyggefonden, 2017,

Landsbyggefonden fylder 50 år den 6. april 2017, og det har vi valgt at fejre med udgivelsen af denne bog, der sætter fokus på fondens aktiviteter indenfor renoveringer og boligsociale indsatser. Fonden varetager  også  mange  andre  opgaver.  Den har  til  opgave  at  administrere kommunernes grundkapitallån, opkræve bidrag på de udamortiserede lån,  sikre  de  elektroniske  indberetninger  af  sektorens  mange  regnskaber,  foretage  regnskabsanalyser,  udvikle  benchmarkværktøjer,  udarbejde  styringsrap-porter til styringsdialogerne i kommunerne, sikre løbende huslejeindberetninger, så staten hver måned kan beregne boligydelse og boligsikring, udarbejde statistikker og meget mere. Alt dette kan ses på Landsbyggefondens hjemmeside. Alle disse opgaver er uhyre vigtige, og når vi i denne bog har valgt at fokusere på  renoveringer  og  boligsocialt  arbejde,  så  er  det,  fordi  disse  aktiviteter  har  en  direkte betydning for de enkelte beboeres hverdag, for byernes udvikling og for velfærdssamfundets  funktion. Der er almene boliger – familieboliger, ældreboliger og ungdomsboliger – over hele landet,  og  Landsbyggefondens  støtte  til  renoveringer  er  også  fordelt  over  hele landet. Alt fra afhjælpning af skimmelproblemer i ældre boliger, omdannelse af store montagebyggerier fra tresserne og til at omdanne treetagers blokke til rækkehuse i yderkommuner, hvor affolkning har reduceret behovet for boliger. Landbyggefonden sikrer også boligsociale indsatser i udsatte områder som fx. lektiecafeer,  fritidsjob  til  de  unge  mennesker  m.v.  Det  drejer  sig  om  mange  hundrede aktiviteter i mere end hundrede boligområder. Når  man  skal  skrive  en  bog  om  et  så  stort  område,  så  er  man  nødt  til  at  prioritere og belyse generelle udviklingstræk med konkrete eksempler, som kan give  et  dækkende  billede.  Det  kræver  indsigt  og  overblik  over  emnet,  og  derfor  har Landsbyggefonden bedt to af de mest indsigtsfulde forskere på feltet om at skrive jubilæumsbogen for fonden, nemlig Gunvor Christensen, der er sociolog, og  Claus  Bech-Danielsen,  der  er  arkitekt  og  professor  ved  Statens  Byggeforskningsinstitut, Aalborg Universitet.

PDF: https://lbf.dk/om-lbf/publikationer/2017-boligomraader-i-bevaegelse/.

Andersen, John, and John Pløger. ‘The Dualism of Urban Governance in Denmark’. (2007)

~ mortenstinus

Andersen, John, and John Pløger. ‘The Dualism of Urban Governance in Denmark’. European Planning Studies, vol. 15, no. 10, Routledge, Nov. 2007, pp. 1349–1367.

The article argues that the present Danish urban policy and urban democracy can be characterized by a striking duality and tension between: (1) Participatory empowering welfare oriented community strategies, which targets deprived districts and neighbourhoods, which are based on notions of the inclusive city. This trend is founded on priorities of radical democracy, social justice, inclusion and citizens empowerment; (2) Neo-elitist/corporative market driven strategic regional and global growth strategies, which are based on notions of the Entrepreneurial Globalized City and where urban policy becomes a question of facilitation of the “growth machine” and neo-liberalized urban authoritarianism. The article discusses dilemmas for overcoming the growing tension between elitist neo-corporate growth regimes, which are in operation via “Quangoes” and closed elite networks, and community empowerment and welfare oriented policy in the age of globalization. Taking the stand of community empowerment and welfare policy, the article conclusively discusses ways to shape a new inclusive politics of difference including using “positive selectivism” as part of an empowerment strategy.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09654310701550827.

Breidahl, Karen Nielsen, Troels Fage Hedegaard, Kristian Kongshøj, and Christian Albrekt Larsen. Migrants’ Attitudes and the Welfare State: The Danish Melting Pot. (2021)

~ mortenstinus

Breidahl, Karen Nielsen, Troels Fage Hedegaard, Kristian Kongshøj, and Christian Albrekt Larsen. Migrants’ Attitudes and the Welfare State: The Danish Melting Pot. Northampton: Edward Elgar Pub, 2021,

Analysing two major surveys of 14 different migrant groups connected to Danish register data, this insightful book explores what migrants think of the welfare state. It investigates the question of whether migrants assimilate to the ideas of extensive state intervention in markets and families or if they retain the attitudes and values that are prevalent in their countries of origin.The authors examine what various migrant groups from countries including Poland, Romania, Spain, the UK, China, Japan, Turkey, Russia, the US, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq and the former-Yugoslavia living in Denmark think about the trustworthiness of state institutions, state responsibility, economic redistribution, female employment and childcare. Chapters also cover the key issues of national identification, social trust and welfare nationalism. Concluding that migrants from diverse backgrounds assimilate well into the welfare attitudes, norms and values of the Danish people in several areas, the book points to the potential assimilative impact of the welfare state. Incorporating new theoretical discussions, this book will be critical reading for academics and students studying migration and welfare states. It will also be a useful resource for comparative migration researchers interested in the impact of the host country context on migrants’ assimilation patterns.

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/migrants-attitudes-and-the-welfare-state-9781800376335.html.

Keskinen, Suvi, Salla Tuori, Sara Irni, and Diana Mulinari, editors. Complying With Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region. (2009)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Keskinen, Suvi, Salla Tuori, Sara Irni, and Diana Mulinari, editors. Complying With Colonialism: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Nordic Region. 1st edition, Farnham, England ; Burlington, VT: Routledge, 2009

Complying with Colonialism presents a complex analysis of the habitual weak regard attributed to the colonial ties of Nordic Countries. It introduces the concept of ’colonial complicity’ to explain the diversity through which northern European countries continue to take part in (post)colonial processes. The volume combines a new perspective on the analysis of Europe and colonialism, whilst offering new insights for feminist and postcolonial studies by examining how gender equality is linked to ’European values’, thus often European superiority. With an international team of experts ranging from various disciplinary backgrounds, this volume will appeal not only to academics and scholars within postcolonial sociology, social theory, cultural studies, ethnicity, gender and feminist thought, but also cultural geographers, and those working in the fields of welfare, politics and International Relations. Policy makers and governmental researchers will also find this to be an invaluable source. 

CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Postcolonialism and the Nordic Models of Welfare and Gender Diana Mulinari, Sari Irni, Suvi Keskinen and Salla Tuori

PART I: Postcolonial Histories/Postcolonial Presents

CHAPTER 2 Colonial Complicity: The ‘Postcolonial’ in a Nordic Context Ulla Vuorela

CHAPTER 3 The Nordic Colonial Mind Mai Palmberg

CHAPTER 4 The Flipside of My Passport: Myths of Origin and Genealogy of White Supremacy in the Mediated Social Genetic Imaginary Bolette Blaagaard

CHAPTER 5 The Promise of the ‘Nordic’ and Its Reality in the South: The Experiences of Mexican Workers as Members of the ‘Volvo Family’ Diana Mulinari and Nora Räthzel

CHAPTER 6 Stranger or Family Member? Reproducing Postcolonial Power Relations Johanna Latvala

CHAPTER 7 Historical Legacies and Neo-colonial Forms of Power? A Postcolonial Reading of the Bosnian Diaspora Laura Huttunen 

PART II: Welfare State and Its ‘Others’

CHAPTER 8 When Racism Becomes Individualised: Experiences of Racialisation among Adult Adoptees and Adoptive Parents of Sweden Tobias Hübinette and Carina Tigervall

CHAPTER 9 Contradicting the ‘Prostitution Stigma’: Narratives of Russian Migrant Women Living in Norway Jana Sverdljuk

CHAPTER 10 Postcolonial and Queer Readings of ‘Migrant Families’ in the Context of Multicultural Work Salla Tuori

CHAPTER 11 “Experience is a National Asset”: A Postcolonial Reading of Ageing in the Labour Market Sari Irni

CHAPTER 12 Licorice Boys and Female Coffee Beans: Representations of Colonial Complicity in Finnish Visual Culture Leena-Maija Rossi

PART III: Doing Nation and Gender: The Civilising Mission “at Home”

CHAPTER 13 Guiding Migrants to the Realm of Gender Equality Jaana Vuori

CHAPTER 14 Institutional Nationalism and Orientalised Others in Parental Education Nanna Brink Larsen CHAPTER 15 Whose Feminism? Whose Emancipation? Chialing Yang

CHAPTER 16 “Honour”-Related Violence and Nordic Nation-Building  Suvi Keskinen.

https://www.routledge.com/Complying-With-Colonialism-Gender-Race-and-Ethnicity-in-the-Nordic-Region/Keskinen-Tuori-Irni-Mulinari/p/book/9780367603236.

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. ‘Making Children “Social”: Civilising Institutions in the Danish Welfare State’. (2014) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. ‘Making Children “Social”: Civilising Institutions in the Danish Welfare State’. Human Figurations, vol. 3, no. 1, Feb. 2014,

This article focuses on the role of child institutions in forming and disseminating ideas about what it means to be a civilised person in the Danish welfare state. The argument is that child institutions – kindergartens and schools – have been central to the integrating and civilising processes of the last century. To a wide extent these processes can be described as a state project, as the means and aims of childcare and education have been part and parcel of the expanding Danish welfare state. However, our ethnographic material from Danish kindergartens and schools shows that these child institutions are not merely executing a civilising project on behalf of the state, but have themselves been highly influential in defining and disseminating norms of civilised behaviour.

Full text: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11217607.0003.103.

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. Civiliserende institutioner: Om idealer og distinktioner i opdragelse. (2012)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. Civiliserende institutioner: Om idealer og distinktioner i opdragelse. Aarhus Universitet, 2012.

I et velfærdssamfund som det danske er børneopdragelse ikke blot forældrenes opgave, men et anliggende for både samfund og stat. Den store opmærksomhed på børns trivsel og opførsel fra både medier og politikere fortæller om en udtalt bevågenhed og statslig prioritering. Denne samfundsinvolvering gør det vigtigt at se nærmere på børneinstitutionerne.  For hvad er det for mennesker og medborgere, man søger at opdrage børnene til at blive? Hvad er det for værdier for opførsel og omgang, der arbejdes med? – og stemmer de overens med den opdragelsespraksis, der foregår i familier? Hvilke interesser er institutionaliseringen af børneopdragelsen udtryk for, og hvilke konsekvenser har den for børnene og for samfundet?  Med afsæt i sociologen Norbert Elias civiliseringsbegreb forsøger denne bog at besvare disse spørgsmål. På baggrund af etnografiske feltarbejder i børnehaver, folkeskoler og familier, samt interviews med 4-16 årige børn, deres forældre, pædagoger og lærere præsenterer bogen en række analyser af institutionsliv og opdragelse. Formålet er at få indsigt i de idealer og distinktioner, der ligger i den institutionelle organisering af børns liv i det danske velfærdssamfund.

https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/c/civiliserende-institutioner/.

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. Children of the Welfare State. Civilising Practices in Schools, Childcare and Families. (2016)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Gilliam, Laura, and Eva Gulløv. Children of the Welfare State. Civilising Practices in Schools, Childcare and Families. Pluto Press, 2016,

This original ethnographic study looks at how children are ‘civilised’ within child institutions, such as schools, day care centres and families, under the auspices of the welfare state. As part of a general discussion on civilising projects and the role of state institutions, the authors focus on Denmark, a country characterised by the extent of time children use in public institutions from an early age. They look at the extraordinary amount of attention and effort put into the process of upbringing by the state, as well as the widespread co-operation in this by parents across the social spectrum.  Taking as its point of departure the sociologist Norbert Elias’ concept of civilising, Children of the Welfare State explores the ideals of civilised conduct expressed through institutional upbringing and examine how children of different age, gender, ethnicity and social backgrounds experience and react to these norms and efforts. The analysis demonstrates that welfare state institutions, though characterised by a strong egalitarian ideal, create distinctions between social groups, teach children about moral hierarchies in society and prompts them to identify as more or less civilised citizens of the state.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745336046/children-of-the-welfare-state/. https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745336046/children-of-the-welfare-state/.

Gilliam, Laura. De umulige børn og det ordentlige menneske: Identitet, ballade og muslimske fællesskaber blandt etniske minoritetsbørn. (2009)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Gilliam, Laura. De umulige børn og det ordentlige menneske: Identitet, ballade og muslimske fællesskaber blandt etniske minoritetsbørn. Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2009,

De umulige børn og det ordentlige menneske handler om etniske minoritetsbørns identitetserfaringer i den danske folkeskole. Den viser, at de etniske minoritetsbørn – stik imod skolens og lærernes intentioner om integration – oplever, at der er et skarpt skel mellem danskere og etniske minoriteter. Børnene føler, at den danske og andre nationale identiteter er hinandens modsætninger, og at de etniske minoritetsbørn laver ballade og er dårlige elever, hvorimod danske børn opfører sig pænt og er dygtige elever. Men hvorfor bliver nationale og religiøse identiteter så vigtige i folkeskolen? Og hvorfor ender især muslimske drenge i kategorien som skolens ballademagere?  Disse spørgsmål besvarer bogen gennem en analyse af skoleinstitutionen og børns identitetsopbygning omkring fællesskaber og kulturelle former. Her bliver det tydeligt, hvordan den danske folkeskoles ideal om ‘det ordentlige menneske’ bringer begreberne om køn, nationaliteter og religion ind i samspillet mellem børn og lærere på en måde, som ikke fremmer integration.

https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/u/umulige-b%C3%B8rn-og-det-ordentlige-menneske,-de/.

Buchardt, Mette. ‘The “Culture” of Migrant Pupils: A Nation- and Welfare-State Historical Perspective on the European Refugee Crisis’. (2018)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Buchardt, Mette. ‘The “Culture” of Migrant Pupils: A Nation- and Welfare-State Historical Perspective on the European Refugee Crisis’. European Education, vol. 50, no. 1, Taylor & Francis, Jan. 2018, pp. 58–73.

Culture seems to function as a central explanation when refugees and other migrants are framed as a risk and a challenge in European and national politics across the member states, including educational politics. Based on the case of Denmark during the 1970s, the article unfolds how education historically has been an arena for the internal bordering of the nation in the context of a welfare state model by means of the category of culture.

doi:10.1080/10564934.2017.1394162.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10564934.2017.1394162.

Buchardt, Mette. Pedagogized Muslimness: Religion and Culture as Identity Politics in the Classroom. (2011)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Buchardt, Mette. Pedagogized Muslimness: Religion and Culture as Identity Politics in the Classroom. Waxmann Verlag, 2014.

Becoming Danish/Christian and becoming Muslim are skills that may be acquired in the secularized school system. This study explores how social structure and the politics of identity and knowledge in relation to religion intertwine when recontextualized in the classroom of the Danish comprehensive school post 9-11. Through close readings of what takes place at a classroom level in two Copenhagen schools, Pedagogized Muslimness provides insights into how the Nordic model of comprehensive schooling – in the (post-)welfare state – plays out in daily school life and with what effects. 

The book provides a deeper understanding of how knowledge is produced in school, and how school operates as an arena for the production and distribution of social difference. The good pupil is the pupil that speaks of her/himself, acting as a subject, or who, by confirming the teacher’s organizing of her/himself, accepts being made into an object upon which knowledge can be generated. Particularly overexposed are the pupils, whom the teachers identify as ‘Muslim’, something which draws on decades of casting this group of children as special objects of – as well as obstacles to – schooling. 

By the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the children of migrants came to be defined by their parents’ relation to the labor market: as ‘foreign workers’ in often unskilled jobs, associated with rural life and ‘traditional family patterns’, and characterized by what was seen as their (lack of) language skills. In the course of several moral panics around ‘Muslims’ and ‘Muslim children’, this focus has translated into a knowledge formation of culture/religion. The book shows how school-produced Muslimness, in the pedagogized social economy of the classroom, becomes a parameter of social class, higher as well as lower.

https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/p%C3%A6dagogiseret-muslimskhed-religion-og-kultur-som-identitetpolitik.

https://www.waxmann.com/waxmann-buecher/?tx_p2waxmann_pi2%5bbuchnr%5d=3143&tx_p2waxmann_pi2%5baction%5d=show