Large research projects

1. The modern child and the flexible labour market: Institutionalisation and individualisation of children in the light of changes in the welfare state

Management: Associate Professor, Director Anne Trine Kjørholt and Professor Jens Qvortrup

NOSEB is conducting a research project on the extent to which day-care centres are part of modern discourses about flexibility, neo-liberal approaches and user-orientation, as they are found in the labour market. The project includes five interrelated project and has an important comparative profile and also endeavours to contrast main trends of institutionalisation with so-called nature day-care centres in terms of for instance participation. Subprojects are included: 1 Child care policy in the flexible working life, 2 Flexibility, user-orientation, and quality: children as participants and users, 3 Welfare state policy towards small children at a cross road? An historical-comparative study of Norway, Sweden and Germany, 4 ‘Natural childhood’ in Norwegian day-care centres? 5 Institutionalisation: the generational context.

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2. Children as new citizens and ‘the best interest of the child’: A challenge for modern democracies

Management: Associate Professor, Director Anne Trine Kjørholt and Professor Jens Qvortrup

The aim is to develop research based insights about the relationships between global discourses on children’s rights, welfare policy and children’s experiences and perspectives of their welfare. The project explores from different perspectives and on different societal levels (cf. Welfare Programme, p. 3) how global discourses on children’s rights to participation (art 12) and the principle of the best interests of the child (art 3) in the CRC are interpreted and practiced in different societies. It seeks to elaborate larger concerns about the changing nature of democracy, childhood, and young people’s experiences of their welfare, and critically investigate the concepts and approaches embedded in the global rights discourses. Subprojects are: 1 Children's perspectives on citizenship and nation-building in a comparative perspective, 2 Childhood’s ambiguity – politics and practice on children’s rights in context of family change, 3 Refugee children, citizenship and ’the best interests’ of the child. A comparative perspective is firmly included in the project.

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3. Consuming Children. Commercialisation and the Changing Construction of Childhood

Management: Professor David Buckingham and Associate Professor Vebjørg Tingstad

The project aims to study marketing to children, and to assess the role of commercialisation and consumer culture in changing the definitions and lived experiences of childhood. The project seeks to integrate three aspects of this phenomenon - namely, marketing, the product and the consumer. Sub-project 1 will explore the historical dimensions of marketing to children, the contemporary practices of the media, advertising and related industries, and the competing discourses on these issues that circulate within public and policy debate. Sub-projects 2 and 3 will consider the nature of marketing to kindergartners and tweens. Sub-project 4 will explore the implications of these developments both for media regulators and for educationalists.

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4. Children, young people and local knowledge in Ethiopia and Zambia

Management: Associate Professor, Director Anne Trine Kjørholt, Norway and Dr. Fikre Dessalegn, Ethiopia

The project, based on a network collaboration of researchers and academic institutions (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Dilla University in Ethiopia and University of Zambia) aims to produce cross-cultural knowledge about children and young people in the context of development. Its core objectives are to: a) carry-out multi-disciplinary research on the ways in which children and young people participate in economic, social and cultural reproduction of society; and b) enhance the capacity of partner institutions through exchange of expertise, knowledge and experience.

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5. Day-care centres in transition. Inclusive practices

Management: Professor Randi Dyblie Nilsen

In a collaboration with the University College of Nord-Trøndelag and the Department of Health and Social Work at NTNU, this project aims toward new knowledge and further understanding of the day-care institution as an arena for inclusion by concentrating on professional practices related to child diversity, which involves majority – minority relations concerning disability as well as multi-cultural questions. Four subprojects are carried out: 1 The day-care centre: An inclusive social institution; 2 Pre-school teachers’ practices in a cultural and historical context with a particular emphasis on children with special needs; 3 Cultural identity and the day-care centre. 'Children with disabilities - values and practices in day-care centres' is a PhD project which is also part of the project.

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Completed projects:

COST A19, Children’s Welfare