Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Dr. Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø at Think and Drink Colloquium

Think & Drink Colloquium Monday February 8th 2016 Dr. Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø "Good" parenting = happy children: State-based parental guidance programmes in Norway
  • Wann 08.02.2016 von 18:00 bis 20:00
  • Wo Raum 002: Universitätsstraße 3b, 10117 Berlin
  • iCal
Dr. Astrid Ouahyb Sundsbø, Universitetet i Bergen, Norwegen

"Good" parenting = happy children: State-based parental guidance programmes in Norway

 
As a result of ongoing global, economic, social, cultural and political processes, new parenting norms, ideologies and practices are emerging. Migration 
and increased class differences bring along differentiations in access to resources and highlight the co-existence of different ideas of parenting in the same place. 
This lecture presents preliminary findings from an ongoing research project with a focus on Norwegian governmental initiatives seeking to train/”empow
er” parents with scarce (socioeconomic and/or cultural) resources. It presents an overview of different initiatives seeking to “strengthen parental competencies” to be found in the borough of Årstad in Bergen, Norway’s second largest city. Årstad, which can be considered as a micro-cosmos of the (increasingly) multicultural N
orwegian society, is characterized by a diverse composition of residents with different life styles and different sets of economic, social and cultural resources. 
The main focus will be directed at the aims of the governmental initiatives and the (political and) normative grounds they are founded upon. Towards the end of the lecture, two possible interpretations will be discussed: The parental guidance initiatives as an expression of a) continuity of a traditionally strong Norwegian welfare state engagement, or b) discontinuity of this tradition expressed through stressing parental responsibility, thus suggesting a weakening of collective responsibility.