Comparing the Organization of Durable Inequalities in Childhood: Inequality in childhoods, schools and associated welfare systems

CODIC is based on two project objectives: (1) a comparative study on the role of schools and associated welfare agencies for social inclusion and wellbeing of their students in Trondheim, Norrköping, Tampere, and Berkeley in California, and (2) a Ph.D. training and intellectual exchange in the comparative study of educational and social welfare institutions. Our perspective on schools as organisations embedded in local, institutional, and social policy contexts allow us to capture tensions and frictions within schools and associated welfare systems in more detail than either conventional actor based- or structure-focused research. The project's extensive and broad data includes register data, policy documents, interviews with teachers, welfare workers, municipal administrators and local leadership, as well as quantitative and qualitative data on children’s self-perception, social integration and psychosocial wellbeing. This unique dataset opens up for investigations how agents across different levels of the school system negotiate and make relevant social categories of gender, class, ethnicity and disability, and how these categories structure problem definitions, opportunity structures and social practice. Consequences of school segregation are addressed in the school studies, organisational analysis, and in the handling of social inclusion during the Covid-19 pandemic in the four school systems.

The project investigates a classical welfare paradox, namely the persistence of systematic and “durable inequalities” in both Nordic and market-oriented welfare regimes. Rather than reducing this paradox to a question of class background or personal resources, we seek to consider the impact of social organisation and integration of schools and associated welfare systems. Whether schools promote or limit welfare and opportunity depend on the practices in which they engage, their responsiveness to local communities, and how they are integrated with other welfare institutions. CODIC is based on two project objectives: (1) a comparative study on the role of schools and associated welfare agencies for social inclusion and wellbeing of their students in three Nordic and one US city, and (2) a Ph.D. training and intellectual exchange in the comparative study of educational and social welfare institutions. Our meso-level perspective on schools as organisations embedded in local, institutional, and social policy contexts allow us to capture structural and institutional tensions and frictions within schools and associated welfare systems in more detail than either actor- or structure-focused research. The project's extensive and broad data includes register data, policy documents, interviews with teachers, welfare workers, municipal administrators and local leadership, as well as quantitative and qualitative data on children’s self-perception, social integration and psychosocial wellbeing. This unique dataset opens up for investigations how agents across different levels of the school system negotiate and make relevant social categories of gender, class, ethnicity and disability, and how these categories structure problem definitions, opportunity structures and social practice. Consequences of school segregation are addressed in the school studies, organisational analysis, and in the handling of social inclusion during the Covid-19 pandemic in the four school systems.