Other keynote speakers were Daniel Béland from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Traute Meyer from the University of Southampton, UK and Kimberly Morgan from George Washington University, USA.

The project takes as its point of departure in changes in family structure, economic conditions, educational system, and immigration that children and young people have experienced during the last decades. The project focuses on questions such as the consequences of child poverty; how family change affects children’s situation; the importance of school segregation for the integration of ethnic minorities; and the role of the schools for youth’s psychological wellbeing.

More information about Jan O. Jonsson and the project.

The workshop will have about one hundred participants; social scientists, representatives of organizations of public policy evaluation, representatives from various agencies and United Nations bodies, people who work with social inclusiveness in various ways. Bi Puranen, Secretary General at World Values Survey, will moderate one of the debates and also participate in one of the workshops.

Read more about the workshop at UNESCO

The report shows that the projects financed by the ESF during the period 2007-2013, are more successful than projects funded by the Employment Service – but only in the short term, and only in comparison to some of the Employment Service programs.

The results were discussed at a breakfast seminar on February 21st with Malin Blomgren from Arbetsförmedlingen, Marianne Öberg Håkansson from the Swedidsh ESF Council and Åsa Olli Segendorf, researcher at the Ministry of Finance.

– We need to remember that we are talking about matching job seekers to the labor market, and the question is how big the difference really is between the projects of ESF and Arbetsförmedlingen, said Malin Blomgren, as a way to explain the disappointing results.

– The work of ESF is much more complex than this report indicates, said Marianne Öberg Håkansson, and referred to ESF’s mission to help people getting closer to the labor market. Is that possible to measure at all?

A large part of the discussion came to be about the possibilities to find best practices using scientific methods. The recommendation made in the report is random allocation of participants to the projects and an experimental approach.

– A more structured approach could really help ESF, said Åsa Olli Segendorf.

Malin Blomgren also noted that both the report and the discussion with ESF on the ability for the projects to engage in innovative activities are useful as input to the discussion on how to properly design the ESF program for the next period.

Watch full seminar (swedish)

The report represents the first part of a research project run by the Thematic Group on Inclusion in Working Life, run by the Institute for Futures Studies.

Read an extended summary of the report in english
Order the report in printed version (swedish) by mailing your address to framtidsfokus@iffs.se

Carina Mood‘s article ”Logistic regression: Why we cannot do what we think we can do, and what we can do about it” which appeared in European Sociological Review is the second most cited article, and  Peter Hedström‘s och Petri Ylikoski’s article “Causal mechanisms in the social sciences” published in Annual Review of Sociology is the 16th most cited article.

 Read “Logistic regression…”
Read ”Causal mechanisms..”

Research will be presented on the following themes: identity; democracy and governance; economic development and cultural change; women and gender issues; and religion. Bi Puranen, secretary general of the World Values Survey will give the speech “Human Security and Democracy”.

Read more about Petri Ylikoski 

The work will primarely be based on the WVS data and the topic is to understand the unique position of the Nordic countries in general and Sweden specifically as presented in the Cultural map (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) in comparison with the rest of the world with a focus on the MENA region and Asia in a broader context. This scholarship will be a part of a research context that will monitor the basic values of the Nordic peoples making it possible to determine to what extent their traditional tolerance and openness are persisting, and analyzing factors that might be undermining them. The focus will therefor be on the Swedish society in a comparative perspective.

We use large-scale register data and apply a cross-sectional country–level perspective, longitudinal analysis  and multi-level models to better understand the processes behind and nature of the indicators used. We will analyse why certain values are relatively strong in the Nordic countries in general and in Sweden more specifically in a comparative perspective. We seek a postdoc who can contribute to the further development of the methodological and theoretical foundations of this part of the social sciences while developing his/hers skills as a part of academic specimination.

We are looking for someone with expertise in the following areas:

• Multivariate and dynamic regression analysis
• Multi-level models
• Longitudinal and multicomponent indicators
• Theory based analysis

and with an interest in modernization theory and interdisciplinary work.

This is a one year scholarship funded by the Swedish Institute with a start date of April 15 (or as soon thereafter as possible), but the scholarship might be transformed into an appointment that may be extended for an additional year. The scholarship is on 20.000 SEK per month tax-free.

Please send your application to jobs@iffs.se no later than March 15. Interviews, if invited, will take place upon invitation, either in Stockholm or via Skype.

To UR Samtiden and the film “Främlingsfienden inom oss”