Norwegian Society Research Articles

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Poetic Resistance: Girls’ Autograph Albums during World War II in Norway

Employees Perception of Organizational Crises and Their Reactions to Them - A Norwegian Organizational Case Study.

Organizational sensemaking is crucial for resource planning and crisis management since facing complex strategic problems that exceed their capacity and ability, such as crises, forces organizations to engage in inter-organizational collaboration, which leads to obtaining individual and diverse perspectives to comprehend the issues and find solutions. This online qualitative survey study examines how Norwegian Sea Rescue Society employees perceived the concept of an organizational crisis and how they sensed their co-workers react to it. The scope was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a global event affecting all countries and organizations and responding similarly globally. Data were collected during the Fall of 2020. The instrument of choice was the Internal Crisis Management and Crisis Communication survey (ICMCC). The results showed that the overall sample strongly believed in their organization’s overall resilience level. However, a somewhat vague understanding of roles and responsibilities in a crisis where detected, together with some signs of informal communication, rumor spreading, misunderstanding, frustration, and insecurity. This study contributes to the academic field of organizational research, hence crisis management and sensemaking, and could be valuable to managers and decision-makers across sectors. Increased knowledge about how employees react to a crisis may help optimize internal crisis management planning and utilize robust mitigation and response strategies.

New Women and the Politics of Self: An Insight into Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan”

This article is entitled "New Women and the Politics of Self: An Insight into Henrik Ibsen's “A Doll's House” and George Bernard Shaw's “Saint Joan”." The article investigates how the heroines in the plays of both authors break away from the mores of the Victorian and Norwegian societies in a bid to find their true selves. The article attempts a comparative analysis of the revolutionary attitudes of Ibsen's and Shaw's women. It illustrates the claim that the heroines of both authors are precursors of change and instruments of meaningful alteration. Based on the assumption that the women of Ibsen and Shaw are revolutionists and agents of socio-political, cultural, and economic transformation, the article posits that the unconventional mindsets of the heroines represent a threat to 19th-century society in general and the sacrosanctity of Victorian mores in particular. Seen from the feminist and Marxist perspectives, this article focuses on how Ibsen and Shaw used the stage in the 19th century to create stereotypical new women to achieve a gradual and sometimes cataclysmic transformation of their societies. According to the article, to discover their true selves, the heroines of the playwrights must challenge the inanities of conformist degeneracy in society and break the confining chain that limits women's freedom.

Modern Women in Dilemma: A Study of Sham Marriages in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Ghosts and Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession and Candida

This article entitled "Sham Marriages in Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' and 'Ghosts' and Bernard Shaw's 'Mrs. Warren's Profession' and Candida'" examines the hypocritical marriages in the authors' plays investigates the failure or collapse of 19th-century marriages in Europe. The article assumes that Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" and Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and "Candida" are pulpits for the exposition of fake marriages in the Norwegian and Victorian societies. Seen from the perspective of Marxist feminism, this article postulates that the plays of Ibsen and Shaw are profound social commentaries designed to expose the faults in the family and marriage in the nineteenth century. In the plays of both authors, one of the most difficult conflicts in the average family revolves around the issue of finance. The authors use this common source of domestic dispute as a major theme in portraying the imperfections of the typical home. The paper argues that, unlike many studies that have read Nora, Mrs. Alving, Candida, and Vivie as different characters, they can be considered as the same New Woman represented only from different perspectives in how they react to their marital dilemmas in the four plays. While the present study considers Candida and Mrs. Alving as philistines who choose to stay at home to protect marriage conventions, Nora is seen as a rebel who chooses to abandon the conventional matrimonial life to find her true identity. Be it Candida and Mrs. Alving who stay or Nora who leaves. This work holds that the decisions of all female characters, although in different forms, thwart Victorian standards and make their husbands and societies reflect deeply on the institution of marriage. Instead of seeing Candida as one who conspires against her gender and Nora as one who conspires against patriarchy in favour of her gender, the article concludes that the different decisions of the two heroines are all geared towards achieving meaningful change for their gender.

Enabling Circumstances: Women Chemical Engineers at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, 1910–1943

The Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) was the first of its kind when it opened doors in Trondheim in 1910. For the first time, engineers who were perceived as central to the country’s industrial development could be educated in Norway. Of the 4,311 students admitted to NTH before 1940, twenty were women who embarked on the course in chemical engineering. In this prosopographical study, I aim to examine closely the first cohorts of women engineers in Norway, their motivations for studying chemical engineering, their career opportunities and choices and the extent to which they were supported by mentors. Sixteen women who completed their degrees have been investigated, and the lives and careers of three women who represent three common chemical industries in Norway during the first third of the twentieth century are studied in depth. I argue that the special place of NTH in Norwegian society prompted ambitious women to seek careers in chemical engineering. Because these candidates’ competence was highly valued, they overcame the barriers otherwise experienced by women in Norwegian society in the early twentieth century.

Metacognitive beliefs, maladaptive coping strategies, and depressive symptoms: A two-wave network study of the COVID-19 lockdown and reopening

To address the increased levels of depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 and other pandemics, it is useful to identify the psychological processes that may explain the relationship between pandemic-related stressors and symptoms. In this study, both the combined network of metacognitions and maladaptive coping strategies—derived from the metacognitive therapy model—and the depressive symptoms were studied during the COVID-19 related lockdown and the partial reopening of the Norwegian society about 3 months later. In an online survey, 4936 participants responded at both these time points. They completed the Cognitive Attentional Syndrome-1 and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The combined process and symptom networks were estimated. The maladaptive coping strategies worry/rumination, avoidance, and thought suppression and the symptoms depressed mood and worthlessness showed both high strength centrality at the lockdown and, at least, moderate correlations between their change and overall symptom change from the lockdown to the reopening. None of the metacognitive beliefs attained these criteria. From the lockdown to the reopening, no change in strength centrality was observed. The network structure, however, was significantly different across the periods and several different connections (edge weights) between variables were revealed. For instance, low energy showed a stronger connection to anhedonia and a weaker connection to sleep problems during the reopening than during the lockdown. In conclusion, worry/rumination, avoidance, and thought suppression may maintain central depressive symptoms such as depressed mood and worthlessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. These propositions are actionable as they give access to well-established interventions.

Contextualities of gender in Eritrean immigrant households: Exploring empowerment through integration in Norwegian society

ABSTRACT The article presents a contextual understanding of immigration and integration in Norwegian society from a gender perspective by capturing the experiences of Eritrean immigrant households when adapting to social change and an unfamiliar gender regime. Theories of empowerment and social integration are used to interpret the gender dimensions, and to examine Eritrean families’ post-migration gender relations and the interaction between conventional and egalitarian norms in expectations regarding the roles and social participation of women and men. A qualitative research design was used, involving in-depth interviews, participant observation, and informal discussions. The findings revealed that Eritrean immigrants’ gender relations in Norwegian society were dynamic, due to the opportunities and constraints they faced in the private and public spheres. Women’s ability to challenge patriarchal power relations was due to their adoption of Norwegian mainstream norms that determined their agency and empowerment in society. Also, social inclusion for Eritrean immigrants wes often dependent on social networks that aided their integration into society and was differentiated by gender. The authors conclude that the realities of women’s empowerment were heterogeneous and subjectively influenced by male gender ideologies, relevant education and language skills, access to desirable social networks, satisfactory paid work, and decisive welfare regulations.

Capital, Inequality, and Volunteering

In this paper, I adopt Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical and methodological framework to investigate patterns of inequality in volunteering fields and practices in Norway. Multiple correspondence analyses of national survey data indicate a hierarchically structured social space in Norway according to total volume of capital, while the positioning of different volunteer fields and practices seems to be more egalitarian with regard to capital possession, with some exceptions. This resonates well with established notions of the Norwegian civil society model as social democratic and egalitarian. Based on the discussions and findings, and considering growing social, cultural, and economic differences in many societies, I argue for a new volunteering research agenda better tailored for investigating social inequalities and differentiation in volunteering in different societal contexts, providing a new vantage point for understanding and explaining such inequalities.

‘Correct German Conduct?’ German Requisition Practices and their Impact on Norwegian Society during World War II

The article analyses the German requisition and quartering practices in Norway in the light of international law and traces their impact on everyday relations between the enemies. With an average of 350,000 soldiers stationed in Norway, the German demand for housing was enormous. Space became a highly coveted resource. It was both the object of power struggles and a reflection of those struggles. The German seizure of private property exacerbated the existing housing shortage and was thus very unpopular. Yet the fact that the Wehrmacht also paid good money for requisitioned private properties and, for the most part, followed ‘proper’ procedure fostered acceptance of the measures. Moreover, the spatial proximity with quartered soldiers inevitably led to frequent contacts between the enemies and resulted in a rapprochement. Many autobiographical accounts of Norwegians lauded the Wehrmacht soldiers’ ‘proper’ or ‘correct’ behaviour and described the relations between Norwegians and German soldiers during the war as harmonious. The Norwegian narratives of the German occupation are thus highly ambivalent, oscillating between a positive assessment of the ordinary soldier, and condemnation of the occupation and Nazi rule. This ambivalence, the article argues, was both the result of German requisition policy, aimed to win popular support, and of the felt need to justify the close contacts with the Germans.

Foreign-local teacher-learners in the digital classroom

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, the University of Oslo (UiO), Norway, operated largely through in-person teaching, with minimal use of digital platforms. While online teaching did not change the multilingual nature of the academic community at UiO, nor the everyday Scandinavian-English translanguaging practices of our classrooms, it did bring to light the need to explicitly discuss forms of engagement and participation, including language use. We are both sociolinguists, learners of Norwegian and work migrants to Norway who have been members of UiO for over five years; as such, we negotiate positions as both foreign and local, and as teachers as well as learners. In this article, we take an autoethnographic practitioner inquiry perspective to investigate how our pedagogical translanguaging practices in digital modes of teaching have been shaped by (a) localised language hierarchies, (b) institutional demands/structures, (c) students’ needs and (d) our teaching philosophies. Drawing on our experiences in online teaching over three semesters, we analyse the challenges we have encountered and how attempting to address these challenges through pedagogical translanguaging practices has led to new insights into the nuances of Scandinavian repertoires and to pedagogical relationships based on a non-hierarchical understanding of the roles of lecturers and students. We have found it useful to draw attention to the everyday translanguaging of Norwegian society and to explicitly legitimise pedagogical translanguaging and translingual literacies in our classes as a way to foster metalinguistic awareness and better communication in the online classroom. At the same time, we acknowledge that the particular challenges posed by this digital transition and the dominant role of English in Scandinavian higher education still need further attention as we attempt to create teaching and learning spaces in online platforms that encourage the use of students’ and teachers’ linguistic repertoires.

Minoritizing Processes and Power Relations between Volunteers and Immigrant Participants—An Example from Norway

The voluntary sector is a strong pillar in Norwegian society and has in recent years gained increasing attention as an arena for integration. Though voluntary activities can be valuable door openers for (recently arrived) immigrants, they may, under certain circumstances, contribute to minoritization processes. In this exploratory article, I will investigate social connections and relations between (Norwegian) volunteers and immigrant participants based on a focus group with eight participants involved in a community centre in a Norwegian town through analysing the volunteers’ ideas of how the voluntary sector can contribute to integration processes of immigrants. Special attention will be paid to some of the participants’ behaviour towards the only immigrant participating in the focus group, as this behaviour may reflect minoritizing processes. This article aims to contribute towards a more nuanced picture of what voluntary activities may achieve in terms of integration processes and to bring to light potential risks of creating unequal power relations in the social connections between (Norwegian) volunteers and immigrant participants and facilitating minoritizing processes.

Policies to Reduce Child Poverty in Norway: Can Municipalities Ensure Positive Functionings for Children through Housing Policies?

Child poverty is an increasing challenge for Norwegian society and its municipalities. Policies to reduce it include housing as one particularly important health determinant. The capability approach allows us to focus on determinants for health. Methods were triangulated and literature and document studies, interviews and participating observations were part of the data-gathering process. Thematic analyses were used to analyse data. Children and adults view housing as important. Housing determines families’ possibilities of consuming other goods and choosing what functionings they will convert their resources into. Municipalities can change the course of development by engaging with the Norwegian Government Housing Bank and implementing instruments such as social housing, housing allowances and starter loans giving families the possibility to become homeowners. Housing determines intra- as well as inter-generational life chances. Housing is a corrosive functioning if children live in families that have low-quality housing or high housing costs. Housing is a positive functioning for children if families own their housing. Housing is defined as a market good and a welfare asset. Policies enable some families to buy their own housing, whereas the number of poor children still increases.

Indigeneity versus diversity

The article deals with the representation of the Sámi in the new national curriculum for primary and lower secondary education in Norway. More precisely, it focuses on a specific formulation in the fourth core element of the curriculum for religious education, in which an awareness of Sámi perspectives is presented as part of the diversity competence which pupils are supposed to acquire. Based on a critical analysis of governmental documents dealing with education it is argued that the term ‘diversity’ as it is used in the fourth core element addresses Sámi perspectives in a way that may induce readers to think of the Sámi as one of an increasing number of minorities in an originally Norwegian society. This implication, even if unintended, is highly problematic. It can be interpreted as a violation of both ILO 169, Article 31 and CRC, Article 29 (1), especially since the Sámi are a people indigenous to Norway.

Bronchiolitis should not be treated with glucocorticoids or antibiotics.

We are in the midst of a hectic season for viral respiratory infections. Respiratory syncytial virus is the most common cause of bronchiolitis in children. The guidelines from the Norwegian Society of Pediatricians are clear that oral glucocorticoids have no place in the treatment of bronchiolitis, and antibiotics are rarely needed.

High Unemployment and the Armed Forces: The Costs and Benefits of Recruiting Military Personnel in Norway

ABSTRACT The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the subsequent non-pharmaceutical interventions by governments to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus, and adjusted consumer behaviors have resulted in high unemployment rates worldwide. In this paper, we explore whether the Norwegian Armed Forces can exploit this period of high unemployment to strengthen security and defense in Norway while increasing the job opportunities for young individuals in a difficult labor market. Before the pandemic, the Norwegian government had planned to gradually increase the number of personnel in the armed forces. Hence, an expedited recruitment strategy may improve welfare. We calculate the costs and benefits to Norwegian society of a strategy that exploits the hike in unemployment rates to recruit new personnel to the armed forces at a faster rate. We find that the expedited recruitment strategy will likely provide net benefits to society if the unemployed have a fair chance of being employed. However, we stress that there must be a real need for higher defense spending, it is difficult to estimate the economic value of defense production, and there may be a trade-off between the goals of labor market policies and those of defense policies.

The Use of English in SKAM. Exploring Authentic Resources in Learning Norwegian at BA Level at Babe?-Bolyai University

The goal of this paper is to explore how the use of the popular Norwegian web-based TV series SKAM (SHAME) can enhance cultural awareness by exposure to authentic language and to diverse discourse practices that have both a multilingual and a multicultural dimension. English, through the use of anglicisms and code-switching in SKAM, acts as a cohesive factor that reflects the changes within the Norwegian society while building bridges between different cultures because of its global influence, particularly upon the younger generations. These generations no longer perceive English as a foreign language, but rather as an essential part of their personal and collective identity, and this is reflected in their discourse practices. The analysis of the teenage informal discourse in the series SKAM provides insights into the benefits of using authentic resources to acquaint BA students with the Norwegian contemporary culture.

Identity and Economy at the Crossroads of Innovation and Sustainability. Artistic Interaction Combined with Scientific Analyses of Two Small Norwegian Rural Communities

AbstractThe focus of this article is two small Norwegian rural societies and the adaption to a creative economy at the crossroads of innovation, sustainability, and survival, during centralization, generational change in a welfare state. One of the communities, Etnedal, is an inland mountainous municipality. The other, Solund, is a coastal fishing, fish-farming, and farming municipality. The two municipalities are from point of population among the smallest in Norway. The author discusses, the importance of the identity attached to the traditions of sustainability. The data is published statistical and historical information, as well as oral information and the interaction from two art projects in the communities. Both are ongoing artistic interaction and documentation. The discourse of the article is from the point of critical realism.

Stability and change in attitudes towards homosexuality among immigrant-origin adolescents in Norway

Abstract This article explores attitudes about the acceptability of homosexuality among immigrant-origin adolescents in Norway. Using a sample of students enrolled in upper secondary school, and comparing the data from the World Value Survey, I discuss the extent to which attitudes towards homosexuality among immigrant-origin youth are predominantly static or subject to change as a result of exposure to Norwegian society. Despite substantial differences between native- and immigrant-origin youth, and between different groups according to regional origin and religious affiliation, I find clear indications of changes in attitudes across all groups in the direction of higher level of tolerance. Immigrant-origin youth in Norway consider themselves more tolerant than their parents; have more positive attitudes towards homosexuality than adolescents residing in their countries of origin have; and family length of residence correlates positively with acceptance of homosexuality. Exposure in the form of school contexts where native-origin adolescents make up a larger proportion of the student body is also positively correlated with more positive attitudes towards homosexuality among immigrant-origin youth, but only at the highest level of native density.

Still the Exception? Challenging Ideas of Gender in Norwegian Policing

Abstract This article is an empirical exploration of the role of gender in today’s Norwegian police force. For this study, 21 emergency response officers were interviewed as part of an investigation into the role played by gender in operational police work. This study indicates that changes towards a more gender-equal Norwegian society, combined with general developments within the police at a time when the number of women in the police force has increased considerably, have led to female operational police officers finding that their gender is not a problem. The findings challenge earlier models of theorising and conceptualisation, and point to the need to avoid perpetuating notions that may needlessly limit policewomen’s individual freedom and agency on account of their gender.

Atrial fibrillation and COVID-19 in older patients: how disability contributes to shape the risk profile. An analysis of the GeroCovid registry.

Background and aimsAtrial fibrillation (AF) is often complicated by disabling conditions in the elderly. COVID-19 has high mortality in older people. This study aimed at evaluating the relationship of pre-infection AF with characteristics and survival of older COVID-19 patients.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed inpatients aged ≥ 60 years enrolled in GeroCovid Observational, a multicenter registry endorsed by the Italian and the Norwegian Societies of Gerontology and Geriatrics. Pre-COVID-19 sociodemographic, functional, and medical data were systematically collected, as well as in-hospital mortality.ResultsBetween March and June 2020, 808 COVID-19 subjects were enrolled (age 79 ± 9 years; men 51.7%). The prevalence of AF was 21.8%. AF patients were older (82 ± 8 vs. 77 ± 9 years, p < 0.001), had a higher CHA2DS2-VASc score (4.1 ± 1.5 vs. 3.2 ± 1.5, p < 0.001) and were more likely to present almost all comorbidities. At multivariable analysis, advanced age, white blood cell count, the presence of heart and peripheral artery diseases were significantly associated with the presence of AF. In-hospital mortality was higher in AF patients (36.9 vs. 27.5%; OR = 1.55, 95% CI = 1.09–2.20; p = 0.015). A decision tree analysis showed that, in AF subjects, preserved functional status at admission was the most important factor associated with survival. In patients without AF, baseline COVID-19 severity was the most relevant variable related to clinical prognosis.ConclusionsAF is frequent in older patients with COVID-19, in whom it associates with clinical complexity and high mortality. Pre-infection disability shapes the prognosis of this extremely vulnerable segment of hospitalized subjects.Clinical trial registrationGeroCovid Observational was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04379440).