Rune HalvorsenOslo Metropolitan University · Department of Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Policy
Rune Halvorsen
Dr.polit.
About
64
Publications
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329
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Citations since 2017
Introduction
Rune Halvorsen, PhD in Sociology, Professor of Social Policy, Oslo Metropolitan University. Scientific coordinator of EUROSHIP - Closing gaps in European social citizenship funded by Horizon 2020.His main research interests are European and comparative welfare policy, social citizenship and citizenship movements. He has in particular focused on poverty, youth transitions, disability policy and voice in the welfare state. Board member of the Nordic ESPAnet and the Nordic Centre, Fudan University
Additional affiliations
September 2017 - August 2018
January 2015 - present
August 2014 - present
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- Halvorsen teaches at the Master's program in International Health and Social Policy (in English) and supervise MA and PhD students in the department.
Publications
Publications (64)
This article reviews social regulatory and redistributive policies in China that aim at fostering digital inclusion of persons with disabilities. We examine the emerging Chinese policies and how China has responded to the impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on digital inclusion in terms of redistribution, market regulation, involvement of...
The chapter examines three types of welfare policy measures (income maintenance, social services and social regulation) for the employment of young adults with disabilities in the Nordic countries. The chapter demonstrates that the composition of the policy measures have changed since the late 1990s. On this background the chapter asks if the polic...
Dr Halvorsen has extensive international experience from scientific coordination and participation in large, cross-national research projects. He has led cross-national and cross-disciplinary research projects funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Nordic Council of Ministers. He participated in the scientific coordination of the FP7 proj...
In recent years Norwegian social policy has undergone considerable changes. At the same time the number of persons in receipt of means-tested social assistance and disability pension has increased significantly. It is therefore of particular interest to explore the concrete patterns of relationships between the organisational efforts by clients and...
The challenge of including youth in the labour market is a problem which many European countries are facing. Examining the transition from education to employment, Youth, Diversity and Employment combines insights from law and the social sciences to link the challenges and specific barriers facing young and vulnerable people today. Based on origina...
Background: Persons with chronic diseases (PwCDs) often experience work-related problems, and innovative actions to improve their participation in the labor market are needed. In the frame of the European (EU) Pathways Project, the aim of the study is to compare existing strategies (policies, systems, and services) for professional (re-)integration...
The inclusion of young people in the labour market is a major policy challenge across Europe. In particular, we know that certain groups of young people have a higher-than-average risk of marginalisation and exclusion. Young persons with disability represent one important category of vulnerable persons. In the 2000s, the Nordic countries (along wit...
In this volume, we have demonstrated that a main challenge for the Nordic governments is to facilitate the transition from education to quality employment for all, including more vulnerable youth groups. Additionally, the Nordic countries have experienced challenges in their secondary education programmes, as well as in their active labour market p...
Since the 1990s, a number of reforms have taken place in European social policy that have impacted the opportunities for persons with disabilities to be full and active members of society. The policy reforms have aimed to change the balance between citizens’ rights and duties, their opportunities to enjoy choice and autonomy, to live in the communi...
In this chapter, we discuss scholarly perspectives on life courses, especially the life courses of persons with disabilities. We are particularly interested in what analyses of life courses tell us about changes over time in the scope of exercising Active Citizenship in the nine countries studied. In principle, we are also looking for possible link...
The most common strategy in comparative social policy has been to rely on existing surveys and register data. For several reasons, this was not an option for DISCIT. Existing data on disability from Eurostat (the Labour Force Survey and EU-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) has been limited – although progress is currently being made in th...
Young adults are at a critical stage in adjusting to dominant life expectations. According to Wyn and White (1997, p. 4) “youth is most productively conceptualized as a social process in which the meaning and experience of becoming adult is socially mediated”. Transition to adulthood and the efforts to become active citizens are interrelated in tha...
In the introduction we set ourselves the task to identify the conditions that are required for Active Citizenship to become an experienced reality for persons with disabilities. To undertake this endeavour we have adopted a multidimensional concept of Active Citizenship focusing on three dimensions: security, autonomy and influence. Drawing on find...
We started this book by asking whether and to what extent European and national policies enhance the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities. The previous chapters have examined whether such policies have included explicit goals, appropriate means and coordinated efforts. Several of the chapters have identified changes that may improve the...
In this chapter, we set ourselves two tasks. First, we ask what perspectives, concepts and models can help us to capture the complexity and the development of public policy and legislation of significance for exercising Active Citizenship by persons with disabilities. We discuss how such policy and legislation build upon - as well as structure - th...
Over the last three decades, a number of reforms have taken place in European social policy with an impact on the opportunities for persons with disabilities to be full and active members of society. The policy reforms have aimed to change the balance between citizens’ rights and duties and the opportunities to enjoy choice and autonomy, live in th...
Being an ‘active citizen’ involves exercising social rights and duties, enjoying choice and autonomy, and participating in political decision-making processes which are of importance for one’s life. Amid the new challenges facing contemporary welfare states, debate over just how ‘active’ citizens can and ought to be has redoubled. Presenting resear...
Discovering methods to combat poverty and social exclusion has now become a major political challenge in Europe. Combating Poverty in Europe offers an original and timely analysis of how this challenge is met by actors at European, national and subnational levels. Building on a European study comparing Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United...
The article argues that the Capability Approach can enrich sociology’s capacity to link human agency and structure in dynamic analyses of social inequality and marginality. While many read the Capability Approach as excessively individualistic, the validity of this view is less obvious if we take into account the key role of conversion processes in...
In this book we ask whether European and national polices are enhancing the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities. More specifically, we investigate whether such policies include explicit goals, appropriate means and coordinated efforts. To the extent that the answer is no, we consider what kinds of changes are called for in the design an...
This book asks how governments in Europe go about combating poverty and social exclusion. Poverty and social exclusion are complex problems, and a number of actors are involved in efforts to handle them. The complexity creates a range of challenges of political capacity and organization. The financial crisis that began in 2008 is an important conte...
Forholdet mellom forskning og politikk kan langt på vei forstås som et bytteforhold. Dette kapitlet analyserer betingelsene for produktivt samspill mellom forskning og funksjonshemmingspolitikk. Først gjør vi rede for vårt analytiske perspektiv på relasjonene mellom aktører innen forskning og funksjonshemmingspolitikk. Deretter sammenligner vi hvor...
The Nordic countries are admired for high employment, low levels of poverty and inequality, encompassing welfare states, and peaceful industrial relations. Yet the model is criticised for hampering the employment opportunities of vulnerable groups. The literature identifies several potential mechanisms of exclusion. Compressed wage structures may m...
This paper argues that social policy scholars have good reasons to engage with the literature on sustainable development when analysing the challenges of how to make polices and welfare states sustainable. While many analysts have discussed the need to ensure the sustainability of welfare states and concerns for future generations, they rarely spel...
Including youth in the labour market is a major challenge facing many European countries, including the Nordic countries. Since 2007 many European countries have witnessed an increase in the rate of young adults neither in education, training nor employment (NEET) and an increase in the number of young adults registered as ‘unemployed’. Despite eff...
This article asks how the legitimacy (recognition or misrecognition) of "ethnicity" and "disability" influences public policies to promote the inclusion of young adults in the Nordic labour markets. The article assesses the case for seeing misrecognition and lack of accommodation as significant factors behind troubled transitions from school to wor...
SUMMARY: Universal design and accessibility in Norwegian housing policy – social regulation, national institutions and local implementation
Rune Halvorsen
This NOVA report analyses how emerging requirements of ‘universal design’ and ‘accessibility’ in the ordinary housing market is associated with general development trends in Norwegian welfare...
This report maps and compares contrasting models for labour market inclusion of persons with disabilities in selected European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) and the United States.
Building on a systematic review and reanalysis of the existing literature and statistics in the field, and assessmen...
The expanding use of ICT creates new opportunities for persons with disabilities in education and employment, and may reduce barriers to participation in everyday life, e.g. persons with dyslexia or visual impairments may have text converted to speech, more people may have home offices, or people may participate in cyber-infrastructure-enabled lear...
Abstract
The overall theme of the volume is the understanding of human dignity, autonomy and human rights in health care and social services in modern welfare states, with special reference to the Nordic countries. Focus is put in vulnerable groups such as children, individuals with cognitive impairment or mental illness and persons with physical d...
This chapter examines how the evolving supranational equal treatment approach is challenging the profile of Nordic disability policy. We ask whether the adoption of binding disability rights in the Nordic countries will contribute to ensuring the equal treatment, human dignity and autonomy of persons with disabilities. We answer this question in th...
1 Rune Halvorsen, dr.polit, seniorforsker NOVA Pb. 3223 Elisenberg 0208 Oslo Oslo, 7. september 2007 Deres ref: 200401216-/CBK Arbeids-og inkluderingsdepartementet Integrerings-og mangfoldsavdelingen v/ Christian B. Kielland Postboks 8019 Dep 0030 Oslo Ratifisering av FN-konvensjonen om rettighetene til mennesker med nedsatt funksjonsevne Jeg viser...
The Nordic welfare states are affluent and have highly developed and encompassing public systems of income maintenance and services aiming at an equalization of life chances and opportunities. The provision of assistive technology has been an essential part of this policy tradition. All five countries have a national system for the allocation of as...
Since the 1990s, European welfare states have come to emphasize individualized or personalized approaches to unemployment. An individual approach, on the one hand, implies an ambition to involve the individual on his or her own terms in a dialogue with the welfare agencies on how to handle unemployment, from both short- and long-term perspectives....
This chapter analyses the emergence of social-movement organisations initiated by social-security claimants in Norway during the 1990s. It asks whether these organisations were successful or have had an impact on public-welfare policy, even if many of them have been short-lived and unstable. The chapter shows that change in public policy is the are...
The article discusses ‘activation’ in Denmark and Norway from an ‘active society’ perspective. The argument forwarded is that activation in the two Nordic countries shows continuity over the last 50 years, where Denmark and Norway have shared much of the same policy rationale or logic. At the same time there have been discrepancies in the activatio...
For much of the 20th century, the Norwegian authorities pursued a strict assimilation policy towards Travellers (tatere/ romanifolket) and their culture. As was the case in many other countries, Travellers were constructed as "the other" (Riggins 1997, MacLaughlin 1999). When compared to other Western European countries, it is, however, surprising...
Boken gjør rede for den sosiale bevegelsen blant taterne siden begynnelsen av 1990-tallet. Den kaster lys over hva det kan innebære å tilhøre en etnisk minoritet i dagens Norge. Siden begynnelsen av 1990-tallet har det skjedd forholdsvis store endringer i det offisielle Norges forståelse og aksept av taterne som minoritet i det norske samfunnet. Se...
In this article we discuss the challenges facing European disability policy and in what direction it is likely to move in the years to come. We argue that the emerging interaction between transnational and national policy development is of crucial importance. At the core of this relationship is the division and interplay between policies of redistr...
Spørsmål om avhengighet av offentlige tjenesteytelser og fattigdom står nå sentralt på den politiske dagsorden både i Norge og en rekke andre vesteuropeiske land. Det hevdes med økende kraft fra ulike hold at velferdsstaten står overfor større utfordringer enn det som kan løses av de nåværende aktører og gjennom de foreliggende ordninger og styring...
Kapitlet analyserer synspunkter og reaksjonsformer som kom fram i forbindelse med den sosiale mobiliseringen blant tatere i Norge fra begynnelsen av 1990-tallet. Kapitlet argumenterer for at den tidligere assimileringspolitikken både har muliggjort og vanskeliggjort den sosiale mobiliseringen. Kapitlet viser at forholdet mellom myndigheter, utenfor...
The Registered. Partnership Act, passed in Norway in 1993, has given lesbian and gay couples a right to register their relationship and to obtain many of the legal rights that heterosexual couples have. However, the practical consequences of the Act appear to have been modest, with relatively few couples registering their relationship. The article...
The article discusses the Registered Partnership Act, passed in Norway in 1993, which has given gay and lesbian couples a right to register their relationship and to obtain many of the legal rights that heterosexual couples have. The article argues that the introduction of the Act is a product of, among others, cohabitation having become more legit...
Homosexuelle Ehen, das Recht auf Gleichgultigkeit. In den letzten Jahren ist fur Homosexuelle in den skandinavischen Landern ein dem Ehevertrag nahezu gleichgestellter Partnervertrag eingefuhrt worden. Zwar last sich diese neue Institution als Anerkennung einer homosexuellen Lebensweise werten, aber da ihr die Bezeichnung « Ehe » versagt geblieben...
Projects
Projects (9)
The goal of this project is to understand how important social media is for Turkish adolescents in Oslo, how it affected their migratory experiences, and how these experiences affected their mental health. We want to understand these relations so that any positive effects can be facilitated in the future and any negative effects can be suppressed.
East-Lake Institute for Social Advancement and Oslo Metropolitan University will-in Collaboration with public sector agencies, disabled people's organizations, and international scholars in disability law and policy-facilitate knowledge transfer and policy Learning to build public sector capacity in China Central for the development and implementation of national policies that will reduce poverty and social inequality, and foster social resilience among persons with disabilities.
The fellowship arises from synergies in previous work conducted, by the researcher showing how a stronger involvement of disabled people’s organisations is of utmost importance to ensure the full and effective implementation of the UNCRPD in European countries. The current European Disability Strategy (2010-2020) offers little indication of mechanisms to achieve this and its focus on formal political participation (e.g. voting in European elections) reflects the EU’s limited competence in this area. By engaging national and European stakeholders – notably disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) – the project will broaden this scope and contribute to evidence-based progress in the spirit of the UNCRPD. Thus, the project has four objectives:
1. To compare forms of self-organisation among persons with disabilities in four European countries – including people with mobility, visual, psychosocial (mental health) and cognitive impairments.
2. To define the mechanisms of consultation, mobilisation and collective voice by which disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have been represented and engaged in political participation.
3. To indicate the conditions under which DPOs are most likely to achieve voice and influence in decision-making processes, including examples of promising practice.
4. To establish a framework for future international comparative research concerning DPOs and disability movements.
