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Editorial | Vol. 41, No. 2–3, 2023, pp. 1–8
ISSN: 2535-5449
© 2023 Ida Marie Lyså, Kaisa Vehkalahti & Essi Jouhki. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Lyså, I. M., Vehkalahti, K. & Jouhki, E. (2023). Under the radar: Children and childhoods missing from Nordic Childhood Studies. Barn,
41(2–3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.23865/barn.v41.5858
Under the Radar: Children
and Childhoods Missing from
Nordic Childhood Studies
Ida Marie Lyså
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
E-mail: ida.marie.lysa@ntnu.no
Kaisa Vehkalahti
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
E-mail: kaisa.r.vehkalahti@jyu.
Essi Jouhki
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
E-mail: essi.k.jouhki@jyu.
is year, 2023, our journal Barn – forskning om barn og barndom i Norden celebrates its
40th anniversary! On August 16–17, the Anniversary Conference At Critical Crossroads
in Nordic Childhood Studies will be held in Trondheim, Norway to celebrate our birthday.
Looking back, we are proud to see the wide variety of research that has been published in
Barn, embracing a range of disciplines, geographic locations, topics, children and child-
hoods. roughout the years, we see that some topics have received more attention than
others, such as institutionalized childhoods or, more specically, childhoods in educational
institutions. Children in school settings, in aer-school programs, and in kindergartens
have been given a lot of attention in recent research (cf. ongoing review study of all pub-
lished articles in Barn since 1983 by Lorgen, Ursin & Lyså). Regarding leisure and family
time, many Nordic scholars have paid attention to the playing child, some have focused
on the reading child, and we have come to know much about the child as a peer and the
child as a family member. Children and childhoods have also been studied in relation to
the Nordic welfare state. In recent years, some have focused on the child in child welfare
services, the migrating child, and, in a few instances, the adopted child. When it comes to
Ida Marie Lyså et al.
2
children’s rights, there has been an extensive focus on both the participating child and on
the child who cannot, or may not, participate. However, while we have put some children
and childhoods under the microscope, others have remained hidden in Nordic Childhood
Studies. In our 40th anniversary issue, we draw attention to those childhoods that have
remained “under the radar”. In this special issue, we take notice of the overlooked and
explore the future of Childhood Studies in Nordic contexts by exploring the margins of our
eld, embracing the ignored.
Going wide and focusing on the understudied enables us to reect in novel ways on
what Nordic childhood may mean in contemporary societies. Looking for commonality in
diversity, or exploring the familiar in innovative ways, can remind us of what we may take
for granted. e Nordic countries are known for the Nordic welfare state model, which is
oen associated with an idealized child-friendly and child-centered approach to children’s
everyday lives. However, as the articles of this special issue show, there is not one, but many
Nordic childhoods, and the idealized images remain out-of-reach for many children. Our
societies have changed rapidly over the last decades. Perhaps they have always been more
heterogenous than we might think. e articles in this special issue contribute with explo-
rations of everyday lives and practices that speak to such dierences, inspiring us to open
up and expand on what we conceive of as Nordic childhoods. e nine articles contribute
to expanding our eld in a range of ways – thematically, theoretically, and politically –
reecting the heterogeneity of childhood experiences in our Nordic societies, both histori-
cally and in contemporary times.
Childhood Studies is a sensitive area of research, as childhood holds a special position
in our societies. Our societies also provide specic contexts for the understanding and
interpretation of childhood. In the following, we approach the idea of Nordic childhood
in ways that aim to explore connections and assumptions about this period of life, namely:
1) the sacred position of childhood in our secular societies; 2) the relationality of our
individualistic societies; and 3) the need to expand the idea of Nordic childhood through
embracing “other” childhoods.
Sacred childhoods in secular nations
e Nordic societies have gone through processes of secularization, and religion and tradi-
tion can be said to have a weaker position in our contemporary societies, at least at the state
level. We live in heterogenous societies with dierent religious denominations and ali-
ations, but the strong connection between church and state has diminished. Childhood,
however, can be said to have risen as a particularly valued and sacred space in the midst of
such secularizing processes, and is perhaps the most sacred aspect in contemporary soci-
ety. e sacralization of childhood as a cultural process was emphasized by Viviana Zelizer
in her exploration of the changing social value of childhood in the US at the turn of the
20thcentury (Zelizer, 1994). rough an emphasis on developments in the eld of medi-
cine, a rising concern for children’s safety and protection, and the transition from children’s
work to children’s schooling, Zelizer explored the changing social (and monetary) value of
Under the Radar: Children and Childhoods Missing from Nordic Childhood Studies
3
children in society, from being economically useful through their contribution to work and
income, to becoming emotionally priceless in the family (Zelizer, 1994). e emotionally
priceless position of children in Nordic families can be said to constitute a norm in con-
temporary times, and the sacral position of children and childhood is visible in dominant
perceptions of children’s vulnerabilities and need for protection. In this special issue, some
of our authors touch on such themes, such as the place of children in families (Norburg),
as well as ideas about what children should be exposed to and protected from in society,
for example, with regards to gender norms (Mjelstad & Solbakken), and physical touch in
institutional care for children (Fylkesnes).
In contemporary secular Nordic societies, the nuclear family is oen self-evidently
considered to be the best place for children to grow up, as emphasized, for example, in the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and national policies.
However, the concept of childhood, expectations concerning parental relations, and ideas
about care and education have changed over time, also in our Nordic settings. At the begin-
ning of the 20th century, the close, everyday contact between children and their parents was
under discussion, as Ulrika Norburg demonstrates in her article “‘To Look Aer and Care
for ese Little Ones’. e Missionary Association’s Ideas About Childhood During
the 1930s and 1940s”. Norburg shows how ideas about childhood are always contextually
negotiated by discussing an interesting change that took place within the Swedish mission-
ary movement. At the beginning of the century, religious calling and missionary duties
were seen as the priority of missionaries, and it was considered best for the children of mis-
sionaries who were leaving the country to carry out their calling to stay in Sweden, where
they were brought up and educated by the Church in children’s homes, even though this
meant separation from their parents. Over the years, however, this practice was considered
less favorable, and new practices were suggested to allow missionary families to stay closer
together. e article reminds us how changes in emotional practices are a result of multiple
developments taking place in dierent sectors of society, illustrating that the social mean-
ing of childhood is also subject to contextual and historical change.
Discussions around gender are also connected to the sacred position of childhoods
and the discourse of childhood innocence in the Nordic context, especially in relation to
norms about sexualities and normalized heteronormativity. Public debate about transgen-
der children, legislation, and regulations on children’s possibility to conrm another gen-
der than they were born with physically continues to take place in the Nordic context. e
gender-normative character of our societies is visible in how research expanding or chal-
lenging such notions is absent in child research. In their article “‘Det handler om å alltid
ha vært’: Transidentitet og aktørskap i bildeboka Ollianna” (“‘It is About Always Having
Been’: Transgender Identity and Agency in the Picture Book Ollianna”), Kaja Mjelstad and
Hedvig Solbakken analyze the portrayal of transgender themes in a Norwegian picture
book for children. e authors investigate to what extent the portrayal of trans and cis
people in the book is normative, how such portrayals connect with the notion of children’s
agency and supportive surroundings, and also connect their discussion to ideas about chil-
dren and childhood in a Norwegian context.
Ida Marie Lyså et al.
4
Children’s vulnerabilities with regard to corporality and privacy are another sensitive
area in our societies, which have been less in focus in our journal. In the article “Berøring
og intimitet – kroppen i skjæringspunktet mellom oentleg og privat. Omsorg for
utviklingshemma barn og unge i barnebustad” (“Touch and Intimacy – e Body at
the Intersection Between Public and Private. Care in Small Institutions for Intellectually
Disabled Children”), Ingunn Fylkesnes explores children’s multiscalar vulnerabilities in such
institutions, where children live without parents. With few verbal communication abilities,
the children instead depend on communicating through single words, sounds, gestures and
body movements. e children depend on help from sta for everyday care, involving nego-
tiations of corporal and emotional boundaries. Based on observations over three months in
three institutions, Fylkesnes explores the interaction in care activities between children and
sta in such institutions, through theorizations of dierences between body work, intimate
labor and emotional labor. Children’s bodies, conceptualized as both public and private, and
the notions of intimacy and touch are also used as analytical entry points. In this article,
we can see how children’s bodies exist in a relational space, outside the domestic “everyday”
radar of childcare practices, among children in need of help with most aspects of everyday
life, outside the family home. e following section will delve deeper into the idea of rela-
tionality, as emphasized by other articles in this special issue.
Relationality in individualistic societies
e individualistic nature of our secular societies has been a recurring topic in research
in Nordic and Western societies (Gullestad, 1992, 2006a; Howard, 2007). e transferal
of such dominant cultural notions of individualization and the value placed on the auton-
omous and independent child also formed the basis of Childhood Studies in its estab-
lishment in the 1980s, but have undergone scrutiny since then. Several researchers have
emphasized the need to take a relational approach to child research, such as focusing on
the intergenerational and interdependent nature of children’s lives in relation to their social
surroundings (Spyrou et al., 2019), for example, through concepts such as generational
order (Alanen, 2009) or relational rights (Ursin et al., 2022). In this special issue, several of
the articles touch on the relational aspects of children’s lives through an emphasis on chil-
dren’s relationships with signicant others, also when these fall outside the nuclear family,
such as children’s relationships with sta in residential care (Godø et al.), and in research
on contact persons and contact families (Molainen et al.).
In their article “‘Tenk deg at du balanserer på en line’: Unges fortellinger om å få til
skolen når de bor i barnevernsinstitusjon” (“‘Imagine Yourself Balancing on a Tightrope’:
Young People’s Narratives About Mastering Schooling While Living in Residential Care”),
Helene Toverud Godø, Guro Brokke Omland and Astrid Halsa emphasize the relational
agency of young people in residential care in Norway, and the connection between chil-
dren’s schooling experiences and the relational processes and activities between the young
people and adults working there. rough interviews with young adults who completed
upper secondary education, the authors explore their experiences of “what worked” in a
Under the Radar: Children and Childhoods Missing from Nordic Childhood Studies
5
retrospective light. e authors use theories of relational agency and “middle class” parent-
ing practices to explore the relationality of schooling, and how the combined eort of the
youths and the cultivation of their interests by the adults, helped “thicken” their agency.
Byfocusing on the relationships the youths had with adults in the institutions, we see how
schooling became a relational project.
Although the Nordic welfare state and social services have, in general, constituted
a strong research emphasis in Nordic Childhood Studies, there are practices that have
remained under the radar within this eld. One of those topics is pointed out by Johanna
Moilanen, Tiina Lehto-Lundén, Lotta Jägervi, Johanna Kiili, Kerstin Svensson and Anu-
Riina Svenlin in their article “Being, Becoming and Belonging in Constructing Children’s
Lived Citizenship with Contact Persons and Contact Families”. By applying the concept
of children’s lived citizenship, the authors seek to discuss how contact person and contact
family interventions support children as “here-and-now” and not (exclusively) as becoming
future citizens. Drawing on empirical research from Finland and Sweden, the researchers
conclude that such interventions may provide children with new resources. As they witness
active citizenship in practice through the engaged volunteers they meet, children’s chances
of becoming more aware of their rights and responsibilities are strengthened. However,
the article shows that children’s active participation is oen governed by adults. us, it
is important that research methodologies consider relational interdependencies and chil-
dren’s intergenerational connections, i.e., adults’ roles in shaping children’s citizenship.
As the Norwegian anthropologist Marianne Gullestad has written about extensively,
individualism in the Nordic societies is of a particular nature. e concept egalitarian indi-
vidualism, equality as sameness (Gullestad, 1992, 2006b), creates a specic understand-
ing of what “we”, e.g., Norwegian, or Nordic people, are. Homogenizing the Nordic can
thus create a specic kind of imagined Nordic sameness, which can lay the foundation for
“othering” of those who do not fall neatly into the category of sameness (Lyså, 2022). Such
“othering practices” can take dierent forms in the political, civil, and theoretical landscape
of the Nordic region. In the following section, we turn our gaze to various forms of “others”
as vital parts of Nordic childhood research.
Expanding Nordic childhood – embracing the “other”
Postcolonial and decolonial approaches have emerged as important perspectives within
Childhood Studies (Abebe et al., 2022; de Castro, 2020; Kaneva et al., 2020; Liebel, 2020;
Nieuwenhuys, 2013), emphasizing the need to critically examine the Western-centric core
of the eld, especially when approaching itself as a “global” eld of research. Such per-
spectives are also relevant in the context of heterogenous Nordic Childhood Studies and
childhoods in Nordic societies. e myth of the culturally homogenous Nordic region has
been expressed by several researchers. In Norway, ethnic minorities such as the Sámi peo-
ple, Roma people, and Jewish people have a long-standing historical presence, illustrating
the culturally heterogenous history of the country. e Nordic countries are also increas-
ingly culturally heterogenous, being part of a world where mobility and movement are
Ida Marie Lyså et al.
6
an integral part of human existence, with people traversing national boundaries for work
and education, or war and persecution. e idea of the culturally homogenous Nordic
countries, at least in Norway, has also been connected to the idea of “colonial innocence”
(Osler & Lindquist, 2018). Although countries such as Norway were not historically as
actively involved in colonial expansion as other European countries, colonial history still
served as a backdrop in the creation of national identity and state formation, although such
narratives are not part of the national imagery (Jensen & Losdóttir, 2016).
If we accept such aspects as a frame for the conversation, the need to open up, under-
stand and interpret “other” childhoods, cultures, and worldviews is elevated, as signicant
aspects of our societies. Some of the articles in this special issue deal with how dierent
groups of immigrants might have dierent life experiences in the Nordic context, such
as the complicated relationship of trust for immigrant parents who are assessed by the
Norwegian child welfare services (Terrefe) and how expatriate children in Finland, con-
ceived of as “privileged” migrants, fall outside the guidelines for migrant children, portrayed
as unprivileged and vulnerable (Korpela). Historical assimilation practices and processes of
“Norwegianization” of national minorities, such as the Sámi people, are also in focus in this
issue, through an emphasis on how Sámi ECECs actively work with strengthening children’s
“cultural well-being” in a political and national landscape where the past and present are
closely intertwined (Bjerklund & Åmot). Finally, other-than-human childhoods, a eld that
has received little focus in our journal thus far, explores what Nordic Childhood Studies can
gain from research on multispecies childhoods and child-animal relations (Tammi et al.).
In his article “Immigrant Parents’ Experiences of Child Welfare Assessment
Processes in Child Maltreatment Cases: Implications for Trust”, Tesfahun Alemayehu
Terrefe looks into the intricate trust relationship between immigrant families and child
welfare services in Norway. Based on semi-structured interviews with six immigrant par-
ents, Terrefe explores how trust is a relational and multifaceted notion. e parents’ feel-
ing of trust is connected to their lived experiences in the engagement with child welfare
workers, the transparency and (un)predictability of the assessment process, and the per-
ceived emphasis on the adversarial nature of the communication between parents and case
workers. e contextual individualistic nature of child protection services is questioned,
as it overshadows variation in cultural backgrounds, which may be more interrelational
and collectivistic in nature. In cultural encounters such as these, where power dierentials
can have serious consequences for communication and family relationships, the deliberate
integration of transcultural perspectives is called for.
Mari Korpela discusses migration and stereotypic images attached to migrant children
in her article “Under the Radar: Expatriate Children and Integration in Finland”. Both
in policies and research, migrant children tend to be seen as unprivileged and vulnerable,
which has set the guidelines for their integration programs and educational policies. is
discourse ignores skilled professional families that sojourn in the Nordic countries only
temporarily as expatriates. Korpela elaborates on the contradiction between being a “privi-
leged” temporary expatriate child and being dened as an “unprivileged” permanent immi-
grant. e contradiction becomes visible in international schools that follow the national
Under the Radar: Children and Childhoods Missing from Nordic Childhood Studies
7
curriculum, including extensive Finnish language studies and exposure to Finnish culture,
which may pose unexpected challenges for expatriate families. Korpela asks how integra-
tion aims aect these children’s lives, and what they tell us about our ideas concerning
Nordic migration policies in general. During the last decade, recruitment of highly edu-
cated professionals from abroad has become a more and more central topic in the Finnish
labor market policy. However, little attention has been paid to the everyday experiences of
families and children that encounter Finnish integration policies at school.
In their article “Supporting Children’s Psychosocial Well-Being in Sámi ECECs”,
Monica Bjerklund and Ingvild Åmot explore how some Sámi kindergartens in Norway
deal with the consequences of Norwegianization and assimilation practices from the past,
and the collective trauma from such processes that continues to aect Sámi people on the
individual, relational and societal levels to this day. rough individual and group inter-
views with ECEC educators in seven Southern, Lule and Northern Sámi ECECs in dierent
regions in Norway, the article explores how educators contextualize their work to sup-
port children’s psychosocial well-being in ways that counterbalance the consequences of
Norwegianization processes, address children’s risk of discrimination and threats of racism
due to being indigenous, as well as highlighting Sámi culture in positive ways.
e nal article in our special issue explores “the other” in human–animal relations,
challenging the anthropocentric characteristics of childhood research by looking at multi-
species childhoods. In their article “From Child-Animal Relations to Multispecies
Assemblages and Other-an-Human Childhoods”, Tuure Tammi, Riikka Hohti and
Pauliina Rautio turn their gaze to multispecies childhoods and ask how our current under-
standing of Nordic childhoods could be explored through the recent “animal turn”. eir
study highlights previously marginalized children’s experiences of their animal relations,
such as caretaking, companionship, and aective engagement with animals.
By turning our attention towards what has been unsaid, understudied, or undertheo-
rized in the eld of Nordic Childhood Studies, we aim not only to expand the eld but also
to sketch the contours of what the future of our eld might look like. We live in a dynamic,
complicated, and ever-changing world. Large-scale societal changes and movements, such as
environmental, political, and transnational connections and crises, inuence children’s lives
on various scales, and everyday lives are diverse in geographically near and close contexts.
Research needs to reect such variation, also in the Nordic context. e journal Barn wants
to continue to publish research on omitted childhoods, and urges researchers to dare to fol-
low new paths and to think in untraditional ways about research, children and childhoods.
Shared historical and cultural experiences in the Nordic region, despite national and
regional dierences, have been explored in previous publications of Barn (Kristjánsson,
2002). In this special issue and at the coming Anniversary Conference for Barn in
Trondheim in August 2023, we emphasize ‘the Nordic’ as an overarching frame for con-
versation on children’s everyday experiences and conditions for children’s lives. We could
also ask if the Nordic is a useful angle of departure. What can such a geographical delimita-
tion and focus bring? Are we limiting the academic conversation, disconnecting ourselves
from the interconnected and mobile world in which we all live? Which challenges do we
Ida Marie Lyså et al.
8
encounter through our focus on the Nordic child? We hope that our readers will take up
the task to continue exploring and expanding on these and other such questions in the eld
of childhood research in the Nordic context.
Enjoy reading!
Guest editors Ida Marie Lyså, Kaisa Vehkalahti and Essi Jouhki.
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