Suchergebnisse

1. School Placement, Special Education and Physical Disability in Norway -- 2. Social Mobility and Disability: The Influence of Family Background and Geographical Context on Educational Attainment -- 3. School Placement and Parental Educational Expectations -- 4. Disability, Social Participation and the Role of the School -- 5. What Can We Learn from World of Warcraft? Social and Digital Inclusion in Secondary School.

In this report, we present the main findings from the project, "Assistance or barriers? – The use of education as vocational rehabilitation for young people with disabilities". Chapter 1 gives a summary of the status of knowledge regarding young people with disabilities and their transition into the labor marked. We also present an overview of the most important measures initiated by the government to increase labor marked participation for this group. In January 2004, the rules regulating who were entitled to economic support for educational purposes within a rehabilitation program changed. In chapter 2, we look into the effects of these changes. We use data covering everyone in a certain age group who were granted education as vocational rehabilitation in the years between 2002 and 2005. The analysis indicates that the changes may have resulted in both fewer young people receiving economic support for education as vocational rehabilitation, and fewer young people with disabilities entering the labor force. Chapter 3 addresses a particular group, namely young people (25-35 years) with physical disabilities, mainly defined as cerebral palsy and spina bifida. Two of the topics discussed are: The educational situation for youth with physical disabilities compared to a randomly selected population in the same age group. To what extent is the length of education for young people with physical disabilities important for their situation in the labor marked? As much as 64 percent of the sample with physical disabilities have primary school as their highest level of education, compared with 17 percent in a randomly selected youth population. The level of employment for the group with a physical disability was 38 percent, compared with 86 percent for the randomly selected group. There is a clear indication that an increase in the level of education may have a particularly positive effect for young people with physical disabilities in relation to labor marked participation. In Chapter 4, the topic is of how social workers in NAV administer the regulations that govern access to education as rehabilitation. We start with a brief review of the rule changes in rehabilitation support that was introduced from January 2004. The chapter is based on qualitative interviews with 30 caseworkers in NAV (The Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration). There is a political ambition that in general young people (under 26 years) shall finance their own education through loans and grants provided by the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund. This is also true for young people with disabilities, when they do not have so significant impairments that they fall within the exemption criteria. Many of the informants share this point of view. They find it unreasonable and unfair to other young people if young people with disabilities receive economic support to pay for their educational expenses. They should not have any "special advantages" even if they are disabled. Chapter 5 addresses the issues of judgment and discrimination, and discusses what discretion is and how the caseworkers in NAV practice it. Among other things, it is discussed how the use of discretion can be affected by factors "outside the formal rules and regulations". In chapter 6, the perspective moves a notch up. Instead of questioning the issue if all young people with disabilities get the same or an equivalent treatment in the NAV system, we look at the situation for disabled young people compared to the situation for other young people. Using the ideas of justice developed by Amartya Sen, in particular the capability approach, we ask if is fair that young people with disabilities as a rule should finance their education themselves? One of the reasons for asking this question is that young people with disabilities cannot expect to achieve the same life-cycle income as others. ; Unge med nedsatt funksjonsevne har en lavere deltagelse på arbeidsmarkedet enn befolkningen ellers. I rapporten benyttes to sett registerdata for å belyse dette temaet. Videre benyttes intervjuer med saksbehandlere i NAV for å belyse forvaltningen av dagens regelverk for støtte til utdanning. Den første registerstudien indikerer at reduksjonen i støtte til utdanning fra 2004 reduserte antallet som fikk støtte til utdanning. Færre ble også yrkesaktive. Den andre registerstudien viser at et flertall unge med en fysisk funksjonsnedsettelse bare har grunnskole som høyeste fullførte utdanning, og at en stor del faller utenfor arbeidsmarkedet. I den kvalitative undersøkelsen sier mange saksbehandlere at de forvalter det nye regelverket slik at de sjeldnere enn før benytter utdanning som tiltak.

To work actively, in a targeted, planned manner to promote equality and prevent discrimination is an explicit objective for Norwegian authorities. To develop equal, non-discriminatory public services is an essential part of this work. The principal task of The Equality and Anti-discrimination ombud is to guide the public as well as government and private agencies on how to fulfil this objective. In 2010 the ombud worked specifically to raise awareness among authorities and public service institutions on how to offer equal services to all, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, gender, ability to function, age and sexual orientation. The present report was commissioned by The Equality and Anti-discrimination ombud. The research problem was to study whether and how the child welfare system in the municipality of Alna in Oslo provided equal and non-discriminatory services to all categories that are included in the anti-discriminatory acts. The research comprised four person months and consisted of interviews with public health nurses in three child welfare centres and parents in two open kindergartens, a short survey to parents visiting the centres and kindergartens and a survey to youths about the public health service in schools. Child Welfare centres are public health centres for families and for children and youth up to the age of 23. Alna is one of the most multicultural municipalities in Norway with 45% immigrants or children of immigrants, so ethnicity became the core issue of the study. According to our informants, questions of discrimination based on religion, ability to function and sexual orientation was not relevant because such clients were extremely rare. The focus among nurses and parents in the study was on ethnic discrimination or unequal services based on ethnicity and gender; this concern was consistent across both majority and minority groups. Our findings are presented in terms of Structural, Organisational and Cultural factors that hinder the development of equal services. Nancy Frazer's concepts distribution, recognition and representation are employed to assess the degree of equality of services.@ Structural barriers that may hinder equal services were found to be: Staff at child welfare centres do not represent the population they serve as almost all are native Norwegians without physical disabilities or other minority characteristics. We found that the formal competence in handling diversity among nurses is almost non-existing. We also found that too many tasks and too little time to perform them combined with many non- Norwegian- speaking clients, undersized budgets and no priority given to use interpreters. may hinder equal treatment. Organisational barriers were found to be: Services to children in school appeared to have limited availability due to a practice where children had to ask for leave to visit the public nurse. This may hinder children with ethnic backgrounds or with functional disabilities to reveal their vulnerability in class. Most consultations at child welfare centres are arranged as group consultations; individual consultations have to be specially asked for. This may be a hindrance for non-Norwegian clients and clients that want more privacy to receive the service they need. Most information brochures at the centres are available only in Norwegian, thus important information is often unavailable to non-Norwegian speakers. Tests used to assess the language skills and cognitive development of children are given in Norwegian only. Children with little competence in Norwegian are thus not tested equally to native speakers. Cultural barriers were found to be: Advice from nurses to parents were generally based on Norwegian "official" concepts of family. Cultural differences concerning child rearing practices and concepts concerning relationships between parents and children, were often difficult to follow, not only for many minority parents, but for many native parents as well. Advice was often not based on the actual diversity that exists among clients. Nurses reported experiencing tension between giving practical, "official" advice and being client-oriented and more culturally sensitive. Child welfare centres in the municipality of Alna are generally providing equal and non-discriminatory services to the population, but their ability to do this is restricted by some structural, organisational and cultural barriers that should be discussed and removed. ; Et likeverdig tjenestetilbud til alle, uansett etnisitet, kjønn, religion, funksjonsevne, alder og seksuell orientering, er en uttalt politisk målsetting. Hvordan realiseres denne målsettingen i praksis? For å svare på dette har NOVA gjennomført en datainnsamling om helsestasjonstilbudet i bydel Alna. Studien omfatter intervju med ansatte og foreldre på tre helsestasjoner og en kort spørreundersøkelse rettet mot foreldre og ungdom på skolene. Studien viser at det kun er etnisitet som oppfattes som etdiskrimineringsgrunnlag i bydelen, både blant ansatte og foreldre. Ansatte ser imidlertid ut til å håndtere dette mangfoldet på en ikke-diskriminerende måte. Vi fant imidlertid flere strukturelle og organisasjonsmessige forhold som kan hindre utførelsen av et likeverdig tjenestetilbud, og at kulturelle forskjeller mellom foreldres og helsestasjonenes sosialiseringsnormer kan føre til frustrasjoner hos begge parter.

The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases among the European working age population, as well as the implications for the individual and societal level, underline the need for policy guidelines targeting the effective inclusion of persons with chronic diseases in the workplace. The aim of the present paper was to explore the perspectives of European and National-level stakeholders on existing strategies for work re-integration of persons with chronic diseases, and to provide policy guidelines. A highly-structured interview protocol was distributed to 58 National level stakeholders (policy makers, professionals and employers) from seven European countries. Additionally, 20 European organizations concerned with health-related issues and employment completed an online survey. The findings reveal that employment-related challenges remain largely unaddressed. Both national and European stakeholders considered the existing legislative frameworks inadequate and appraised the co-ordination for the implementation of employment re-integration policies as ineffective. Policies targeting at work re-integration of persons with chronic diseases at European and national level should focus on consistent cooperation among all key stakeholders, awareness raising to staff and management, dissemination of effective strategies, developing research and evaluation standards and establishing monitoring systems on inclusive labour markets. ; The current study was part of the PATHWAYS project. The PATHWAYS project has received funding from the European Union's Health Programme (2014–2020) Grant agreement n. 663474. ; publishedVersion

The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases among the European working age population, as well as the implications for the individual and societal level, underline the need for policy guidelines targeting the effective inclusion of persons with chronic diseases in the workplace. The aim of the present paper was to explore the perspectives of European and National-level stakeholders on existing strategies for work re-integration of persons with chronic diseases, and to provide policy guidelines. A highly-structured interview protocol was distributed to 58 National level stakeholders (policy makers, professionals and employers) from seven European countries. Additionally, 20 European organizations concerned with health-related issues and employment completed an online survey. The findings reveal that employment-related challenges remain largely unaddressed. Both national and European stakeholders considered the existing legislative frameworks inadequate and appraised the co-ordination for the implementation of employment re-integration policies as ineffective. Policies targeting at work re-integration of persons with chronic diseases at European and national level should focus on consistent cooperation among all key stakeholders, awareness raising to staff and management, dissemination of effective strategies, developing research and evaluation standards and establishing monitoring systems on inclusive labour markets.