Digitalization in the child welfare services - DigiBarnevern nationally and locally
The purpose of the project is to gain an understanding of the processes in which DigiBarnevern is being implemented. The focus is on exploring the relationship between national policy/strategy and how it is implemented in local practices in the child welfare services. This study focuses on how and in what way digital tools can facilitate involvement and participation of users in the child welfare services, and how these digital systems can improve coordination of services for vulnerable children, youth, and families. The project has three levels - national, municipal, and user experiences - and has a qualitative explorative design where document analysis, interviews, and observation are applied.
Ph.D.-student: Maria Rønning Ramsdal
An Insight into children's digital everyday experiences
The aim of Folkvord's doctoral project is to explore children's digital everyday lives: how and why do children use digital media, and how do they understand their own digital daily life? In this study, Folkvord will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in the children's own everyday environments – at school, at home, and during their leisure time. Although children's and young people's digital everyday life is an increasingly relevant research area, the available knowledge is still limited, and children's own experiences, meaning-making, and situated practices have been far less studied.
Ph.D-student: Maren Svendsen Folkvord
Digital exclusion among children and youth
Digital Exclusion Among Children and YouthThe project explores digital exclusion among children and youth in school, family, and leisure, with a particular focus on the Østfold region. The aim is to understand how digital exclusion is created through the interaction of individual skills, social structures, and technological development. The issue being addressed is how children and youth themselves experience digital exclusion, and what measures can promote more inclusive participation. Methodologically, the project is based on a systematic review of knowledge, analyses of public quantitative and qualitative data, as well as gathering the perspectives of children and youth themselves.
Ph.D-student: Veslemøy Maria Fossum Johansson
The Impact of Digitalization on Norwegian Municipalities, Leaders, and Front-line Professionals in the welfare services for Children and Adolescents
This study employed qualitative interviews with participants including municipal directors, department and front-line managers, and front-line workers from kindergartens, schools, educational and psychological services, child welfare services, and public health services to explore how digitalization affects discretion, work processes, and collaboration. While the digital shift promises more efficient processes, it also introduces technical challenges, such as system fragmentation and design limitations, as well as organizational issues like insufficient training and unclear interprofessional collaboration. These insights provide valuable guidance for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners navigating the digital shift in municipal welfare services.
Ph.D-student: Anam Ilyas
Exposure of Children and Youth to Digital Pornography: Teachers’ and students’ experiences and perceptions of teaching practice
This project focuses on children and young people's exposure to pornography through digital platforms, as well as teachers' instructional strategies in addressing the topic. The project will help identify the school's challenges and strengthen critical thinking in school education about digital pornography, as well as highlight approaches that can lay the foundation for safe, knowledgeable, and reflective discussions with young people about pornography.
Ph.D-student: Ragnhild Lindahl Torstensen
Digital everyday life for children living outside the home - lived experiences and meaning-makingT
Digital everyday life for children living outside the home - lived experiences and meaning-makingThis project aims to shed light on how children living outside their home experience their digital everyday life and what significance this has for their life and well-being. The study has a phenomenological approach and is conducted through individual in-depth interviews, where the child's narratives are central. The purpose is to develop an understanding of how children living in foster homes or institutions experience and perceive their everyday life, with a particular focus on digital practices and digital contact with others. The project uses a collaborative research method. This involves five young adults with personal experience of living outside the home contributing as co-researchers throughout all phases of the research process.
Ph.D-student: Helen Graarud
The Kindergarten in the Chthulucene
The project focuses on digitalization in a toddler department. It aims to examine how a tentacular approach to storytelling can highlight a dynamic and relational practice with green screening, which acknowledges children's power to influence, create, and expand stories for pedagogical practice with digital technology in kindergarten. The work is inspired, among others, by Donna J. Haraway (1988, 2016) and discusses how stories not only describe but also shape the world, and how this can contribute to a new understanding of children's digital participation. Methodologically, a polyphonic approach is used, emphasizing co-creation and children's active role in the stories.
Ph.D-student: Trude Skogsberg