Critical perspectives on work integration of immigrants

The project focuses on how work inclusion may improve the social inclusion of migrants within comparative urban settings.

Some amount of socioeconomic inequality has for a long time been tolerated as necessary to motivate individuals to contribute to economic growth. However, social inequality and exclusion are now increasingly recognized in the policy world as factors that may prevent such growth. In recent years, social inclusion has become a key policy concern in EU strategy documents and funding calls, and an increasingly important focus for global NGOs.

In the Global North and South, policy discussions now overwhelmingly focus on improving socioeconomic inclusion through the development of human capital. Despite this changing rhetorical emphasis, social policy measures and social work practice still lag behind and operate primarily with the aim of improving the problematic motivations and relations of individuals. The alternative is to consider the individuals targeted for support as actors located within problematic structural, social and institutional contexts. The educational and research activities of the project put this perspective into the forefront, emphasizing the labour market-, social- and institutional contexts within which work inclusion measures take place, with particular focus on measures implemented within the workplace.

We will apply an innovative theoretical framework refined in earlier research to teach, discuss and develop research on how working inclusion affects the dignity, wellbeing and socioeconomic status of individuals in the urban contexts of Oslo and Moscow.