University of Gothenburg
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Ulla Björnberg

Professor Emerita

Department of Sociology and Work
Science
Telephone
+46 704-24 11 25
Mail
ulla.bjornberg@socav.gu.se
Visiting address
Skanstorget 18
41122 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 720
40530 Göteborg

About Ulla Björnberg

Presentation

Professor em. since 2011 at the department of sociology and work science, Gothenburg University. Received my PhD in sociology 1981 at Gothenburg University. My research is about family, family policy/welfare, work and family, gender, intergenerational relationships and refugees and migration. My primary interest has been to understand conditions for family life in relation to the role of changes in gender relations and social and economic changes in society. My Ph.d thesis was within the field of urban and regional research directed at forms of life of mobile (and immigrant) families and their social networks in a suburban context. I was programme director at the European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in the Social Sciences in Vienna, Austria in the late 1980s focussing on Comparisons of family life in East- and Western Europe. I was also programme director for research on households and welfare in connection with urban and regional development in the Expert Committee for Research on Regional development in the early 1980s. I have been engaged in several cross-national projects on family policy and family life in Europe and the Nordic countries.

The last decade my research has been on gender and family relations, gender and family policy in a north European perspective and on intergenerational financial and practical support within families.. I directing an interdisciplinary research programme on the welfare and well-being of asylum-seeking children and families, financed by the European Refugee Fund. My own project within programme was a study on children and families that had waited for permit of stay for a long time. The programme was finalised in 2010. I am also doing a Nordic study on reassessing the Nordic family policy model financed by Nordforsk..

My teaching has been on gender, family relationships, intergenerational relations. I have supervised PhD thesis with different perspectives on gender, family and society covering various topics within my own research area. Currently I supervise three dissertations: on gender mainstreaming in EU; on employment and family care; cross-national policies on unaccompanied children.

Ongoing projects As Gadip representative I am Swedish participant in an ERASMUS program The Europe we want? Gender, migration and democracy. Strategic partnership for adult education, Exchanges and practices from 2016-2019

GADIP representativ in WIDE+, Women and Development in Europe. (https://wideplus.org/) WIDE+ A feminist network aiming at transforming global economy and development. Member in the Caucus and in Working Group on Migration.

Project on civil social organisations of immigrant women i Gothenburg. In the project "Invandrarkvinnors sociala organisering" I will study changes in forms and focus of the organisations with a historical perspective. Financed by Anna Ahrenbergs fond för vetenskaplig forskning

The Europe we want? Feminist approaches to gender, migration, and democracy ERASMUS+ study on migrant women's initiatives for protection on human rights in four European countries. Project coordinator WIDE+ Austria

#womensvoices_2017: Strengthening Innovative Solutions to protect Female Migrant and Refugee Rights. Financed by Open Society Foundation. Comparing five countries in Europe. Project coordinator "Le Monde Selon Les Femmes" Brussels and WIDE+

Cooperation I was member of the board of International Sociological Association http://www.isa-sociology.org/ between 2006 and 2010. I was president of the local organising committee for the XVII world congress of The International Sociological Association in July 2010 (5000 partcipants). I was Faculty member of the board of Centre for European Research at Gothenburg University (CERGU).

I was member of the editorial committee for Current Sociology until 2010 and for International Journal of Social Welfare until 2015. I was in the steering group for the research network on Families and intimate lives of the European Sociological Association http://www.europeansociology.org/.

Currently board member of GADIP (Gender and development in practice). It is a national NGO about women’s human rights. And aiming at cooperation between gender research and practices. http://globalstudies.gu.se/english/cooperation/gadip GADIP organises yearly international conferences, such as.

  • ”Gendered consequences of the Economic Crisis in Europe.”, 2014
  • ”Beijing +20” 2015, an update on the consequences of the Beijing conference of 1995.
  • ”Gender, migration and security” 2016

Member in the steering group Network for research on family and kinship. Member in The association of academic women in Sweden.