DIGSSCORE Seminar: Adolescents’ trust in public institutions – does contact and performance matter?

Hege Stein Helland, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Government at University of Bergen, will present for us today. Her presentation is titled "Adolescents’ trust in public institutions – does contact and performance matter?".

The event is in a hybrid format, you are welcome to join us for lunch from the Corner room at DIGSSCORE. Food is provided on a first-come first-served basis. Zoom link for digital attendance.

Abstract:

The study investigates adolescents’ trust in the child welfare system (CWS) in Norway. Trust in institutions is considered vital for well-functioning and legitimate democracies and is associated with a range of normatively desirable political and social outcomes. Yet, one major group of citizens and public service users are overlooked in the study of trust and its mechanisms: namely, children and adolescents. The study utilises nationally representative data from a repeated cross-sectional survey (Ungdata). Collected in the years 2011 through 2021, the data consists of 65 869 observations on the question of trust in the CWS, including 2929 responses from adolescents with personal experience with the CWS. I use these unique data to 1) map levels and patterns of trust in the CWS among the general child population in Norway, and 2) examine the influence of social trust, personal contact, and institutional performance evaluation for levels of trust in the CWS.