Guro Brokke Omland

• Cultural psychology
• Youth development
• Young persons with refugee experiences
• Child Welfare Services
• Qualitative methodology

Research interests: My research interests concern how care and support for children and young people in difficult life situations is practised and the developmental processes of the young ones. My doctoral thesis focused on developmental understandings and care arrangements for children and young people with refugee backgrounds, especially young people defined as unaccompanied refugee minors and how they are met by the Norwegian child welfare services. This research made me aware of some problematic aspects within the field: 1) a split care system between the legal responsibility of the young ones (allocated to the legal guardian) and the daily care (allocated to Child Welfare Services) means that the young persons miss out on support and care related to complex legal questions of their residence permits; and 2) the young persons’ challenges in negotiating developmental projects with their professional caregivers in a context in which western childhoods and discourses of immigration control characterise the culturally acceptable ideas of developmental projects.

I use sociocultural psychology as a theoretical and methodological framework to study development in a way that is sensitive to social, cultural, historical, and material contexts. Everyday life is societally and culturally arranged, socially and materially grounded and subjectively experienced, and as such, represents a suitable analytical site to study persons and their environments as a unit.

I am interested in how psychological knowledge about children and young people is produced. Which understandings of children and childhood are reflected in the researchers’ questions? Which (meta)theoretical frameworks and perspectives are explicitly used or implicitly reflected in the researchers’ approaches? The overall purpose of my research is to contribute to the development of critical and reflective handling of questions concerning ‘the best interest of children’. At the same time, I want to develop models of understanding that can be of practical use in supporting young people, including their families and related institutions. I am especially attentive to prevent “othering” people and persons in my research and to direct attention towards what the young ones try to accomplish in their lives and how their efforts are met and understood. I am also interested in combining the fields of developmental psychology and Childhood studies and strengthening Psychology’s connection to the other Social Sciences.

Contact information:

g.b.omland@psykologi.uio.no

Guro Brokke Omland - Psykologisk institutt (PSI) (uio.no)