Mapping the welfare state from below – Approaches to institutional ethnography
The aim of this PhD course is to provide PhD students with more in-depth knowledge on ethnographic welfare studies, with particular focus on institutional ethnography, ethnographic methods and ethical issues and challenges.
Course dates: 12th - 14th October 2026.
All students must be fluent in English and hold a completed master’s degree within a relevant subject area.
PhD students will be given priority.
The course is aimed at doctoral students in the Social Policy and Welfare specialisation and other social scientists working on relevant topics. Students must have previously obtained a Master’s degree, or else be registered upon a PhD programme at the time of the course.
The course has 20 seats, with a minimum number of participants of 5. If the number of applicants exceeds the available number of seats, applicants will be ranked from category 1-4.
Category 1: Doctoral students in the Social Policy and Welfare specialisation at Nord University
Category 2: Doctoral students enrolled in a PhD program
Category 3: Applicants with a relevant master's degree (120 ECTS) or equivalent. (A Norwegian Master‘s Degree of 5 years or 3 (bachelor's degree) + 2 years (master's degree).
Category 4: Postdoctoral researchers
After completing the course, the student must have obtained:
Knowledge
The candidate:
- Is in the forefront of knowledge on ethnographic welfare studies
- can evaluate the expediency and application of different ethnographic designs in welfare studies
- Masters key epistemological and ontological issues related to institutional ethnography
Skills
The candidate:
- can formulate problems, plan and carry out ethnographic research within the field of welfare studies
- can identify and formulate relevant research questions in the field of welfare studies
- can handle complex ethical issues and challenges in ethnographic welfare studies
Competence
The candidate:
- can identify relevant ethical issues in ethnographic research
- can participate in debates on ethnographic designs and ethical issues
- can plan and carry out ethnographic research with scholarly integrity
No tuition fees.
The student must cover curriculum literature; it is assumed that the student has a laptop computer at his/her disposal.
Theory course. Elective course.
The course is elective for students at PhD in Social Science.
- Compulsory participation (OD): Mandatory attendance 2/3 of the course. Assessed Approved/not approved. Must be approved in order to hand in assignment (OP).
- Assignment (OP): Course participants will write a course paper (assignment) of 8-10 pages. The paper should have a clear and defined focus on one or several topics presented in the course and should be related to the students own PhD project. The course paper can be written in English or Norwegian (or other Scandinavian language). It is required to use course literature. Other relevant literature may also be used. The assignment will be assessed as pass/fail. All assessment components must be passed to receive a final grade (pass/fail).
Overlap refers to a similarity between courses with the same content. Therefore, you will receive the following reduction in credits if you have taken the courses listed below:
SOS9010 - Mapping the welfare state from below - Institutional ethnography and other ethnographic approaches - 5 credits
