Aims: To investigate the differences between Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway regarding residential/home care units’ and frontline managers’ background factors, the resources allocated and measures taken during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether and how these differences were associated with COVID-19 among older people in residential/home units. Methods: Register- and survey-based data. Responses from managers in municipal and private residential/home units. Number of municipal COVID-19 cases from national registries. Multilevel logistic multivariate regression analysis with presence of COVID-19 among older people in residential/home units as the outcome variable. Results: The proportions of residential/home units with client COVID-19 cases, mid-March–April 2020 were Denmark 22.7%, Finland 9.0%, Norway 9.7% and Sweden 38.8%, most cases found in clusters. The proportions were similar among employees. Client likelihood of having COVID-19 was six-fold higher if the employees had COVID-19. Mean client cases per residential/home unit were Denmark 0.78, Finland 0.46, Norway 0.22 and Sweden 1.23. For the same municipal infection incidence class, Sweden’s mean client infection levels were three-fold those of other countries. The regression analysis variables country, municipal COVID-19 incidence proportion, and care type were associated with client cases at p ⩽ .001. Compared with Denmark, the odds ratios (ORs) for Sweden, Norway and Finland were 1.86, 0.41 and 0.35 respectively. The variable difficulties in preventive testing had an OR of 1.56, p ⩽ .05. Conclusions: Municipal COVID-19 incidence, employee cases, and the lack of testing resources somewhat explained the confirmed COVID-19 cases among older people in residential/home units. A two- to five-fold unexplained inter-country difference in ORs in the multivariate analyses was notable. The level of protection of vulnerable older clients in municipal and private residential/home units differed between the included countries.

This article aims to identify and critically assess qualitative intervention studies of rehabilitation processes that target young adults. By applying a meta-epistemological approach inspired by the works of Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva, we examine how the included studies present qualitative knowledge and whether they adhere to their own stated principles of qualitative knowledge. Through their stated aims and theoretical framing, the articles draw attention to individual processes of meaning making. Nonetheless, we find that the articles to a great extent emphasize frequencies of the qualitative data they present. Individual processes and experiences are subject to subdivisions and categorization and transformed into manageable objects of knowledge. In conclusion, these studies, with one important exception, contribute to self-marginalization of the knowledge they themselves promote: They undermine the uniqueness of the qualitative knowledge they proclaim by focusing on frequency and the general patterns and categories encompassing the unique.

The aim of the article is to discuss the relationship between disability, educational level and employment, and to scrutinize how disability and education interact to impact employment -a link that has been observed in several studies. The article uses analyses of EU-SILC data to illustrate that conclusions about whether higher education reduces labour-market inequalities between disabled and non-disabled, depends in part on the analytical strategies used, which in turn are guided by implicit or explicit theoretical assumptions about the mechanisms regulating the relationship between education and employment opportunities. The article argues that the issue is more multifaceted than recognised by Nordic disability policy, which claims that higher education is the route to reducing inequalities and enhancing societal inclusion for disabled people.Keywords: Disability; living conditions; education; labour market participation; social inclusion Introduction Participation in the labour market through employment is regarded as one of the cornerstones of active citizenship for disabled people (Sainsbury and Coleman-Fountain 2013). In research and policy on disability and labour market participation, it is considered as established knowledge that educational level is one of the most important predictors of employment for persons with disabilities, and that it is therefore an effective way to improve disabled people's chances in the labour market and reduce the systematic differences in employment rates between disabled and nondisabled people. The question of which factors may increase disabled people's competitiveness in the labour market is of political as well as academic interest, particularly in economic downturns, when there is increasing unemployment and higher competition for jobs.The salience of education, and in particular 'higher education', is well documented in national (Kittelsaa, Wik, and Tøssebro 2015;Wik 2010;Molden, Wendelborg, and Tøssebro 2009;Grue and Finnvold 2014;Bliksvaer and Hanssen 2006;Finnvold 2013;Legard 2013;Bø and Håland 2015) as well as in international studies (Holland et al. 2011;Zaidi 2011;OECD 2003). Research has shown that education is the most important predictor of employment for disabled people, but has also found a statistical interaction in the relationship between disability, education and work propensity: educational level is substantially more important for the employment rate for disabled people than for non-disabled people. This effect is often found to be around twice as high for disabled compared to non-disabled (e.g. Kittelsaa et al. 2015;Tøssebro and Wik 2015), however estimates in different studies vary from 11 per cent (e.g. Bø and Håland 2015) to over 200 per cent higher (e.g. Bliksvaer and Hanssen 2006).Although there is ample documentation that educational level has a significant impact on both disabled and nondisabled people's employment rates, there is less clarity about the significance of the effect and what educational level that increases the likelihood of emp...

This article compares the income distribution among disabled and nondisabled persons in Norway. Based on the level of living surveys covering the period from 1980 to 1995, the analysis shows a large and increasing income gap between the two groups. The disabled are losing ground to the non-disabled part of the population, however this is most pronounced over the age of 40, while there are only minor differences between disabled and non-disabled people under 40. Three different explanations for this pattern are discussed; one pointing at differences in ageing processes within the two groups, one at cohort characteristics and the third relating the increasing differences to period characteristics. We argue that the observed income differences are mostly due to period characteristics, indicating strong and increasing exclusion prosesses of disabled persons from the labour market We also argue that focus should be on structural characteristics rather than on individual properties to understand and improve the living conditions of persons with disabilities.

SAMMENDRAGDen sterke økningen det siste tiåret i andelen elever som mottar spesialundervisning står i sterk kontrast til en politisk satsning på inkludering og tilpasset opplaering i skolen. I denne artikkelen bruker vi en spørreundersøkelse blant grunnskolelaerere for å teste ulike forklaringer på økt forekomst av spesialundervisning. I artikkelen konkluderer vi med at forklaringene som får støtte i materialet dels dreier seg om forhold som den enkelte skole eller kommune ikke kan styre direkte, som økt rettighetsfokus i samfunnet, økt fokus på resultater, ressursmangel og laeringsutbytte i skolen. Det kan også forklare hvorfor tiltak som settes inn på skolenivå bare i begrenset grad synes å påvirke omfanget av spesialundervisning -og at andelen i noen tilfeller også vokser til tross for tiltakene.