The art of recognition – user-involvement and collaboration in the Norwegian Qualification Programme

The Norwegian Qualification Program (QP) is an inclusion-oriented work- and activation program, offering long-term unemployed close and comprehensive follow-up and customized activation to strengthen their opportunities on the... [ view full abstract ]

The Norwegian Qualification Program (QP) is an inclusion-oriented work- and activation program, offering long-term unemployed close and comprehensive follow-up and customized activation to strengthen their opportunities on the labour market. Policy documents emphasize user-involvement and collaboration as a prerequisite for success, urging social workers to equally emphasize the users' wishes, needs and situational self-understanding. The paper analyses follow-up meetings in local welfare service offices to examine the dynamics and processes governing the collaboration and working alliance between users and social workers, focusing particularly on the way participants respond, position themselves, and negotiate as the meetings proceeds.

The study has a qualitative design, based on observations of 30 meetings between social workers and users in two local welfare service offices. The analysis is informed by institutional interactionism, which places special focus on the institutional frameworks within which the interaction takes place. As a theoretical framework for analysis, I employ Nancy Frazer’s theory of recognition and parity of participation. Findings suggest that recognition is an ambiguous issue within the work and activation field, as social workers balance between institutional requirements and limitations and users’ wishes and needs, while users negotiate for participational parity. The dual aims of inclusion-oriented work- and activation policy; recognizing the user as equal partners in collaboration and the policy goal of getting users into paid employment, becomes the social worker’s dilemma.