Astri Andresen

From poor law society to the welfare state: school meals in Norway 1890s-1950s.

This article examines the main trends in the history of publicly organised school meals in Norway, while casting comparative glances at Britain. First, it argues that the status of school meals today is strongly influenced by three intertwined strains of past tradition: poor relief, universal welfare and the ideal of full-time and nutritionally competent housewives. Second, tradition is also visible in the extent to which publicly organised meals are seen as solutions to problems – in the past to hunger or malnourishment, today to obesity and malnourishment – and not simply as a meal. Third, the creation of civil and health conscious citizens has, to varying degrees, been a part of the school meals programme, as the school itself has had, and continues to have, such an agenda.

Effecting Equality: Norwegian Health Policy in Finnmark, 1945–1970s

Abstract At the heart of “the Nordic model of welfare” is a strong will for national integration and social equality between citizens and regions. It is commonly held that that “homogeneity ethnic” is one explanatory factor behind the Nordic model of welfare. On the contrary, we claim that it is the political will to treat the population as homogeneous that influenced the creation of the model, not any factual ethnic homogeneity (which is, after all, a historical fiction, also in the Nordic context). Thus, the pursuit of integration and the strive for regional equality have challenged local autonomy and cultural diversity while at the same time underpinned arguments for a regionalization of politics and, to some extent, for ethnic particularization. Drawn between a strong state and local authority, universalism and particularization, welfare and health policies have reshaped the relationship between center and peripheries and between the majority and ethnic minorities. The integration of the county of Finnmark into the national system of institutionalized welfare in Norway after World War II constitutes a good case to investigate not only the will, but also the ability, for national integration and equalization along the dimensions of centre–periphery and majority–minority relations, not only because of the countys position furthest to the north, but also because it held the largest minority populations. This article examines Norwegian policies to establish and effect equality between Finnmark and other regions in the field of health care facilities from 1945 until the 1970s, and the attempts to establish equal access to health services between the Sámi minority and the Norwegian majority population in Finnmark. It sheds light upon how the immanent conflict between the ideals of a national, universal welfare policy and particular measures in favor of the Sámi was conceived in the period. (The authors expected multi-culturality to be clearly visible in the sources. It was, but only with regard to one minority group, the Sámi. The Kvens were not discussed by the policy-makers in the period.) Furthermore, it has been argued that in the shaping and implementation of Norwegian health policies in the first years after World War II, primacy was given to expert knowledge. A particular point of interest in this article is how this primacy manifested itself in the choices of political strategies of universalism and particularism within the field of health policy in this particular geographical setting.

In the Wake of the Kautokeino Event: Changing Perceptions of Insanity and the Sámi 1852–1965

Abstract An unprecedented drama took place in the village of Kautokeino in Northern Norway on a November night in 1852: members of the parish attacked the village, set houses on fire and murdered the tradesman and the bailiff. The aim of this article is not to explain the event, but to look into the extent to which notions of mental illness were brought into the following trial, and furthermore, if such illness was perceived as pertaining to a specific Sámi character or mentality. The article also investigates the ways in which changing perceptions of the Sámi and mental illness made for new interpretations of the 1852 event. Throughout the period from the 1850s until the 1960s, claims were made that the Kautokeino ringleaders were mad or insane, but the ways in which madness was connected to being Sámi changed, as did the specific reasons for making these claims. However, whether the diagnosis came from physicians, the clergy or other interested parties, it seems more often than not to have had at its heart to make the best possible excuse for those who participated in the Kautokeino event. The inevitable result was to emphasize the lack of civilization or later, the otherness, of the Sámi people as compared with Norwegians.

A FAREWELL TO ‘RURAL BLISS’: Shifting problematizations of school children's health in Norway 1900–1940

The article discusses health policies towards school children in Norway from 1900 until the Second World War. It is concerned with dominant definitions of health threats against children and the variables used in defining the groups conceived as most vulnerable to poor health. A distinct change took place in the period. Whereas in the early 1900s poor and working‐class children in urban surroundings were considered to be under severe threats, in the 1920s a less specific category of ‘children’ were conceived as threatened. Eventually rural children were singled out as the important target group for health measures. The shifts had medical as well as political motivations. Another prominent feature in the period was that poverty took on a new meaning in the dominant medical discourse on children: from having been conceived as a material reality impinging upon health, it came to be considered mainly a cultural problem. Especially medical officers within the social democratic camp contested this argument although they did not rule out education and cultural transformation as a means to promote childrens health. Despite the conceptual shift, however, social benefits and equal access to health services – measures that lay at the heart of the post‐war welfare state – remained in the 1930s an essential part of promoting childrens health.

Book Review: Children's health issues in historical perspective

This extensive addition to the history of childrens health presents case studies from Canada, Vietnam, New Zealand, the US, and Australia. It contains five sections: politics, nutrition, racial and ethnic dimensions, experts, and institutions. Compared with current European trends within the field, two features in particular stand out: the strong emphasis on childhood diversity and the explicitly formulated theses on the impact of national political cultures upon health policies. Several chapters draw on comparative knowledge to situate national policies in an international context.

Book Review: The past and present of leprosy: archaeological, historical, palaeopathological and clinical approaches. Proceedings of the International Congress on the Evolution and Palaeoepidemiology of the Infectious Diseases 3 (ICEPID), University of Bradford 26–31 July 1999

No less than thirty-seven authors contribute to this publication on leprosy. It is a disease with an inheritance of social and cultural stigma, and even though effective therapy is now available, it still constitutes a health problem in certain parts of the world. Not surprisingly, then, several of the contributions are dedicated to commenting upon the current situation.