Center for Everyday Life of Families in the Welfare State (CELFS) brings together national and international research communities that focus on the relationship between everyday family life and the welfare state. Different strands of research contribute insight into the topic, but the different disciplines tend to approach family life and welfare policies as somewhat isolated phenomena. CELFS will bring together various disciplines to explore how welfare policies and family life interface while maintaining a focus on both the subjective and the institutional aspects.

Everyday family life as a key

The center is a result of recent years’ collaboration between the Danish research environments and international scholars who approach everyday life as a key to explore parents’ perspectives on family life. Children and parents’ everyday life contexts are part of cultural, historical, and social practices in society and thus regulated by welfare policies and agendas. Political goals to prevent marginalization and inequality by promoting early learning in family and day care contexts is one example of how policies interweave everyday life. The center facilitates explorations of the life conditions of children and parents. This requires considering children and parents’ perspectives when studying their struggles and adversities and analyzing how welfare policies and interventions entail various meanings for the everyday life of families in different situations and diverse circumstances. This is important since there is a significant emphasis on developing interventions for families and less focus on the situations in which these interventions are supposed to work.

As a primary strategic area, CELFS focuses on early childhood interventions. The Sapere Aude project “(Re)configuration of parenthood” takes early childhood interventions targeting families as the basis for studying changing conditions for parenthood. The project is led by associate professor Pernille Juhl and funded by the Independent Research fund Denmark.

Among others, the center includes researchers from Roskilde University: Associate professor Pernille Juhl (head of center), Professor Hanne Warming, associate professor Allan Westerling, postdoc Sarah Alminde, assistant professor Asta Breinholt, PhD fellow Simone Stegeager and PhD fellow Lærke Lyndelse. In addition, researchers from Aarhus University, University of Copenhagen, Aalborg University, VIVE, University College Copenghagen and  University College Absalon are affiliated with the center, along with international researchers from OsloMet in Norway, Kent University, and University College London in England.