Ragna Lillevik is a researcher at Fafo. Her work covers a number of topics related to the policy areas of immigration, integration and diversity. Many of the projects Lillevik has led or worked on have been evaluations of public measures within the asylum administration or the integration field. Lillevik has also researched governance of Islam in Norway for her PhD, as part of the interdisciplinary project "Muslim Politics and Governance of Islam: Interactions of Structure and Culture in Multireligious Europe".
Lillevik has extensive empirical knowledge of Norwegian immigration, integration and diversity policy. She is particularly interested in how politics is implemented and works in practice, and therefore often studies the encounters between different groups of refugees, immigrants and minorities, and public services. She has extensive experience with qualitative fieldwork and methods such as case studies, observation, focus groups and qualitative interviews, as well as experience with online surveys. Dissemination to stakeholders and the general public is an integrated part of all her projects at Fafo.
Redaktørmedlem og blogger på forskningsbloggen Religiongoingpublic.com.
Religion: Going Public har som siktemål å formidle ny forskning til et bredt publikum, drøfte religionens plass i offentligheten, samt delta i – og bidra med kunnskap til – offentlig religionsdebatt.
Education
PhD. in political science from the University of Oslo
Area of work
Immigration and integration, democratic rights and political participation, Islam in Europe.
Current projects
This project explores changes in resettlement policies, specifically related to the concept of “vulnerability”, and how these policy changes shape the processes of how refugees are selected for resettlement.
Fafo publications
Articles and book chapters
Other publications
Completed projects
The overall goal of the project is to investigate whether the UDI's conduct of asylum interviews is in line with current quality requirements.
The project will examine how current regulations and the immigration authorities' practice safeguard children's right to be heard in deportation cases that affect them.
The project's overall objective is to contribute to better pediatric expertise in the immigration administration's various agencies and better meetings between children and the immigration administration. The assignment consists of evaluating whether the process for children who meet the immigration administration and the pediatric competence in the agencies UDI, UNE, and PU, has improved between 2016 and 2019 after various measures have been initiated to strengthen these target areas. The evaluation will examine both children and employees' experiences with the implemented measures and the results of these - that is, how the implementation of the measures in the agencies has contributed to change. The results from the evaluation will contribute to the agencies' continued efforts in meeting children.
This is a research project in two parts: 1) an evaluation following a measure where young people exposed to negative social control, honour based violence and/or forced marriage - have access to mentors who are volunteers. 2) an examination of civil society projects supposed to promote negative social control and forced marriages. We are going to explore how organizations evaluate their measures and how users evaluate them. An important question is whether measures fit the ambitions of authorities, civil society and volunteers.
Fafo will investigate the possibilities and limitations municipal authorities have for influencing the situation of migrants without legal residence, in five Norwegian cities.
Refugee advisors and teachers who work with the introduction program for refugees find that they have a demanding task of keeping teaching volume and, not least, quality, up these days. Municipalities shall ensure that participants in the introductory program receive educational services, and that participants in training in Norwegian and social sciences receive training even if their place of instruction is currently closed, unless it is not possible to offer the training via digital aids or in other ways. Fafo will investigate how municipalities, among other things, use digital tools to achieve this, and how they solve their responsibilities for various participants during the pandemic.
In 2019, Fafo and Frisch formulated three proposals for the use of financial incentives in the integration work for refugees and immigrants.
The project examines how early competence mapping and career guidance, two recently introduced measures, can help recently settled refugees make more targeted qualification and career choices, and help municipalities to better adapt their services to refugees.
In this project, Fafo will evaluate implementation and results in three Church City Mission projects as they are conducted from 2019 to 2022. The Church City Mission is a non-profit organization that works across Norway among people who face challenges in life for various reasons.
In 2014, a new regime aimed at immigrant education training was introduced.
Immigrant organisations and voluntary work receive funding from the government. The funding is distributed through 20 muncipalites.
This project addresses how Muslim political thought in Europe is affected by societal structures, and, conversely, how the development of societal structures in Europe is affected by Muslim politics and activism.