by Lars Josephsen

This two-day conference brought together two European Networks of Excellence, and it covered different but related research themes, that might be epitomized by the concepts of Citizenship, Governance and Social Quality.

The first day of the conference was reserved for presentation of results from the EU 6FP Project on WORKCARE, addressing ‘Social Quality and the Changing Relationship between Work, Care and Welfare in Europe’, whereas the second day was devoted to CINEFOGO-presentations related to issues concerning ‘Social Capital, Participation and Citizenship in Europe’.

The Workcare conference programme included the following topics:

·         Ways of managing work-life balance in Europe

·         Family Policy and Welfare regimes

·         Flexible employment in managing work and care

·         Typologies of work and care across Europe

·         Household capabilities and the organisation of work and care

·         Social quality in work and care

As a contribution to the Workcare programme Claire Wallace and Pamela Abbott (University of Aberdeen) presented a paper on ‘Social Quality in Europe’, in which the authors discuss the concept of ‘Social Quality’ as connected to ‘the social’. ‘Social Quality’ is regarded as part of a sociologically grounded approach as opposed to the psychological concept ‘Quality of Life’ concerned with subjective life satisfaction, and thereby takes the perspective of the isolated individual as the ultimate reality. – The Wallace-Abbott paper can be found as an essay in this Newsletter, in the Dialogue and Debate section.

The CINEFOGO conference programme included these topics:

·         Patterns of social capital and participation in Europe

·         European identity

·         Civil society

·         Participation

·         Work-life balance

·         Welfare and citizenship

The two final CINEFOGO conferences in Brussels in respectively March and June 2009 aimed partly at contributing to the presentation to a broader public of some important research topics that have been addressed within the WORKCARE and the CINEFOGO Networks and partly at outlining selected significant findings of these efforts.

Further information:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/socsci/research/nec/workcare

http://www.cinefogo.org/workpackages/wp45/final-conference-2-of-2