Charlotte Melander
Senior Lecturer
Department of Social WorkAbout Charlotte Melander
Background Charlotte Melander has a PhD in Social Work from Gothenburg University 2009 and a bachelor degree in social work from Lund University 1997. She has since 2009 been working as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Social Work Gothenburg University.
Research Charlotte´s main research interests is on migrant families and their children within a transnational social context. The focus of her research has been on care and social support within migrant families and their wider social network locally and transnationally, on the reception of unaccompanied children in the Gothenburg region and on children as young carers in Sweden.
Collaboration On an international level Charlotte has been a member of the Nordic research network significant others financed by the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS). She has been a member of the Global childhood research network coordinated by the faculty of Pedagogy at Gothenburg University. On a national level she is part of the research network Social work and migration financed by FORTE 2019-2022 and The Swedish Network for Family and Kinship Studies. She is also connected to research networks on migration, transnationalism and diaspora studies coordinated by institutions as Nordic IMER, the Department of Social Antropology Stockholm University and IMISCOE.
On a local level Charlotte is coordinating a network of researchers and social workers interested in the field of social work and migration at Gothenburg University and HV – University West. She is also connected to CGM – Centre of Global Migration at Gothenburg University. Charlotte has since several years also been a coordinator for a reference group with civil society organisations (RIO) at the department of Social Work.
Current research projects
- Transnational childhoods: building of significant relationships among Polish and Romanian migrant children after reunification with parents in Sweden. 2019-2022 Charlotte is working in two research projects. One of them is Transnational childhoods funded by FORTE (2019-2021). Professor Ingrid Höjer is the projectleader and Charlotte Melander och Oksana Shmulyar Gréen have together explored the ways in which migrant children and young people re-define and create significant social relationships in local and transnational social spaces. This study draws upon qualitative interviews with 18 children and young people who were between 10 and 18 years old when they came to Sweden from Poland and Romania, and who have stayed in the country for at least one year. Interviews have been combined with visual methods as network-maps, life-lines as well as photographs and drawings.
- Where do I belong and who do I care about?: experiences of mobility, care and negotiation of belonging among children of East European EU workers' in Sweden In research project Charlotte is a co-researcher and Oksana Shmulyar Gréen from the department of sociology and work science Gothenburg university is the project leader. The project is funded by the Swedish research council VR (2019-2023). The study aims to contribute to an understanding of how children and young people themselves navigate the EU mobility space and the ways in which they construct a sense of belonging locally and transnationally. The empirical data used for this explorative project is SCB’s new database on children and their families in Sweden, as well as focus groups, and qualitative interviews combined with visual methods.
Finished research projects
- Care-giving arrangements in the enlarged Europe: migrants’ parental strategies and the role of institutonal context in Sweden. 2015-2018. Charlotte was a co-researcher in this study together with Ingrid Höjer, professor in social work and project leader and Oksana Shmulyar Green, PhD in sociology
- A study on young carers in Sweden. During 2014-2015 Charlotte was involved in a study on young carers in Sweden together with Monica Nordenfors, Phd in social work who was the projectleader and Kristian Daneback, professor in social work. The Swedish national authority Socialstyrelsen financed the project.
- A study on the reception of Unaccompanied minors in the Gothenburg region in Sweden. From the 1st of July 2011 until the 31th of December 2012 Charlotte worked half time as a researcher in a research and development project on the reception of unaccompanied minors in the Gothenburg region in Sweden. The project was financed by the European Refugee fund together with 13 citycouncils in the Gothenburg region (GR). The project owner was a research unit called FoU i Väst (Research and development in West) Göteborgsregionens kommunalförbund placed in Gothenburg. The final report was published in Swedish in 2013.
- IPS – Immigrants, Police and Social Work. Charlotte was working as a researcher in a research- and development project financed by the European Integration Fund during the period 2010-07-01 - 2011-04-31. Five European countries participated in the project. The projectpartner in Sweden was the Department of Sociology Gothenburg university and project leader Jan Carle. The aim was to contribute to the effective education of European police officers and social workers and promoting education within a multicultural context where these examples of the good and most promising practices can be used as case studies.
- PhD thesis Within Transnational and Local Social Worlds – Social support exchange and strategies for earning a living among Swedish-Somalis. The aim of the study was to describe and analyse the exchange of social support within the social network of Swedish-Somalis within and outside of Sweden. The aim was also to describe and analyse their strategies to earn a living within and outside of Sweden.
Teaching Charlotte is teaching at both a bachelor and a master level in courses focusing on social work and migration, family, children and parenting, antiracist social work, and a transnational perspective on families and social work. She is supervising students at a bachelor-, master- and PhD levels.