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"This edited collection offers interdisciplinary perspectives on some of the key health challenges faced by individuals, communities, and governments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking the Danish context as a starting point, it extrapolates to discuss the international relevance of a range of issues. With contributions from scholars across the social sciences, health sciences, and humanities, each chapter provides not only insight into a particular issue, but also the theories and scientific methods applied to understand and overcome the COVID-19 crisis. It will be important reading for both scholars and policy makers, informing an appropriate response to future health crises."

The concern of involving children in decision-making and activities related to their health and well-being in the school has increasingly becoming accepted politically as well as academically in line with the adoption of the UN Convention on the rights of the child. While formal and informal participation is viewed as an integral part of social capital generation according to Putnam, which has been found beneficial for health and wellbeing, little is known regarding how social capital is generated in relation to children and drawing on children as active participants. Drawing on children's perspective and the concept of participation, the aims of this study are therefore to explore children's experiences with their participation in everyday school situations and secondly, to contribute, theoretically, to the conceptualization of social capital in relation to children in the school setting. An abductive research strategy was used based on 10 focus groups interviews with 44 children aged 10-11 and participatory observation at two Danish public schools. We found three forms of participation: 'Child-directed', 'Adult/child-directed' and 'Adult-directed' that relate to different practises and different social capital types. While children actively contribute to the formation of bonding social capital practices as part of child-directed participation, 'adult/child-directed' participation with its focus on participatory democratic education tends to reinforce bonding as well as bridging social capital. In line with Putnam's focus on civic engagement the merged perspectives thus highlight the importance of stressing pupils' genuine participation as an active social pedagogical principle alongside structural changes at the whole school level.

Det er nu 30 år siden, at Luc Boltanski og Laurent Thévenot (B&T) for alvor præsenterede sig på den bredere sociologiske scene med deres fælles værk De la justification (DJ) (1991), som i dag fremstår som en af sociologiens nyklassikere. Analyserammen i DJ har vist sig særdeles sejlivet og har sat ringe i vandet, så også filosoffer, politologer, økonomer, geografer og historikere har taget den op til debat – og ikke mindst brugt den enten i dens oprindelige form eller i teoriudviklende arbejde. Formålet med artiklen er at kortlægge de mest fremtrædende internationale debatter samt se på anvendelsen i en dansk kontekst. Vi fremhæver de særligt interessante udviklingsveje, som kan lede læseren (studerende så vel som forskere) videre ind i et stadigt spirende forskningsfelt. Vi identificerer fire overordnede tilgange til at arbejde med retfærdiggørelsesmodellen: 1) socialteoretiske debatter og udvidelser af selve retfærdiggørelsesmodellen; 2) etnografisk inspirerede studier af menneskers kritik og retfærdiggørelse; 3) diskursive analyser af offentlige debatter og 4) brug af retfærdiggørelsesmodellen i genealogiske analyser. Afslutningsvis opsummerer vi, hvilke analysetilgange og udviklingsveje vi finder særlig interessante, og argumenterer for, hvorfor vi mener, DJ stadig er aktuel i dag – 30 år efter udgivelsen.

On 30 January 2020, the disease covid-19 was declared by the World Health Organization to be an international threat to human health and on 11 March 2020, the outbreak was declared a pandemic. The aim of this study was to analyse policy strategies developed by the five Nordic countries during the first 3 months of the pandemic from a health promotion perspective in order to identify Nordic responses to the crisis. Although the Nordic countries have a long tradition of co-operation as well as similar social welfare policies and legislation, each country developed their own strategies towards the crisis. The strategies identified were analysed from a health promotion perspective emanating from five principles: intersectorality, sustainability, equity, empowerment and a lifecourse perspective. Denmark, Finland and Norway had lockdowns to varying degrees, whereas Sweden and Iceland had no lockdowns. Iceland implemented a test and tracking strategy from the very beginning. All countries based their recommendations and restrictions on appeals to solidarity and trust in institutions and fellow citizens. The analysis showed that the strategies in all countries could be related to health promotion principles with some differences between the countries especially regarding equity and sustainability. The Nordic governments took responsibility for protecting their citizens by developing policy strategies based on restrictions and recommendations congruent with the principles of health promotion. The findings also identified issues that will pose challenges for future pandemic strategies.