Lead: Ruth Bartlett and Inger Marie Lid

This work package aimed to find and examine cases of everyday citizenship and translate them into teaching materials.

During CitPro phase I, the COVID-19 pandemic produced many distressing cases of everyday citizenship being denied to people with intellectual disabilities across the world. A recurrent theme in these stories was a concern amongst people with a disability that their lives would not be deemed worth saving. Another story, which has been featured in teaching materials for Masters students at VID, was about a woman with dementia living in a nursing home being denied the right to go out for a walk (even when the general population was allowed to go out for a walk once a day). This story is also featured as one of the cases in the article on long-term care homes as carceral spaces.

Collaborators: Anita Gjermestad and Kirsten J. Fjetland.

Leads: Inger Marie Lid & Anna Chalachanová

A higher education program worth 30 ECTS credits, with academic, educational, and social dimensions for students with intellectual disabilities, was created and delivered in partnership with colleagues from the Institute of Health, people with intellectual disabilities, Oslo municipality, Norsk forbund for utviklingshemmede (NFU), Nasjonalt kompetansemiljø om utviklingshemming (NAKU), Stiftelsen SOR and Stiftelsen DAM.

Read more about the first generations of students with intellectual disabilities at VID here.

Lead: Inger Marie Lid

Aim: To build a sound research ethic for research projects using participatory research methodologies, including participatory action research.

Collaborators: Rosemarie van den Breemer, Anne Raustøl, Oddgeir Synnes, Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and Humanities (NESH).

This WP is included in CitPro phase 2 and will be further developed.

Lead: Oddgeir Synnes, Inger Marie Lid, Anna Chalachanová

The work package aimed to examine the meaning of everyday citizenship for persons in vulnerable situations and persons with disabilities, including persons with dementia, through creative craft workshops and other participatory and creative methods.

Collaborators: Ruth Bartlett, Kirsten J. Fjetland, Anita Gjermestad

Leads: Kirsten J. Fjetland & Anita Gjermestad

The work package aimed to elucidate everyday life from the perspectives of persons living with intellectual disability and dementia.

The exhibition opened at the Faculty of Health Sciences, VID Specialised University, on Friday, 3 December 2021, the UN's International Day for Persons with Disabilities. It was organized by people with intellectual disabilities and involved professional photographer Eli Lea. The exhibition was attended by VID students, colleagues, and people from Norway’s professional and political circles who work to promote issues concerning people with intellectual disabilities.

Read more here: Fotoutstilling om hverdagsliv og medborgerskap | Naku

Collaborators: Colleagues from the Faculty of Health Science, VID Stavanger/Sandnes, and persons with intellectual disabilities and/or dementia in partnership with Bachelor students in practical education, social education, and occupational therapy programs.

Cristin Project ID: 2473688

Lead: Rosemarie van den Breemer

As part of this work package, a successful co-research team has been established in cooperation with a parent board, resulting in nine co-research meetings, five reference group meetings, eight individual interviews, and one large group interview (21 families represented). The project lead has produced three publications (Breemer, 2025, 2024, 2022) and given seven talks (two in collaboration with co-researchers). The work continues in the form of building international networks amongst parents and parent organizations in the deafblind field.

Find out more here.

Collaborators: Inger Marie Lid

Lead: Ana Koncul

This work package explores how the universal design of environments, products, and services can account for the experiences of persons who live with dementia and improve cognitive accessibility. It brings together user participation and lived experience with the concept of universal design.

Keywords: universal design, user participation, first-person perspective, cognitive accessibility, dementia, intellectual disabilities, cognitive disabilities

Collaborators: Ruth Bartlett

This WP is included in CitPro phase 2 and will be further developed.

Doctoral project: Elizabeth George

Description: This research project aims to locate and uncover citizenship in the everyday, exploring how people with dementia, through mundane and everyday activities, demonstrate agency and participate in their lives and community in rural Nigeria and the religious and cultural influences (if any) to the actualization of this everyday display of citizenship. An ethnographic and inclusive approach will be adopted to explore the perspectives of people showing signs of dementia in the chosen community, their caregivers, and other members of the community, including religious and traditional leaders.

Co-supervisors: Ana Koncul, Inger Marie Lid, and Ruth Bartlett

Doctoral project: Sadeta Demić

Description: This study aims to get an overview of how supported decision making is practiced in current health and welfare services together with people with intellectual disabilities, as well as to explore service providers and relatives experiences with supported decision making in everyday life for people with intellectual disabilities who live in municipalities and who struggle to express themselves verbally.

Co-supervisor: Inger Marie Lid, Rosemarie van den Bremmer, Halvor Hanisch

The CitPro team hosted an international symposium, ‘Everyday Citizenship and Persons with Disabilities: Pasts, Presents, Futures,' on October 4th and 5th, 2023, at VID Specialized University, campus Oslo.

The symposium aimed to bring together knowledge-makers from the fields of disability, dementia, and citizenship studies to discuss historical and current trends in understanding and applications of everyday citizenship in relation to persons with disabilities, including people with dementia.

Keynote speakers:

Sonali Shah, Associate Professor in Disability and Life Course Research, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, UK

Katie Aubrecht, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Canada Research Chair Health Equity and Social Justice, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada

Christine Kelly, Associate Professor, Max Rady College of Medicine, Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada

Elizabeth Tilley, Professor of Learning Disability Studies, The Open University, UK

James Rupert Fletcher, Wellcome Trust fellow, The University of Manchester

The two-day symposium organized by CitPro aimed to provide a platform for a constructive discussion of participant-centered research methods. It combined academic presentations with hands-on practical workshops on walking interviews, photography, poetry, or sensory methods.

Keynote speakers:

Melanie Nind, Professor of Education at the University of Southampton; co-directors of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods;

Ole Petter Askheim, Professor at the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences;

Lars Frers, Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science, University of South-Eastern Norway.

The photo exhibition took place in Sandnes in 2021.

Television Vest (TV Vest) was invited to attend the opening of the photo exhibition. See the video report here.

Each year, the CitPro team marks the International Day of People with Disabilities (IDPWD). Learn more about the International Day of People with Disabilities here.