Children's rights and gender equality in Swedish parenting support: policy and practice

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how ‘children's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ are articulated in parenting support policies in Sweden, and how these policies are enacted in practice with respect to the two perspectives mentioned. The analysis builds on key policy documents and interviews with civil servants working on parenting support on local, regional and national levels. The results show that despite national ambitions to enhance and achieve gender equality among parents, gender equality are downplayed in local settings. Important reasons are to be found in a lack of concrete strategies and instructions how to work with gender equality perspectives in cooperation with children's rights perspectives, but also the different interpretations of gender equality and ‘good parenting’ made by the civil servants.