Photo of Ulrika Wernesjö

Ulrika Wernesjö

Associate Professor

My research is mainly concerned with belonging, social rights and processes of inclusion and exclusion in the welfare state, with particular focus on migration, citizenship, children and youth.

Inequalities and inclusion / exclusion in the Swedish welfare state

My research interests concern inequalities and inclusion / exclusion in the Swedish welfare state, with particular focus on migration, citizenship, ethnicity and young age.

I hold a Ph.D. in sociology from Uppsala University. In my doctoral thesis Conditional belonging: Listening to unaccompanied young refugees’ voices (2014), I investigated negotiations of belonging among young people that upon arrival in Sweden were categorized as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors. The thesis demonstrates how belonging is a process that interacts with – and is shaped by – social relations, place, exclusion and racialization.

In my postdoctoral project (2016-2018) in social work at Linköping University, I continued my focus on children and youngsters that are categorized as unaccompanied minors, but with a focus on the municipal social work. In the project I investigated how the children’s situations and needs were constructed by social workers, and the significance of gender in intersection with age, ethnicity and class in assessments of the children’s situation. In addition, the project also investigated the conditions for social work with asylum-seeking children and youngster in the aftermath of the restrictions in Swedish migration policy after 2015.

Publications

Publication list

2026

Ulrika Wernesjö, Maria Persdotter (2026) Bordering the outermost safety net: social assistance for irregularised migrants in Sweden, 1982-2018 European Social Work Research, Vol. 4, p. 295-309 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1332/27551768y2026d000000095
Jesper Johansson, Ulrika Wernesjö, Linnéa Åberg (2026) Social work in restrictive migration contexts European Social Work Research, Vol. 4, p. 285-294 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1332/27551768y2026d000000096
Ulrika Wernesjö, Maria Persdotter (2026) Bordering the outermost safety net: social assistance for irregularised migrants in Sweden, 1982-2018 European Social Work Research (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1332/27551768Y2026D000000095

2025

Ulrika Wernesjö, David Ekholm, Magnus Dahlstedt (2025) Separatism, community and emancipation: Football for girls as critical pedagogy Citizenship Teaching and Learning, Vol. 20, p. 249-265 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1386/ctl_00185_1
Anna Lundberg, Maria Persdotter, Ulrika Wernesjö (2025) How do changes to social rights happen?: Tracing changes in the right to social assistance for irregularised migrants in Sweden International Journal of Law in Context (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744552324000430

The Welfare Law research field

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