Olav Nygård

Olav Nygård is a Senior Lecturer at Linköping University, specializing in educational sociology, social mobility, and immigration studies. His research focuses on the intersection of meritocracy and ascriptive factors in shaping educational and labor market outcomes, particularly for children of immigrants.

• Active Projects:
  • After Optimism examines long-term educational and labor trajectories of immigrant youth.
  • Improving Educational Outcomes compares top-down and bottom-up initiatives in marginalized schools.
  • Negotiated Mobility and Belonging explores mobility tensions in rural Sweden with immigrant populations.

His methodological expertise combines longitudinal register data, surveys, and ethnographic interviews, informed by post-Bourdieusian theory. He investigates how immigrant optimism challenges meritocratic assumptions and intersects with racialization, discrimination, and spatial mobility constraints. His work has significant societal relevance for addressing educational inequality and integration policies.

Scientific Awards: None listed in accessible texts.

Advising: No students explicitly named. Collaborates with the REMESO database for register-based research.