This report introduces, with an empirical focus on Sweden, the field of research that emerges when rural research and civil society research intersects. The texts in the report was presented at a conference titled Civil societies of rural areas and smaller towns in 2021. The report is intended as an introduction to current research on this theme and we believe it can be interesting reading for both those active within civil society organisations and those active within authorities, regions and municipalities who relate to rural civil society in their work.

The report opens with a chapter that gives an overview of how civil society research and rural research has developed over time and discusses the need of research in the intersection of these two fields, research that focuses on the civil societies of rural areas. The other chapters present current research on rural civil societies, the research included covers a wide spectrum of different methods and different theoreticial perspectives.

Following the introduction, the report presents research that describes differences and similarities in civil society engagement between urban and rural areas in Sweden, deals with how access to service also can affect trust in institutions and discusses the importance of emotions in relation to civil society engagement and community development. Furthermore, an overall picture of the state of knowledge about social innovation as a response to rural societal challenges is presented, with a particular focus on the role of civil society and its cooperation with other actors.

Based on a study of civil society projects financed with public funds one chapter discusses how these financial resources are transformed into intangible resources for the benefit of the local community. The report also contains chapters that discuss civil society’s alternative educational paths that start from places’ own conditions, social movements for sustainability in the Swedish-Sámi countryside, and a final chapter that discusses how citizenship is reshaped when residents in rural areas and smaller towns increasingly need to rely on civil society’s solutions in order to have access to local everyday services and basic infrastructure.

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on public religion by describing how independent confessional schools were established in Sweden (1795–2019) and by clarifying and deconstructing the dominant ideals that underpin school policy initiatives concerning religion, education, and independent confessional schools. I seek to answer the question: In what way do independent confessional schools appear problematic in relation to general school policy during the period 1795–2019? Employing both descriptive quantitative analysis using register data on independent confessional schools and critical policy analysis inspired by Bacchi’s WPR-approach (‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be’), this study shows that (1) independent confessional schools are not a new or growing phenomenon in Sweden and (2) throughout this study’s focal period, regardless of whether a religious or secular foundation was ascribed to Sweden’s public school system, independent confessional schools were perceived to deviate from public schools’ principal values.

The aim is to analyze how girls from a multi-ethnic area, not doing sports, reason about their well-being during leisure time, and how they think about physical activities, social relations, and their near future. The results say that they mainly regard leisure time as a moment for rest. They have close relations in primary groups but weaker secondary relations. They reveal stereotypical opinions about gender divisions in sports. Physical activity is unwanted and tiresome, if not part of playing.

The innovative contributions of third sector organizations (TSOs) to tackle work-related societal challenges are increasingly acknowledged in policy and research, but rarely in Nordic working life studies. The article helps fill this knowledge gap by an empirical mapping of efforts by Swedish TSOs to promote work inclusion among people considered disadvantaged in the regular labor market, due to age, disabilities, origin, etc. Previous studies of social innovation help distinguish their innovativeness in terms of alternative or complementary ways to perceive and promote work inclusion in regard to Swedish labor market policies. By combining various measures for providing and preparing work opportunities, addressing their participants through individualistic and holistic approaches, and manag-ing work inclusion by varying organization, funding, and alliances, the mapped cases seem to innova-tively compensate for government and market failures in the work inclusion domain to some extent, while also being limited by their own voluntary failures.

I det här kapitlet beskrivs hur givande av pengar tar sig uttryck som ett medborgerligt engagemang i Sverige. Mycket tyder på att vi i Sverige harett förhållningssätt till penninggåvor som skiljer sig från det i många andra länder, och att detta förhållningssätt beror på hur vi ser på användningen av privata och offentliga pengar för privata och offentliga intressen. Det sätt på vilket vi som medborgare ger pengar till ändamål vi stödjer har djupa historiska rötter och säger därför något om det svenska samhället, hur det har varit och vart det är på väg.

Welfare states in Europe and around the world are experiencing growing numbers of people with limited or unclear rights to public welfare within their borders. These are refugees, undocumented migrants, EU-migrants and other groups of displaced or deprived people seeking a better life. In Sweden, this situation is trying the highly held principles of social and human rights, as charities are becoming an increasingly important complement to rights-based public welfare services. This article will show how eight different City Missions in Sweden are seeing a new role for themselves in an emerging social landscape. The findings will be analysed in terms of social and human rights, using the classic theories of T. H. Marshall as well as more recent research.