FAFO corrects «racist» report after criticism

mukwege murad nobel peace prize fafoNobel Peace Prize 2018, Nobels fredspris 2018 Denis Mukewege and Nadia Murad. Photo: Nobelprize.org

FAFO corrects «racist» report after criticism

FAFO’s report «Attitudes to discrimination, equality and hate speech in Norway» led to a debate on racism – and the methods of research in order to document attitudes in this area. FAFO was strongly criticized for one of the questions in the survey. FAFO now corrects the report.


The question was whether one agreed or disagreed that «some human races are simply smarter than others».

Unclarities in the question may have led many agreeing with the statement, without FAFO being able to know with certainty exactly what they have actually agreed with, as Ottar Hellevik (among others) has pointed out.

We realize that this question does not work according to the intention, and it has consequences for how we can use the answers to the question. Therefore, FAFO reviews the report and corrects where the question referred to is used. When the work is completed, we will publish an amended version of the report on our website.

FAFO itself has never thought about this question as a measure of racism in society. The debate and the media reports show that this has not been clear enough. On several occasions, our researcher has been clear that the FAFO report does not measure racism in Norway, including in an interview with NRK on May 24th. We will nonetheless reiterate that the FAFO report and the survey are not designed to measure the prevalence of racism in Norwegian society, but are a study of Norwegians’ attitudes to gender equality, hate speech and the instruments of gender equality policy.

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Critic accused of bullying

Gyri Tyldum, who wrote the report, has her defenders, including some flaring her most prominent critic, Kjetil Rolness, for bullying Tyldum. Christopher Bratt, a researcher at the University of Kent in the UK, for example, comes with a counter-commentary in Aftenposten:

“Whereas others felt sorry for Tyldum, Rolness has found a new victim.”

Bratt objects strongly to Rolness’ controversial decision to write about private correspondence he had with Tyldum.

“We all make mistakes from time to time, and we learn from them,” Bratt writes, adding:
“But we should be able to expect that it’s not legitimate to bully those who have erred.”

Related articles

Racism in Norway: Bad FAFO research?
One in four Norwegians believe some human ethnicities are smarter than others
Anti-Racist Centre fear sympathy


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