Childhood recent issues

Acknowledgement

2008-08-15

Editorial: Changing times at Childhood: finding a conceptual home?

Morrow, V. — 2008-08-15

A Childish Culture?: Shared understandings, agency and intervention: an anthropological study of street children in northwest Kenya

Davies, M. — 2008-08-15

Street children in Makutano, northwest Kenya, form strong, stable social groups. Group activity functions through a well-defined structure involving leadership and close personal and economic relationships. This article shows how group solidarity is maintained through the sharing of a common subculture of spatial understandings, games, activities, dress, language and bodily actions. Through the group, the children experience a quality of life that negates the validity of common interventionist strategies. Moreover, given their high levels of competency, policies for working with these street children should be based on dialogue and should act to empower them through expanding the choices available to them.

Children Working Beyond Their Localities: Lao children working in Thailand

Huijsmans, R. — 2008-08-15

Globally, migration statistics indicate rising numbers of people who have for various reasons left their local community. Of these, a considerable proportion is below the age of 18 and often engaged in some kind of work. Yet, the phenomenon of children working beyond their localities receives little special attention in migration studies or child labour studies. It is, however, increasingly addressed under the label of human trafficking. This article critically discusses the notion of human trafficking in relation to childhood and combines this with an analysis of a set of recent studies on Lao children working in Thailand. Based on this, the article concludes with some suggestions to come to a greater understanding of, and more relevant interventions for, children working beyond their localities.

The Emotional World of Kinship: Children's experiences of fosterage in East Cameroon

Notermans, C. — 2008-08-15

This article focuses on children's narrated experiences of fosterage in East Cameroon. It seeks to complement the predominantly adult approaches to fosterage with children's views of the intimate, emotional and competitive aspects of kinship in everyday life. As kinship evolves in homes through sharing food and intimacy, children directly experience how kinship is created, disputed and defined and how lived kinship is inextricably linked with mobility, flexibility and power dynamics. It is argued that children's multiple and changing experiences of fosterage depend on three interconnected factors: changing household compositions, power dynamics in the homes and the changes in women's life histories.

Working On the Impossible: Early childhood policies in Namibia

Penn, H. — 2008-08-15

This article discusses the complexities of aid-giving using the example of early childhood policies in Namibia. It supports a critical view of aid processes and of World Bank endeavours in particular. Using an analysis of the World Bank funded education sector-wide improvement plan (ETSIP) in Namibia and three Namibian local case studies, it shows how the local circumstances of young children and their parents are ignored in order to fit in with donor preconceptions, and how senior officials come to adopt those views. It argues that universally derived policies on early childhood development are misapplied, and poverty and inequality are ignored in the search for technocratic solutions.

On the Border: The contested children of the Second World War

Ericsson, K., Simonsen, E. — 2008-08-15

This article conceptualizes Second World War children of German soldiers and native women in Norway as `border children', who became symbolic bearers of deep societal conflicts. The authors demonstrate that this position had painful consequences in the personal experiences of the children, experiences that were shared with war children in other occupied countries in Europe. Being a `border child' is discussed in relation to three topics: (1) the construction of a national narrative expressing the collective memory of war and occupation; (2) the cultural pattern making the sexuality of women national property; and (3) the transformation of social and political conflicts into biological and medical terms and categories.

Appropriate Pupilness: Social categories intersecting in school

Kofoed, J. — 2008-08-15

The analytical focus in this article is on how social categories intersect in daily school life and how intersections intertwine with other empirically relevant categories such as normality, pupilness and (in)appropriatedness. The point of empirical departure is a daily ritual where teams for football are selected. The article opens up for a microanalysis of everyday practices at the margins and at the core of what this article terms `pupilness'. The concept of intersectionality is suggested as a useful analytical tool to understand the multiple activities of pupils in everyday school life. The concept is applied to an analysis of the particular selection of teams and to practices of inclusion and exclusion. The understandings and practices within this ritualistic selection mingle with and lend meaning to wider relationships.

Book Review: Kovats-Bernat, J.C. (2006) Sleeping Rough in Port-au-Prince: An Ethnography of Street Children and Violence in Haiti. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. (234 pp.). ISBN 0813030099

Nieuwenhuys, O. — 2008-08-15

Persisting Inequalities: Childhood between global influences and local traditions

Buhler-Niederberger, D., van Krieken, R. — 2008-05-19

This article analyses the central themes running through the collection of papers in this special issue of Childhood, which were all given as papers at the XVI Durban World Congress of Sociology, 23—29 July 2006. These themes encompass the ways in which global processes of social change combining modernity with tradition have become important for both the perception of childhood and for childrens real lives. They also include the ways in which those processes intertwined with social inequalities — of gender, generation and socioeconomic status — among children and between children and other age groups. The article goes on to provide an outline of the ways in which more general theoretical concerns in the sociology of childhood globally are related to local situations, to a variety of practical settings, to the conceptual concerns in different sociological fields and other social science disciplines in South Africa, Ethiopia, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, and Italy.

The Rights of the Child and `the Good of the Learners': A comparative ethnographical survey on the abolition of corporal punishment in South African schools

Payet, J.-P., Franchi, V. — 2008-05-19

In contemporary South Africa, the abolition of corporal punishment symbolizes a break with the previous schooling system. A qualitative study in four formerly segregated schools south of Johannesburg showcases different realities and discourses on corporal punishment. The practices vary from its total abolition to its continued maintenance. Most learners in a Soweto-based school justify its use to maintain discipline in a hostile environment. Adding to conventional perspectives on the abolition of corporal punishment, a comprehensive approach provides a contextualized understanding of its function in the eyes of the school community, and reveals complex links between corporal punishment and a practice of care.

The Invisibility of Children's Paid and Unpaid Work: Implications for Ethiopia's national poverty reduction policy

Woldehanna, T., Jones, N., Tefera, B. — 2008-05-19

The complexities of intergenerational and gendered intra-household resource allocations are frequently overlooked in poverty reduction policies. To address this lacuna, this article focuses on links between macro-development policies and children's paid and unpaid work burden in Ethiopia. Using a mixed methods approach, quantitative household survey data results highlight the importance of household wealth and assets, family composition and access to education services, while the qualitative results underscore the role of culturally ascribed gendered and age-specific conceptualizations of work, parental attitudes and children's agency. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges national development plans need to address to tackle childhood poverty more effectively.

`Not Just a Business Transaction': The logic and limits of grandparental childcare assistance in Taiwan

Sun, S. H.-L. — 2008-05-19

How does the presence of grandparents in the household impact the gendered division of childcare responsibilities between spouses? How does it compare with market-based care? Drawing on in-depth interview data, this study finds that Taiwanese grandparents treat childcare assistance as their moral responsibility. Mothers express more appreciation for assistance from their own mothers than their mothers-in-law. Fathers appreciate the role of both their parents and their in-laws. The analysis suggests that the character of intergenerational relations is one of the factors mediating the degree to which married women's entrance into the paid labour force results in the perceived childcare deficit.

Which Clothes Suit Me?: The presentation of the juvenile self

Konig, A. — 2008-05-19

This article outlines the ways in which clothing is one important medium for the presentation of self, on the basis of interviews and group discussions with young people in a qualitative study. In the process of leaving their childhood behind, young people have to present themselves as individuals; the self has to be indicated in an individualized (and unequal) society. Their vestimentary practices are both bound by the social order and also contribute to its constitution. The article also develops a critical discussion of the generational order, which is simultaneously class differentiated. The differentiation between childhood and youth is the most prominent age distinction, but more differentiated age steps are also perceptible.

Promoting Self-Expression in Classroom Interactions

Baraldi, C. — 2008-05-19

Self-expression is a key concept for sociological studies on childhood since it is the cue for children's self-socialization and agency. Hence promoting children's agency and social participation requires their self-expression to be facilitated in their interaction with adults. The analysis in this article of a set of interactions in Italian schools sheds light on how promotion of children's self-expression succeeded or failed through specific adult intervention and forms of communication. This analysis may be interesting for a reflection on how to promote children's participation and self-expression in education systems.

Participation in Family Law Proceedings for Children Whose Father is Violent to Their Mother

Eriksson, M., Nasman, E. — 2008-05-19

This article examines the opportunities and obstacles for vulnerable and victimized children's participation in family law proceedings. With the help of a set of interviews with children, a framework for the analysis of vulnerable and victimized children's participation is outlined with reference to, on the one hand, the childhood studies debates concerning children's participation and, on the other hand, the contemporary debates about children as victims of crime when exposed to men's violence to women in their family. The authors argue that participation can be viewed as central not simply to a rights perspective on children, but also to a care perspective.

`Right' and `Not Right': Representations of justice in young people

Bosisio, R. — 2008-05-19

This article analyses the results of a study of conceptions of justice among Italian teenagers. The aim was to examine young people's representations of issues of justice, and to determine whether the experience of active participation can influence such representations. The study was designed in accordance with the most recent approaches in sociology of childhood; it involved young people attending higher secondary school, some of them members of a youth organization. Most of the teenagers were interviewed individually, others in focus groups. The interviews were conducted through the presentation of scenarios based on questions of justice, while the focus groups were presented with a variety of moral dilemmas.

Books Received: List of books for reviewing

2008-05-19

Editorial: The ethics of children's rights

Nieuwenhuys, O. — 2008-02-18

Palestinian Children Crafting National Identity

Habashi, J. — 2008-02-18

This study examines the formulation of national identity in Palestinian children by exploring their understanding of its paradoxes. Twelve Palestinian children were interviewed from cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank. The children express the multiple dimensions of national identity in terms of self and other; however these expressions are fragmented in nature. Furthermore, the findings indicate that national identity highlights children as geopolitical agents, rather than separate entities defined by time.

For Their Own Good: Recruiting children for research

Campbell, A. — 2008-02-18

This article arose from the author's experiences as a researcher exploring children's reactions to their parents' separation. Between 1999 and 2004, the author undertook to find out what a sample of Australian children thought of their abilities to participate in decisions that directly affected them following family breakdown. Before beginning the project, the author was required to obtain ethical approval from the university to which he was attached at that time. He also talked with a number of service providers in Adelaide, where he was based, to request that he receive referrals from them once the research was under way. This article describes the difficulties the author experienced in obtaining ethical approval and subsequently in recruiting children for the research. The article reflects on these difficulties and presents a rationale for considering the participation of children in research about them.

Is Participation Prevention?: A blurring of discourses in children's preventative initiatives in the UK

Evans, R., Spicer, N. — 2008-02-18

This article explores the relationships between two key concepts that have defined recent social policy initiatives for children in the UK: participation and prevention from social exclusion. Drawing on the Children's Fund initiative as an example, the article traces the diverse and sometimes contradictory discourses of childhood and social inclusion/exclusion in stakeholders' differing rationales for supporting children's participation and prevention. The authors argue that the blurring of the rationales for participation and prevention has implications for the strategies and practices that agencies adopt and raises questions about which groups benefit and whose agendas are served by participation and prevention activities.

`Children Need Their Parents More Than a Pizza in the Fridge!': Parental responsibility in a Finnish newspaper

Book, M. L., Perala-Littunen, S. — 2008-02-18

The aim of this study is to find constructions of parental responsibility by analysing letters sent by readers to a newspaper on the topic of parenting and parental responsibility. The study takes a methodological approach, focusing on the meanings of responsibility and looking at different portrayals of parenthood. Three dimensions of responsibility (beginning responsibility, diminished sense of responsibility and obligating responsibility) emerged from the analysis. These dimensions relate to different meanings attributed to parental responsibility, for instance, `responsibility for making choices'. Parenthood is variously portrayed along the three dimensions. Parental responsibility creates norms for evaluating parents' behaviour. Moreover, responsibility produces and maintains boundaries between adults and children.

Researching Pupil Well-Being in UK Secondary Schools: Community psychology and the politics of research

Duckett, P., Sixsmith, J., Kagan, C. — 2008-02-18

This study explores the relationships between a school, its staff and its pupils and the impact of these relationships on school pupils' well-being. The authors adopted a community psychological perspective and applied critical, social constructionist epistemologies and participatory, multi-method research tools. The article discusses the importance of focusing on the complex, multilayered context of people's lives (both participants and researchers) that are impacted by social, economic, cultural and political contexts. Finally, it reflects on the contrast between the messiness of real-world social science research and the often sanitized nature of its reporting.

Household Poverty and Deprivation Among Children: How strong are the links?

Grodem, A. S. — 2008-02-18

This article focuses on the links between family income, deprivation as reported by parents and deprivation as experienced by children. Data are drawn from a survey of Norwegian families, in which low-income families are oversampled. Three areas of deprivation are explored: housing, consumption and subjective experiences. In each area, indicators of childhood deprivation are developed. It is found that there are clear links, if no absolute overlap, between `adult' and `child' deprivation in each area. When looking at which children experience deprivation, we find that non-western immigrants, children with many siblings and children with non-employed parents are most at risk.

Bullying During the Intermediate School Phase: A South African study

Greeff, P., Grobler, A.A. — 2008-02-18

Bullying in the intermediate school phase was studied, using the Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (R-OBVQ). The total sample comprised 360 grade 4 to 6 pupils from English-medium, single-sex schools in Bloemfontein, South Africa. To ensure a more homogeneous sample, the grade (grades 4 to 6) and race (black and white) of the participants were controlled. The results yielded a much higher rate of bullying (56.4 percent) than those cited in previous South African as well as international research. In the light of this, more research is necessary to find ways to lessen the deleterious effects of bullying.

Editorial: A reminder

Qvortrup, J. — 2007-12-12

The Multiple Meanings of Violence: Children's talk about life in a South African neighbourhood

Parkes, J. — 2007-12-12

Drawing on data from an empirical study of children's engagements with violence in South Africa, this article explores children's talk about violence in their neighbourhood. Violence entered into children's daily lives in many forms, repelling and disempowering them. At the same time, violence could attract, when it was understood as a form of capital or a source of control. As children tried to negotiate subject positions in relation to violence, they experienced conflicts and tensions; in managing these tensions, they both resisted and perpetuated violent beliefs and practices. The article concludes by considering the implications for the well-being of young people, and by suggesting ways in which programmes and interventions might support children's resistance to violence.

Working With Child Prostitutes in Thailand: Problems of practice and interpretation

Montgomery, H. — 2007-12-12

Conducting anthropological fieldwork on the emotive issue of child prostitution raises difficult issues for anthropologists and other researchers. This article examines the ethical dilemmas of working with these extremely vulnerable children, focusing on the difference between the researcher's own interpretations and those given by the children themselves and the implications this has for child-centred anthropology and the implementation of children's rights.

`Over the River': Border childhoods and border crossings at Niagara

Helleiner, J. — 2007-12-12

Drawing on interviews with Canadian borderlanders, this article examines childhood experiences with the Canada—US border in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. The retrospective accounts of childhood border experiences demonstrate how childhood was produced and experienced in border crossings and how the production of childhood intersected with a stratified border to reinforce forms of privilege and exclusion associated with class, citizenship, gender and racial/ethnic positionings.

Students' Participation and Non-Participation as a Situated Accomplishment

Tholander, M. — 2007-12-12

Using an approach inspired by conversation analysis, the present study investigates how Swedish students draw on democratic discourse during group work. The analyses demonstrate the importance of democratic issues to students. The analyses also point to how students repeatedly employ democratic discourse for a number of strategic purposes. Moreover, the analyses show that democratic arrangements at school are not always productive for schoolwork. The results are discussed in relation to previous research. In sum, the study implies that democracy must be studied as an interactive process. This entails a focus on how students do democracy at school rather than how they appear as democratic beings or how they experience student democracy retrospectively.

Understandings of Care Work With Young Children: Reflections on children's independence in a video observation study

Cameron, C. — 2007-12-12

This paper reviews some of the ways in which early childhood professionals in England discuss aspects of practice in nurseries for preschool age children. The ways in which professionals talk about and react to early childhood practice tell us much about contemporary understandings of such practice and how concepts and policies developed over time are being interpreted and translated on the ground. The data for the study were obtained using a video observation method that asks small groups of selected and knowledgeable people to make spontaneous comments about elements of professional practice, both national and cross-national, that they view on a video. One of the emergent themes from this `talk' was a discourse around children's independence and choice in early childhood services such as childcare centres. This discourse is discussed with reference to the wider discourses on `independence', contrasting current debate in England with that in other European countries.

Children's Citizenship Education in Politically Sensitive Societies

Leonard, M. — 2007-12-12

Citizenship is both an individual and collective identity. In politically sensitive societies, the aim of citizenship education is to transform discourses around `us' and `them' into a more inclusive `we'. Yet promoting an inclusive citizenship is beset with challenges and contradictions as it may integrate young people into mainstream political structures to which some of them will have limited allegiance. In politically sensitive societies, discourses around citizenship may promote discourses of silences around existing communal tensions. The paper demonstrates this by drawing on Northern Ireland as a case study. It explores a number of dilemmas associated with citizenship education, including the crucial need to acknowledge the dynamics of power and control which characterize adult/teacher and child/pupil relationships in the school classrooms where citizenship education is transmitted.

Children's Rights and the Imagination of Community in Bangladesh

White, S. C. — 2007-12-12

This paper suggests that sharply divergent images of children in Bangladesh reflect different `imagined communities' of society and polity, local and global. Universal concepts of `the rights of the child' contrast strongly with a local culture of `guardianship', as the key social institution that governs children's lives. How might bringing these together affect both analysis and action? Engaging with both the politics of development agency and the anthropology of Bangladesh, the paper asks if the boundaries of community might be `re-imagined' to mobilize more positive cultural and material resources for the children at the margins.

Opinion, Dialogue, Review: The pacifier: a story about comfort, rituals and aesthetification of childhood

Selmer-Olsen, I. — 2007-12-12

Book Review: Dorow, S.K. (2006) Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender and Kinship. New York and London: New York University Press. (331 pp.). ISBN 081471924

Hoelgaard, S. — 2007-12-12

Book Review: Bhargava, V. (2005) Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences. New Delhi: Sage. (283 pp.). ISBN 9780761933748

Hoelgaard, S. — 2007-12-12

Book Review: Tisdall, E.K., Davis, J.M., Hill, M. and Prout, A. (eds) (2006) Children, Young People and Social Inclusion: Participation for What? Bristol: The Policy Press. (229 pp.). ISBN 1861346629

Baraldi, C. — 2007-12-12

Acknowledgement of Reviewers

2007-12-12