A historical perspective on the working contributions of children in britain: 1800-1914

This paper considers the work of children and their contribution to modern societies by looking at this from a historical perspective. Children's work today is often characterised as being little and of no consequence, while it is expected that children should enjoy a childhood free from the cares and worries of the adult working population. In this article I show how children's experience of work moved from the 'public' world of the street and workplace outside the home, to one where children's work is centred in the 'private' realm of the home and school. Children were denied the status and benefits associated with receiving a wage and were therefore a role assumed to be dependent upon others and undervalued. It is argued that children's place in society is similarly devalued and their contributions to the reproduction of that society marginalised. Children's activities and contributions are merely represented as being unworthy of any kind of economic, political or legal reward. The subsequent exclusion from social, economic and political reward separates children from the independence normally enjoyed by adults. While not of course condoning the exploitation of children, or even suggesting that children today are not entitled to a time where they are free of the burdens of paid work, I discuss how children's contributions are redefined, undermined and undervalued. I do so by focusing on the experience of the city of Manchester between 1800 and 1914, and the effects of the slow introduction of legislation curbing children's paid work.     

VIOLENCE

This qualitative research study explores determinants of child labor in two low‐income urban communities in Beirut and reveals that violence against children, both at home and at school, is a recurring theme. Our analysis of interviews with and observations of working children and their parents in their homes and at the children's work places shows that violence is an important determinant of child labor. Findings reveal that, contrary to the importance usually placed on family and school for children's well‐being, certain home and school environments may indeed be unfavorable for learning and development and thereby play a role in a child's decision to leave school and start work at a young age.     

A new look at the health and homeless experience of a cohort of five-year olds

Homelessness is increasing and health workers and others need to be ever vigilant about the risk that this has on children's health. What is that risk and what are children's experiences of homelessness? A retrospective case note study was carried out to compare the health of a group of five-year olds who had experienced homelessness and compare them with matched ‘non-homeless’ controls. A home interview questionnaire was used to give a profile of the children's housing experience and the health issues faced during their time in temporary accommodation. Fifty-three cases when compared with 41 controls showed a statistically greater prevalence of child protection issues and an increased number of health needs identified at the school nurse health appraisal. The housing profile identified that the case children moved homes many times (37 per cent more than five times), were homeless much longer than the officially registered period (67 per cent more than 12 months) and 61 per cent were made homeless through domestic violence. The study reinforces the need for us to acknowledge important environmental stress and to continue to advocate for this group of disadvantaged children.     

Domestic Violence,Children's Agency and Mother–Child Relationships: Towards a More Advanced Model

Although domestic violence research increasingly recognises children's agency, this awareness has not extended to our understanding of children's relationships with their abused mothers. Findings suggesting that some children actively support their mother, and encourage her to leave the perpetrator, have been consistently under‐discussed. This article argues that the model of parent–child relationships used by most domestic violence research sees children as passive and contributes to mother‐blaming discourses. Analysing key quantitative and qualitative research, I suggest that a more sophisticated model of parent–child relationships is needed to understand how children's agency affects them, their mothers and the domestic violence situation.     

A Prospective Study of Behavioural Disturbance in Children Who Subsequently Experience Parental Divorce

This study examines changes in children's behaviour as a function of parental divorce. As part of a large scale general population study on the effects of marital disharmony on children, 139 children from the general population were followed up from a previous study. These children and their mothers were interviewed first between 1979 and 1982 (time 1) and then followed up between 1984 and 1986 (time 2). Between the time 1 interview and the time 2 interview, 16 children's parents had separated or divorced. This paper deals with the mothers' report of changes in the behaviour of these children between time 1 and time 2 as a function of their parents' divorce, and compares this with changes in children's behaviour whose parents live in disharmonious (N = 40) or harmonious homes (N = 50). Children's reports of their own behaviour at time 2 are also presented. The data show that children in disharmonious homes and children whose parents subsequently divorce show higher levels of disturbance than children in harmonious homes. Children whose parents subsequently divorce show their disturbance prior to the divorce. Children's coping strategies in response to divorce were also investigated and and an association was found between children's behavioural problems and (a) self-blame and (b) not having friends whose parents had divorced.     

Chaotic experiences and low-income children's social-emotional development

Development in early childhood is increasingly likely to take place in multiple contexts. Continuity and discontinuity in children's experiences across multiple contexts have important implications for their development. This study examines the extent to which children experience chaos in their homes and in their preschool settings is linked with their social-emotional development over the course of the preschool year. Data from a large, representative sample of low-income preschool children attending Head Start was used to test a series of multi-level models. Children whose experiences of their homes were highly chaotic, regardless of the how chaotic their experiences of their classroom were, decreased in their social-emotional skills over the preschool year. Chaotic experiences in the home environment thus appear to have more influence on children's development than do chaotic preschool experiences.     

Carers of Children: A Comparative Study of the Practices of Residential and Foster Carers

SUMMARY. This article takes further the themes outlined in Children & Society, Volume 3(1) of examining the practices of special foster and residential caregivers in terms of the management of daily and other recurrent social events, and the methods used by caregivers to control children. Data are also presented on the role activities of caregivers and their interactions with children. Care practice in the special foster homes was generally found to be significantly more child-oriented than in the children's homes, and possible explanations for this are considered. Evidence is presented which serves to counter the tendency, in the wake of recent controversy surrounding children's homes, to scapegoat caregivers and children for shortcomings in residential care. The article has important implications for residential caregivers and foster care workers; and also for administrators and other child welfare professionals such as |field social workers, educational psychologists and psychiatrists.     

Attitudes of special foster parents and residential staff towards children

This paper compares the attitudes of special foster parents and residential staff towards children in their care. The exercise was carried out as part of a comparative study of care practice in ‘special’ foster homes (accommodating children traditionally considered too old or difficult for fostering) and ordinary community or children's homes. Overall, care practice in the foster homes was significantly more child oriented than in the children's homes. This finding cannot, however, be explained in terms of attitudinal differences between foster parents and staff. Staff attitudes generally appeared more conducive to the provision of child oriented care than those of the foster parents.     

Negotiating with Gatekeepers in Research with Disadvantaged Children: A Case Study of Children of Mothers with Intellectual Disability

Child‐oriented researchers have long recognised children's right to be heard in research about their lives and, as experts about childhood, their perspectives should inform social policy and research. While it is encouraging that more children are consulted about matters of importance to them, some children's voices remain silenced. When researchers have to liaise with adults, such as parents and social workers, to recruit children, these adults make decisions about who participates. An account of recruiting children of mothers with intellectual disability, a potentially disadvantaged group, is presented. The reasons for gatekeeping and the implications of this are explored.     

Reactivating the ‘communist hypothesis’: Alain Badiou and social work

It has been argued that Alain Badiou could contribute to social work's engagement with social theory. This paper critically responds to this assertion and identifies some of the theoretical problems associated with Badiou's core conceptualisations. Divided into two sections, it will begin by outlining his main thematic preoccupations and will go on to focus on his interpretation of the significance of Saint Paul, the apostle. The second half of the paper will dwell on Webb's attempt to connect Badiou to social work so as to disrupt focal ideas on ‘diversity’ and ‘difference’. This section will conclude by critically exploring Badiou's comments on children, children's rights and abuse. Although, so far receiving no attention in the social work literature, his interventions on these matters are problematic in that they imply that children lie outside the ‘one world’ politics that he promotes. Despite such criticisms, it is concluded Badiou's theorisation needs to be included within the academic literature of European social work.     

Children's Physical Activity: The Contribution of Playing and Walking

This paper draws on research in which 200 children were fitted with motion sensors and asked to keep travel and activity diaries. The findings show that walking and playing away from home can contribute significantly to children's volume of physical activity, with consequent implications for their health. Not only do both playing and walking provide high levels of physical activity, they are linked to other behaviours which further augment the level of physical activity. Children who walk rather than use the car tend to be generally more active than other children, and children tend to be more active when they are out of their homes than when they are in them. The findings are placed in the context of other research about children's travel and physical activity, and conclusions drawn about the need to reverse current trends in children's patterns of travel and physical activity.     

Does the gender of a practitioner matter in early childhood education and care? Perspectives from Scottish and Chinese young children

This paper responds to concerns over the assumed ‘feminisation’ of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and adds children's perspectives to debates on whether more men should work in ECEC. Pictorial conversations were conducted with 280 children aged 2–6 years old from the cities of Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Tianjin. Findings show that although children sometimes related practitioners to their gendered experiences in and outside ECEC, children's gender subjectivities are dynamic and are linked to their short‐term and long‐term, fluid and stable, and interactive relationships with practitioners. This paper argues that practitioners need to openly discuss gender with children in ECEC practices and pedagogies.     

Preschoolers' perceptions of neighborhood environment,safety, and help-seeking

Studies that focus on children's safety and well-being often focus on neighborhoods as the unit of analysis, as it is within these geographic confines that children spend much of their time. Such studies have shown that neighborhoods directly and indirectly influence children's safety and well-being. Much of this research has focused on census data and/or caregivers' perceptions of neighborhood characteristics. Less attention has been given to the neighborhood experiences and perceptions of children themselves, especially young children. The current study utilized two techniques for interviewing pre-schoolers (aged 4 and 5): individual interviews incorporating drawing and focus groups integrating a story and a puppet. The current study highlights the important of incorporating children's perceptions and offers new measures of doing so. In the current study, very young children were put in the center of the exploration and the findings stress that children's experiences in their neighborhood were geographically limited. They talked about their homes, preschools, and the playground. In part, this finding may be indicative of the lack of child-friendly spaces and resources for children in the neighborhood. In addition, the current study shed a light into children understanding and ability to discuss safety and help seeking, which are key concepts to any future planning of prevention and intervention efforts with children. Delve into the individuals to whom children said they turned for help revealed extremely limited list of family members, which raises concerns about the support networks available to the children and their families. This study suggests that the inclusion of young children's perspectives may facilitate programs and initiatives aimed at improving their safety and well-being by identifying sources of protections and threat from children's own perspectives.     

Care fit for children

SUMMARY. Following on from articles in Children and Society (3.1), this article discusses issues raised by recent research on foster and residential care practices, and centres on the question of whether children's homes should seek to provide child oriented day-to-day care. The role performed by children's homes in substitute child care is considered in order to highlight the dangers inherent in the notion that it may be appropriate to trade off child oriented care for the rather abstract notion of the ‘wider function’ of children's homes     

Developing practice learning and teaching in residential child care

The Residential Child Care Initiative was created in order to increase the numbers of qualified staff in residential children's homes in England. This paper explores some of the issues affecting practice placements for residential staff who undertook qualifying training between 1992 and 1997. Themes and issues arising from these experiences, with examples from practice, are considered in terms of their relevance to practice learning in group care situations for all social work students, highlighting the reciprocal benefits for students and residential services for children.     

Violence Experiences in Care: Some Methodological Remarks based on the Finnish Child Victim Survey

The article examines violence experienced by children in substitute care and at home based on the survey results of the Finnish Child Victim Survey carried out in schools in 2008. The focus is on physical and psychological violence in conflict situations. Of the 13 459 respondents, pupils between 12 and 16 years of age, 233 children reported living in care or having lived in care. Children living in care were asked the same questions as children living at home about violence experienced by their care‐taking adults. The analysis compares the answers between those two groups and examines them in relation to information about children's psychosocial problems and measures of emotional wellbeing.

‘The focus is on physical and psychological violence in conflict situations’

According to the study, children report more physical and psychological violence by adults in their homes than children do in residential homes or foster homes. Substitute care is not, however, free of violence. Children with psychosocial problems experienced more violence at home than in substitute care. The article suggests a more thorough conceptual and methodological analysis of abuse in care. The conceptual and methodological tools employed should be sensitive to the particular nature of abuse in care and the studies should pay attention to a variety of forms and practices of violence. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Provider perceptions of safety planning with children impacted by intimate partner violence

Safety planning is a widespread intervention used with clients who have experienced domestic violence victimization. Although children are impacted by domestic violence, attention to the unique needs of children as they relate to domestic violence safety planning has received little attention to date. The authors conducted nine focus groups with domestic violence service providers about their perceptions of child safety planning. This article reports on the findings and implications of this focus group study that can inform the safety planning needs of children impacted by domestic violence. The themes discussed include Child Protective Services, the needs of older boys, school-related issues, custody-related issues, the extent to which children should be involved in safety planning, parenting issues, tools and tips for safety planning with children, and resources and services to promote children's safety.     

Children's understandings of rurality: exploring the interrelationship between experience and understanding

Prompted by current debates within rural studies, this paper explores children's understandings of rural New Zealand. Previous research has focused on children as “doers” rather than “thinkers”. This paper reverses this emphasis by exploring children's material and discursive experiences and the ways these are negotiated to develop their understandings of rurality. While it highlights common constructions of rurality based on experiences of agriculture, nature, and recreation, it also illustrates children's varied experiences and understandings of rurality from each other and from adults. This heterogeneity becomes apparent through the examination of individual children's biographies. These reinforce the importance of making room to consider children individually and with regard to their own personal context—that is, to enable the complication of academic/adult understandings of rurality.     

Residential care and education

SUMMARY. Children in care have a poor record of achievement in school. Those in residential care face particular difficulties, arising from changes of placement, inadequate liaison between children's homes and schools, low expectations among care and school staff, and an environment in which educational needs are not given priority. The experience of one voluntary children's home suggests some ways in which these disadvantages may be overcome.