THE OTHER "CHILD STUDY": Figuring Children as Consumers in Market Research, 1910s–1990s

This article examines how notions of "the child" were constructed in marketing research literature from the 1910s through the 1990s. Drawing on children's industry trade literature, market reports and books, I argue that children have become increasingly portrayed as individualized, autonomous consumers. Over this time period, the desire for consumer products becomes figured by industry observers and researchers as a mode of children's "self expression.'The analytic isolation of "the child" in the persona of a "consumer" authorizes a new morality for consumption by construing children's desire for goods as preexistent and thus natural.     

Resilience in maltreated children: implications for special needs adoption.

Children in the child welfare system face renewed issues of loss as they enter adoptive placements. Every move is a loss and an exercise for the child in establishing the perception of a "safe" environment. Resilient children who have been abused develop coping skills to adapt to their abusing "unsafe" environments. When these children become part of an adoptive family, these coping skills need to be recognized as providing important cues to the child's world, rather than as challenging behaviors. The author deconstructs the words of resilient children into five themes that can help provide access into the children's world, a fresh viewpoint from which to assess the adopted children's reactive behaviors, and a foundation on which an adoptive relationship can be built.     

The assessment of parent-led prevention programs: a preliminary assessment of impact

This article reports on a preliminary study of the impact of parent-led prevention groups on youthful drug and alcohol use. In addition, the study assessed the extent to which families involved with parent-led prevention programs reported improved family relations and increased parental control of children's social activities--two major mechanisms by which parent-group advocates claim their activities alter youth substance use patterns. Consistent with the claims of parent-group advocates, the study results suggest that the parent groups did have some impact on family relations and on parental control of children's social activities. The evidence for an impact on drug and alcohol use was, however, weak. A somewhat unexpected finding was that parents who become involved in parent-led prevention activities may not be those parents whose children are at highest risk.     

Parental Work Schedules and Children's Cognitive Trajectories

Previous work has shown an association between mothers' nonstandard work schedules and children's well-being. We built on this research by examining the relationship between parental shift work and children's reading and math trajectories from age 5/6 to 13/14. Using data (N=7,105) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and growth curve modeling, we found that children's math and reading trajectories were related to parents' type of nonstandard shifts (i.e., evening, night, or variable). We found that having a mother who worked more years at a night shift was associated with lower reading scores, having a mother work more years at evening or night shifts was associated with reduced math trajectories, and having a father work more years at an evening shift was associated with reduced math scores. Mediation tests suggest that eating meals together, parental knowledge about children's whereabouts, and certain after-school activities might help explain these results.     

Taking risks when communicating on the Internet: the role of offline social-psychological factors in young people's vulnerability to online risks

Children and young people encounter a range of risks on the internet relating to communication. Making friends online has attracted particular attention as a risky behaviour, especially when this leads to offline meetings, as has giving out personal information online. This article, based on the 'UK Children Go Online' survey, seeks to explain the online communication of 9-19-year-olds in terms of their offline socio-psychological characteristics (shyness, life satisfaction, risk-taking), family communication patterns and online behaviour/skills. Findings show that older teens engage in more online communication activities than do younger children and so encounter more communication risks. Although girls communicate more on the internet, this seems not to put them more at risk. It was found that children's offline social psychological characteristics, particularly their levels of life satisfaction and risk-taking, influence their online communication, with different online communication activities being predicted by different patterns of off- and online characteristics. There are weak indications that, in families which have a more conversational style of communication, teens may take fewer risks online, including a lower likelihood of meeting online friends offline. Multiple regression analyses show that those children and teens who are less satisfied with their lives and who have become more frequent and skilled internet users are more likely to value the internet as a communicative environment in which they feel more confident than they do offline, particularly in relation to the potential for anonymous communication. Since this in turn leads some into risky activities, the implications for research and policy are discussed.     

Children's abilities and strategies in managing the facial display of affect

To examine children's ability to control their affective expression facially, 68 second- and fourth-grade boys and girls were unobtrusively videotaped while discussing six self-chosen activities about which they felt positively, neutrally, or negatively. Children then performed three facial management tasks: (a)inhibition (showing no emotion instead of a felt emotion); (b)simulation (showing an emotion when not feeling anything); and (c)masking (showing an emotion that is different than what is felt). Twelve raters judged the edited tapes of the children's performance for affect positivity and deceptiveness. Repeated measures ANOVAs indicated, in contrast to previous research, that children were highly competent in managing facial displays. To understand children's techniques for managing affective displays, two raters categorized the primary cognitive strategies children used. Results showed that fourth graders used more complex strategies more often than second graders. These results highlight children's skill and strategies in affect management.Funding for this project was provided by a NICHHD grant (#HD22367) to the first author. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Nancy A. Ballard and Michael G. Rakouskas in data collection and preparation. We also thank the children whose participation and cooperation made this research possible.     

Positive behavioral interventions and supports: using strength-based approaches to enhance the culture of care in residential and day treatment education environments

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports model, first introduced into public schools, has been extended to alternative settings. This article highlights applying PBIS to day treatment and residential treatment education programs increasingly challenged to serve seriously emotionally disturbed youth whose risk factors have become more complex. The results demonstrate a more positive environment enhancing children's treatment and education along with decreasing numbers of safety holds and need for out-of-classroom supports.     

Group therapy with sexually molested children

It should be stressed that the young children's group was only a part of the overall treatment approach that forms the family context of the Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Program. Because the therapists also work with entire families, they have come to accept that the child is not the only victim. Often the mothers and fathers in this program were themselves victims of sexual assaults when they were children, and have carried this victim roles with them into adulthood. A child growing up in this family system will learn the victim role well. Her denial and/or fear of sexual aggression, as well as her role models for parenting, will perpetuate the cycle and make the sexual abuse of her own children a distinct possibility. The play therapy treatment seeks to break this cycle and restore the young child victim's self-respect by teaching new skills and providing different role models. The therapy seeks to help her tap her own power to become an adequate adult. Such therapeutic "undoing" or self-reconstruction is a long process which probably takes as many paths as there are victims. Adults victimized as children frequently report periods of repression and denial, and it is likely that direct treatment of the child victim, when the incest comes to light, mitigates against development of such repression. The natural healing process must be respected. The child needs time to integrate the experience and its painful aftermath. Changing and healing do not take place all at once, or after one period of intervention. Therefore one important aspect of such therapeutic work is to give the child victims the tools to reach out for help and support in the future, when the pain of this early childhood experience may once again be an obstacle to growth.     

Children in self-care: Homeless in the afternoons or socially provided for?

This study examines the adaptation of children in self-care compared with children in adult-care to out-of-school relationship contexts and solitude. Thirty-six French children aged 9–11 years were interviewed about their out-of-school activities and responses to solitude. The theoretical framework integrates Weiss' (1974) notion of relational provisions and Valsiner's (1984, 1987) constraint theory to understand individual adaptation in the social and solitary contexts of self-care. Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed complexity and variability of the structural organization and children's adaptation in self-care contexts. Although self-care children reported more activities outdoors alone than did adult-care children, the development of the capacity to be alone may protect children's psychological well-being. Moreover, the inherent structure of self-care, i.e., parental absence, demanded that children lead the promotion of their own development in self-care contexts. In a few extreme instances, children were indeed homeless in the afternoon.This study was carried out with the Self-Care Research Team including Professors Janine Beaudichon, Pierre Coslin, and Annick Cartron of theLaboratoire de Psychologie du Developpement et de L'education de L'enfant, Universite Paris V, La Sorbonne and was funded by the French Ministry of Education.     

Elective single mothers and their children: The missing fathers

Elective single mothers are adult, unmarried women who intentionally become mothers. This study utilized longitudinal data about 17 Caucasian, elective single mothers and their children to identify fathers' roles in these families, and to understand children's views of their fathers. These single mothers and their children resided for the first six years of the children's lives in father-absent households. By age six, most of the children had ghost fathers, whom they had never met or knew little about. The data suggest that the father often becomes a family secret, and that children may blame themselves for their fathers' absence.     

Commitment to care: managed care and child incarceration

Downsizing and managed care in the 1990s followed the psychiatric hospital scandals and closures of the 1980s. Many families are now unable to provide care for their troubled children. Childhood emotional or behavioral disorders have rapidly spread beyond the confines of the home into a community that has adopted a "zero tolerance" for crime. Intolerance for childhood criminal behavior has resulted in an explosion of children's prisons where, in the name of rehabilitation, many are finally receiving psychological help. This article discusses the decreased treatment of childhood psychiatric disorders and the increased admissions to children's prison facilities.     

Consumption Patterns of Chinese Children

In the ten-year period from 1990 to 1999, children's consumption has increased dramatically in proportion to family income. In 85% of urban families, children's average consumption is equal to one third or more of the family's income. Resources are being directed to children's food and dietary supplements, toys, travel, computers and other electronic equipment, and educational resources. Children perceive that they have a significant influence on the family's financial decision-making. Problems related to children's consumption include indulgence in unnecessary or harmful purchases, and conspicuous consumption that cannot be sustained by the family's income. While some child-focused spending is viewed as enriching development, other expenditures may harm the family's economic well-being and foster an overly materialistic outlook among children.     

CROSS-BORDER ACQUISITIONS AND BOARD GLOBALIZATION IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST TNCS, 1995–2005

Because of their size, power, and undemocratic nature, the cross-border activities of the world's transnational corporations (TNCs) are of particular interest to sociologists. Previous research shows that over the past decade the boards of directors of the world's largest TNCs have become more multinational, in other words are increasingly composed of individuals from different countries. During the same period there was also a dramatic increase in the number of cross-border TNC mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Anecdotal evidence suggests a connection between cross-border acquisitions and the increasingly multinational composition of TNC boards, and this study explores that relationship using data on the 148 largest TNCs and commercial banks. We find that a cross-border acquisition almost always results in a more multinational board of directors, that multinational boards are more likely to do cross-border deals, and that once a board becomes multinational it stays that way. The evidence also shows that multinational boards are concentrated in Europe, suggesting another dynamic between the integrating forces of the European Union and its TNCs. Because the results show increasing cross-national contact between the corporate elites who serve on multinational TNC boards, the results also provide some support for claims about the recent emergence of a "Transnational Business Class" or "Transnational Capitalist Class," at least in Europe, although it is recognized that more study is needed to make the case that such a class is forming.     

Invisible computer for collaborative design: evaluation of a multimodal sketch-based environment

In the areas of design, especially in architectural design, collaboration has become an important challenge. The specialization of skills increase, work teams are more and more extensive and the geographic distance between them increases too. The economic and ecological stakes related to remote collaboration are an evidence. This context involves the need to support most efficiently possible remote working meetings. We present the Distributed Collaborative Digital Studio (DSDC), a tool designed to recreate, in distant situations, the context of copresence meetings. This shared environment is created in the "invisible computer" approach [11]. The idea is that the tool should disappear from user's consciousness. Indeed, creative design activities require some fluidity in their process. Therefore, any involuntary interruption created by the system can potentially brake creativity. In this perspective, we investigate specifically the "invisibility" of our environment. To do this, we propose a framework for the operationalization of the concept and a methodology to test the system invisibility. This methodology was applied through a case study consisting of a corpus of 12 hours of remote collaborative design sessions with the DSDC. We highlight the learning effects while using our system, conclude on its effectiveness and discuss our methodology.     

The age old question, which comes first? A simultaneous test of children's savings and children's college-bound identity

This study has three goals: (1) to provide an extensive review of research on the assets/expectation relationship, (2) to provide a conceptual framework for how children's savings effects children's college-bound identity (children's college expectations are a proxy for children's college-bound identity), and (3) to conduct a simultaneous test of whether owning a savings account leads to college-bound identity or college-bound identity lead to owning a savings account using path analytic technique with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Our review reveals asset researchers theorize about college-bound identity in two distinct but compatible ways: college-bound identity as a “linking mechanism”, and college-bound identity as a mediator. However, there has been little theoretical development on the attitudinal effects of assets. In this study, we posit a conceptual framework for how children's savings affects children's college-bound identity. Findings from the simultaneous test of the assets/college-bound identity relationship suggest that savings has modest effect on college-bound identity and vice versa. A policy implication is that asset building policies that seek to build children's college-bound identity in addition to their savings may be more effective than policies that only seek to build children's savings.     

Marital Violence: Impact on Children's Emotional Experiences, Emotional Regulation and Behaviors in a Post-Divorce/Separation Situation

This study examined the mediating effects of children's emotional experiences and regulation strategies on the relationship between marital violence and children's behavioral problems following divorce/separation. Findings indicated marital violence as reported by the mothers was associated with children's internalizing problems as measured by the Achenbach Behavior Checklist. Marital violence was also associated with children's reported experience of negative emotions, with sadness and anger emerging as statistical predictors of children's behavioral problems. A weak relationship was found between emotional regulation strategies and children's behavioral problems, with the exception that direct intervention and the range of strategies used by children were positively associated with behavioral problems. Children's reported anger was also found to mediate the relationship between marital violence and children's total behavioral problems. Implications of findings for treatment of children and adolescents from separated, conflicted homes are discussed.     

Lifestyle Options and Economic Strategies: Subsistence Activities in the Mississippi Delta1

Abstract "Subsistence" and "informal economy" are contrasted in their utility as sociological concepts and their ability to explain a variety of activities in two rural Mississippi Delta communities. Literature on subsistence stresses that the desired outcome of participation is not an increase in income but the social rewards of participation itself. Two underlying dimensions of participation in these activities are documented through the literature and through a confirmatory factor analysis of empirical data: life-style choice and economic strategy. These were constructed into indexes and examined individually and in combination as dependent variables using regressors at the community, household, and individual levels. Community ties were weakly associated with participation in such activities. Whites and those with higher incomes participated more in lifestyle choice oriented activities. Participation in general was statistically related to households needing less weekly income and being of larger size. Potential connections with persistent rural poverty are discussed.     

Examining the trajectories of children providing care for adults in rural Kenya: Implications for service delivery

Research on caregiving children tends to be limited to children's caregiving experiences of parents with a specific disease or disability. This has led to a common perception that children's caregiving is a single, uniform and often long-term experience. Whilst this is most certainly the case for many children in economically more advanced countries, this may not hold true in rural Africa, where poverty and AIDS can have significant knock-on effects on entire families and communities. This paper seeks to develop a more complex understanding of children's caring experiences by asking children whom they have cared for over time and explore the different pathways that lead to their caregiving at different stages of their lives. The study reports on qualitative data collected from 48 caregiving children and 10 adults in the Bondo district of western Kenya in 2007. A multi-method approach was adapted, with historical profiles, Photovoice and draw-and-write essays complementing 34 individual interviews and 2 group discussions. A thematic network analysis revealed that children's caregiving was not confined to a single experience. Children were observed to provide care for a number of different family and community members for varying periods of time and intensities. Although their living arrangements and life circumstances often gave them little choice but to care, a social recognition of children's capacity to provide care for fragile adults, helped the children construct an identity, which both children and adults drew on to rationalise children's continued and multiple caring experiences. The study concludes that agencies and community members looking to support caregiving children need to consider their care trajectories — including whom they care for as well as the order, intensity, location and duration of their past and likely future caring responsibilities.     

What Hillary Rodham Clinton really said about children's rights and child policy

As editors of a professional, scientific and scholarly journal in the children's field our interest is to promote fair, careful and objective discussion of children's issues. In this regard, we have been disturbed by recent efforts to misrepresent the views and contribution of Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of our colleagues in the children's field. In this paper we systematically analyze Hillary Rodham Clinton's writings and review her contribution. Her legal approach can best be described as conservative, arguing for judicial restraint with respect to state involvement in family life. Taking into account her work on behalf of children through the Children's Defense Fund we conclude that Hillary Rodham Clinton has been an important voice for the cause of children.     

Family factors in child care research

The purpose of this article is to review evidence concerning the joint impact of family characteristics and child care experiences in understanding children's development. Although child care experiences are related to children's development across a variety of domains, family characteristics, particularly socioeconomic status and parenting quality, are typically stronger predictors of children's outcomes. An important implication of these findings is that high-quality child care experiences are likely to have stronger effects on children who are at risk of poorer outcomes because of less optimal family environments; evidence from experimental and nonexperimental studies generally supports this conclusion. From a policy perspective, an important goal for future research is to identify subgroups of families within the heterogeneous low-income population that are in particular need of relatively more intensive services and to develop effective interventions that are tailored to their needs.