Children changing spaces,changing schools

Children's participation remains controversial in United Kingdom schools where children and their communities rarely have opportunity to change what happens. This paper considers an original approach that developed cooperative intergenerational inquiry with a class of 10–11-year-olds in the north of England as part of complexity-informed participatory action research to consider children's participation in schools. Children and adults considered together, what schools are for, at the same time enabling children to shape spaces for participation in lesson time. The importance of recognising these spaces as dynamic intra-subjective meeting points and of intergenerational relationships for change in schools is revealed.     

Social Research and the Privacy and Participation of Children: Reflections on Researching Australian Children's Playlore

Social research into the daily activities of children is important if we are to understand how children perceive themselves in relationship to their world. Ethically managed social research that allows children to speak as informed and competent subjects is thus vital. However, research regulatory bodies may be more concerned with protecting the privacy of children than facilitating their participation in research projects. In a context where publicly funded researchers are encouraged to make their data available for reuse, the bureaucratisation of the consent and ethics processes may impinge on the conduct and benefits, and the future accessibility, of the research itself. Reflecting on the findings of the Childhood, Tradition and Change research on playlore in Australian primary schools, we argue for a more balanced approach from regulatory authorities between protection and participation in relation to low‐risk social research with children.     

Children's Media‐referenced Games: The Lived Culture of Consumer Texts on a School Playground

This article analyses empirical data including observations, videos and interviews from an ethnographic study of a multilingual, multiethnic school playground in London, UK. The analysis examines social uses of media references in playground games, drawing on literature in the field of consumer culture. The main argument is that children's consumer culture is constituted on the playground within media‐referenced play through a combination of creating distinctions and building affiliations. The article addresses a gap in the literature in the fields of sociology and anthropology of consumer culture which largely construct children's consumer culture as exceptional to or derived from adult consumer culture.     

Children in dual-residence arrangements: Exploring discourses of fairness and children's best interest in Norway

In many countries, dual residence is increasingly common for children when parents separate. This works well for many children, but opinions differ on whether or not it should be the norm. In analysing interviews with 35 nine- to 19-year-olds with dual-residence experience in Norway, undertaken in 2018, we find clear traces of prevailing discourses in society. Claims of equality and fairness and claims of children's rights both emerge, the latter being particularly visible in the participants' recommendations to other children. Children value spending much time with both parents, but may still want more flexibility than their parents realise.     

Intra‐ and Inter‐generational Perspectives on Youth Participation in Sweden: A Study with Young People as Research Partners

In this study, intra‐ and inter‐generational perspectives on youth participation are combined and compared. Young people were invited to participate as research partners in an interactive research circle and conducted a survey about participation with other young people as respondents. The discussion concerns how an interactive methodology contributes to the understanding of the concept of participation. It is suggested that political definitions of participation be amended to include having a sense of being recognised in a communicative context, taking responsibility and share with other people one's experiences. This is based on the perspectives of young people.     

Situating Children's Voices: Considering the Context When Conducting Research with Young Children

I problematise my own concept of children's voices in research by reflecting on certain practices in a study that I conducted in a kindergarten classroom in a city in Saudi Arabia. I examine the cultural and social contexts of my research by drawing on my experience of obtaining children's assent or dissent, my assumptions regarding the possibility of reducing power differentials, and finally, my understanding of the ways children voice their feelings and views. I conclude that voices manifest themselves in multiple ways that extend beyond visual or verbal media. Voices are constructed socially and are shaped culturally to reflect norms regarding how individuals should express their views and feelings within a particular setting and time.     

A lattice of participation: reflecting on examples of children's and young people's collective engagement in influencing social welfare policies and practices

The article introduces four case studies from Wales, France and Finland and explores the situated, intergenerational and dynamic nature of collective participation in child welfare settings. Collective participation is conceived of as a process of engagement in which children and young people have some influence over the initiation or direction of a project; and as seeking a product, or outcome. The case studies represent a range of forms of collective engagement and highlight some key resources which supported children's participation (communicative spaces, time, money, knowledge, social position, attitudes, social networks, institutional commitment, equipment, food and transport). Challenges encountered in achieving effective participation in different nations within Europe are also identified, related to generation barriers and the distribution of resources. These elements are used to construct a lattice of participation: a model for conceptualising children and young people's collective engagement in participatory projects. The model provides a tool for visualising how, at different stages of a project, actors (children, young facilitators, adults and institutions) exercise influence by directing the use of different resources, such as finance and time. It invites reflection on why influence is limited in some stages of a participatory project, and how it is supported in other stages.     

Residential care for children with intellectual disabilities in the social protection system in Serbia

This paper presents and discusses the characteristics of the social protection of children with intellectual disabilities who are placed in children's homes in Serbia. It draws on a survey that covered the entire population—586 users in all five institutions for children with intellectual disabilities who resided there in 2009. The analysis shows the heterogeneity of users in relation to age and degree of intellectual disability, their long-term stay in homes, the inadequate structural and functional standards, and insufficient health care. Residential care becomes the most common form of permanent rather than temporary care. These findings suggest the need for a number of strategies to be adopted, and the paper concludes by outlining potential ways forward.     

Measuring Children's Experience of Their Right to Participate in School and Community: A Rights‐Based Approach

This paper discusses the development of a children's rights‐based measure of participation and the findings from its use in a survey of 10‐ to 11‐year‐old children (n = 3773). The measure, which was developed in collaboration with a group of children, had a high reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.89). Findings suggest that children's positive experience of their participation rights is higher in school than in community, and higher for girls compared to boys. It is argued that involving children in the ‘measurement’ of their own lives has the potential to generate more authentic data on children's lived experiences.     

Deconstructing Disability and Neurodiversity: Controversial Issues for Autism and Implications for Social Work

Disability is a socially constructed concept that can be viewed from either a medical or a social perspective. Autism, a developmental disability, can be viewed from the medical model of disability or through a new perspective brought forth by the autistic community and aligning with the social model termed neurodiversity. Using the medical model and a lens of neurodiversity, we can deconstruct the controversial issues surrounding autism and provide insights for social workers and other professionals working with the community of the disabled.     

‘Orphans and Rich People’: A Discourse Analysis of the ‘Children's Lives’ Exhibition in Birmingham,UK

In 2012, an art gallery in Birmingham, England presented an exhibition of ‘Children's Lives’. Through its curation of photography, fine art, objects, video and text, ‘Children's Lives’ claimed to ‘let childhood through the ages speak for itself’ and to contribute ‘to a debate over what it means to be a child’. In this article, we offer a critical analysis of the exhibition, examining the relationship between the exhibition as discourse and the ‘external’ discourses around childhood that are reinforced, negotiated and in some cases challenged by the assemblage of image, text and the spatial ‘narrative’ of the gallery.     

Migrant Children,Social Capital and Access to Services Post‐Migration: Transitions,Negotiations and Complex Agencies

For migrant children, moving to a new country is marked by excitement, anxiety and practical challenges in managing this significant transition. This paper draws upon the concepts of social capital and social networks to examine migrant children's access to services post‐migration. Using data from a qualitative study with Eastern European families in Scotland, we identify a range of cumulative barriers that limit children's access to services and illustrate how their experiences are shaped by ethnicity, social class and place. The study shows that migrant children are often disadvantaged post‐migration and develop their own mechanisms to mitigate the impact of migration on their lives. We argue that migrant children's own social networks are relevant and they need to be analysed through a more individualised approach.     

Healthy Sexual Development: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Research

ABSTRACT

A group of Australian researchers from a range of disciplines involved in studying children's sexual development developed a framework for researching healthy sexual development that was acceptable to all disciplines involved. The 15 domains identified were: freedom from unwanted activity; an understanding of consent; education about biological aspects; understanding of safety; relationship skills; agency; lifelong learning; resilience; open communication; sexual development should not be “aggressive, coercive or joyless;” self-acceptance; awareness and acceptance that sex is pleasurable; understanding of parental and societal values; awareness of public/private boundaries; and being competent in mediated sexuality.     

The Trouble with Bullying – Deconstructing the Conventional Definition of Bullying for a Child‐centred Investigation into Children's Use of Social Media

This article deconstructs the conventional definition of bullying through analysis of its historical context, and identifies blind spots using lenses of gender, culture and setting. We explore theoretical and methodological problems associated with the conventional definition and its axiomatic use in bullying research, with particular reference to online bullying. We argue that because children may use ‘bullying’ to mean many different practices not captured in the conventional definition, using this definition often obscures the very phenomena researchers are aiming to describe. As a result, adults risk missing these practices in research and for interventions that use these studies as their evidence base.     

Play as a Resource for Children Facing Adversity: An Exploration of Indicative Case Studies

In this paper, we suggest that the ability and opportunity to play affords children a natural resource to meet intellectual and emotional challenge. Analysis of case studies focusing on interventions with children caught in the bombing of Beirut, children abandoned to the state system in Romania, and the street children in Rio de Janeiro and Cali is used to support this view. When resources are in deficit, challenge is more likely to become adversity. The impact of adversity is particular to context, but comparison across contexts also shows connections between children’s disparate experiences. Analysis confirms that given the opportunity, children interact with and influence their environment through play and that this process provides a resource to meet the challenge of adversity.     

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.     

Now Being Social: The Barrier of Designing Outdoor Play Spaces for Disabled Children

The design of outdoor public play spaces such that disabled children can make use of them is set in the three constructs of play, childhood and disability, drawing upon academic learning, international policy and national policy in England. The suggestion is made that one of the main barriers to the adequate provision of such spaces is that providers and designers do not know how to design such spaces. The paper explores the knowledge which is available to overcome this barrier and which might lead to the provision and design of appropriate outdoor play spaces that disabled children can more fully use.     

Children's lives and rights under lockdown: A Northern Irish perspective by autistic young people

By June 2021, children and young people had experienced two periods of lockdown and home learning in Northern Ireland. The detrimental impact of these periods of indefinite confinement is wider reaching than reported educational stagnation, with the fundamental rights of childhood: play; rest; and leisure; all adversely implicated. Autistic children's experiences of Covid-19 have been largely absent from current crisis and recovery discourse. This is the first published study to directly and specifically involve autistic children both as research advisors and as research participants in a rights-based participatory study relating to the pandemic. Drawing on concepts of ableist childism and epistemic injustice, this article presents, through Photovoice, the emotional, social and educational experiences of post- primary aged autistic young people in Northern Ireland during the first 2020 lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was grounded in a child rights-based approach and was guided by a group of four autistic young advisors aged 11–15. The paper concludes by arguing that government responses to the pandemic, as experienced by autistic young people, act as forms of oppression that prioritises and further embeds normative non-autistic structures and responses under the guise of public health necessity.