Domesticating insurance,financializing family lives: the case of private health insurance for children in Finland

This article explores the domestication of a financial instrument that is much used in contemporary Finland, but that most of its users do not primarily think about in terms of being a financial instrument: the private health insurance for children. In Finland, all children are covered by social insurance and are entitled to free public health service with very low costs, if any. Yet, some 40 percent of families want to supplement this service with private products. Many fear that the popularity of the private health insurance for children contributes to a vicious circle that ends up weakening the legitimacy of, and the service given by, the public health sector; inequality in the face of health risks threatens to be aggravated, as well. Therefore, this financial instrument has become an object of political controversy. The main question of the article is: how do economic, political and moral valuations become intertwined in the domestication of insurance? The concept of ‘domestication’ is found helpful for analysing the pragmatics of valuation and for appreciating the dynamics and the heterogeneity of forces at play when financialization influences everyday life. The study argues that when financial instruments are appropriated they are also transformed; thus, they should not be viewed as homogeneous tools that have similar effects in all contexts of use. The main empirical materials studied are interviews with families with and without private health insurance policies for their children.     

‘You Feel It in Your Body’: How Australian Children and Young People Think about and Experience Feeling and Being Safe

In 2012, the Australian Government announced the establishment of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The aim of the Royal Commission is to understand how and why sexual abuse occurred within Australian institutions and to provide guidance as to how future abuse might be prevented. The Royal Commission commissioned a mixed methods study to explore what children need to be safe and to feel safe, to explore how they determine their level of safety, and their observations about how institutions act to prevent and respond to safety issues. This article reports on the findings from the first phase of the study that involved focus groups carried out with children aged 4–17 years from different types of institutions. The discussion focused particularly on how children conceptualise safety and how they make judgments about their levels of safety. Children and young people's conceptualisation of safety had multiple dimensions, which include the idea that being safe and feeling safe are two distinct, interrelated but sometimes non‐concurrent experiences; that safety is identified and experienced as a set of feelings; trusting relationships are the foundation of safety; familiarity helps children feel safe; and safe environments are those that are ordered and orderly.     

Drawing Family Boundaries: Children's Perspectives on Family Relationships in Rural and Urban Ethiopia

This article explores how children conceptualise and practice family relationships in two social settings in Ethiopia. Based on ethnographic data, it discusses (i) how urban and rural children construct family; (ii) what family activities children do and which social positions they assume; and (iii) the convergence and divergence of meanings and practices of family relationships between urban and rural Ethiopia. The analysis demonstrates how ‘normative family’ and actual ‘family practices’ are shaped by socio‐cultural, material and spatial contexts. Insights drawn also reveal the complex ways in which access to material resources, geographical distance, rural‐urban locations and cultural traits such as patterns of marriage and child relocation practices shape family relationships.     

Children and the ‘Social Cohesion’ Agenda in Sport: Children's Participation in ‘Ethnically Mixed’ Sports Teams in the North of England

This study is set in the North of England in the context of debates around the integration of communities, after a series of street disturbances in the early 2000s. The debates centred upon ‘social cohesion’ and the social mixing of Pakistani British and White British communities. The current study explores this from the context of 10‐ to 11‐year‐old Asian, Black and White British boys participating in cricket and football clubs. It draws on the sociology of childhood approach that sees children as active participants and co‐creators of their own lives. This more nuanced approach sheds important light on children's own negotiations of home, peers, sports clubs and identities that are key to how cohesion is achieved.     

Disability,personalisation and community arts: exploring the spatial dynamics of children with disabilities participating in inclusive music classes*

This paper uses personalisation and the capabilities approach to explore inclusive music classes for children with disabilities in Scotland. It provides a unique insight into the impact of participation through the voices of the disabled young musicians, their parents and tutors. The study highlights the power of inclusive spaces to transform lives, to build confidence and contest disabled identities. It engages in the spatial dynamic of opening up inclusive spaces, as well as exposing emerging tensions in the liminal space that is created through movement between safe and supported spaces and the antithesis, spaces that disempower and marginalise. The findings suggest good practice around personalisation, when conceived of from a social justice perspective, as a template for working with other marginalised groups and in other professional settings.     

‘My Parents told us that they will always Treat my Brother Differently Because he is Autistic’ – Are Siblings of Autistic Children the Forgotten Ones?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) does not only affect the child alone, but the family unit as well. This qualitative study explored the impacts of ASD on the relationship between parents and their neuro-typical children and how the neuro-typical children cope with the impacts of having an autistic sibling in the family. Utilising principles of the social relations theory, five Singaporean families (n = 10) consisting of five mothers and five neuro-typical children were interviewed. Both the mothers and the neuro-typical children were seen to be equal agents in influencing the interactions with each other, and contributed in maintaining the close relationship through various strategies. Findings revealed that having an autistic child in the family imposed certain constraints and additional responsibilities for the family members. Despite so, the neuro-typical children coped well with such constraints. The in-depth data highlight the value of considering both the agency of mothers and the neuro-typical children and how they bidirectionally influence each other while sharing the caregiving roles for the autistic child in the family. It is strongly recommended for practitioners to incorporate elements of child's agency when expanding their scope of psychosocial intervention work with the neuro-typical children.     

Short Break and Respite Services for Disabled Children in England: Comparing Children's and Parents' Perspectives of Their Impact on Children

Researchers, health and social care workers often seek to understand the perspectives of children; but gathering views directly from children can present difficulties. Parents are often asked to provide accounts of children's feelings or opinions on the assumption that their proxy reports are accurate and unproblematic. This qualitative thematic analysis of open‐question responses from 352 parents and 73 disabled children examines their accounts of the impact of short break services on disabled children. Participants' perspectives differed; children tended to describe immediate outcomes such as enjoying activities and participation; parents acknowledged these, but focused on longer term developmental outcomes for children.     

社会工作介入留守儿童服务的方法与技巧——以XY市某社区为例

中国社会的急剧转型,城镇化进程加速,产生了一个特殊的农民工群体。随之出现数百万留守儿童。调查发现,85％以上的留守儿童是由祖父母隔代监护和亲友临时监管,而年迈体弱、文化素质较低的祖辈监护人难以满足孩子的学习辅导和生活监护的需要。加上家庭教育的缺失,学校与家庭之间的沟通不畅,家庭和学校监护不力,导致相当数量的留守儿童产生厌学、逃学、辍学等现象。作者从社会工作的角度出发,从留守儿童本身,留守儿童家庭、学校、社会等方面入手,提出三种切实可行的介入应对措施,即社会工作急需介入留守儿童的个案咨询和辅导、介入留守儿童互助支持小组活动、介入留守儿童家庭的亲子沟通。     

城市化与城市基础教育的应然性转变

在城市化背景下,农转非子女、农民工和其他流动人口家庭在城市上学的子女等城市新移民子女大量进入城市,已经使我国城市基础教育的学生构成发生了很大的变化。城市新移民子女作为城市基础教育中一个情况较为特殊的学生群体,不仅要求平等的政策对待,而且更需要学校的有针对性的教育。城市基础教育应该重视这种构成变化及其给城市基础教育提出的新要求,切实转变观念和行为,为城市新移民子女提供平等的、更好的、有效的服务,以促进他们的健康成长。     

《儿童世界》与现代时期儿童的文学创作

由郑振铎担任主编、商务印书馆出版发行的儿童周刊《儿童世界》,作为现代中国第一本白话文儿童文学期刊,对于中国现代儿童文学创作的形成与发展起着积极的推动作用。杂志在创办初期,不仅吸引了文学研究会旗下著名作家给其供稿,儿童的文学创作也作为杂志的一个主要栏目得到积极的展示,在重视创作主体的新颖性的同时,也为成人的儿童文学创作提供了必要而真实的儿童经验。对郑振铎担任主编时期,《儿童世界》儿童创作的形成原因、方法的兴起以及作品本身的艺术特征做了详细的梳理与分析。