Handbook of Child Well-Being: Theories, Methods and Policies in Global Perspective [1 ed.] 9789048190621, 9789048190638

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Asher Ben-Arieh Ferran Casas Ivar Frønes Jill E. Korbin Editors

Handbook of Child Well-Being Theories, Methods and Policies in Global Perspective

1 3Reference

Handbook of Child Well-Being

Asher Ben-Arieh • Ferran Casas Ivar Frønes • Jill E. Korbin Editors

Handbook of Child Well-Being Theories, Methods and Policies in Global Perspective

With 138 Figures and 85 Tables

Editors Asher Ben-Arieh Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel

Ivar Frønes Department of Sociology and Human Geography University of Oslo Oslo, Norway

Ferran Casas Research Institute of Quality of Life University of Girona Girona, Spain

The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioural Development University of Oslo Oslo, Norway Jill E. Korbin Department of Anthropology Schubert Center for Child Studies Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, USA

ISBN 978-90-481-9062-1 ISBN 978-90-481-9063-8 (eBook) ISBN 978-90-481-9064-5 (print and electronic bundle) DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942189 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Acknowledgments

We express our gratitude to all who have made this project into a reality. As Asher drew us together, asking what we were doing for the next several years of our lives, we worked to bring together the multiple perspectives involved in child well-being. We thank the more than 200 authors and coauthors who contributed more than 110 state-of-the-art chapters to the Handbook. Our colleagues’ chapters reflect not only their expertise but also their commitment to child well-being. The chapters reflect international and transdisciplinary perspectives. We thank the International Society for Child Indicators that has been an intellectual home for this project and supported our editorial board meetings. We also thank our home institutions for offering us encouragement and support in time and resources. We thank our editors at Springer, Myriam Poort and Esther Otten, who believed in this project from its inception and have contributed enormously to its successful completion, and to Miranda Dijksman for her outstanding organizational and editorial skills in all aspects of the Handbook. We thank Daphna Gross-Manos, our editorial assistant. This work would not have been possible without her tireless, dedicated, and expert work. She is a scholar in her own right and also authored a chapter in the Handbook. Finally, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the countless children and families around the world who participated in the research presented in this book. Last, but not least, we express our gratitude to our families who supported us while we traveled for editorial board meetings and read through the mounds of chapters that crossed our desks. We dedicate this Handbook to them, to our spouses and partners, to our children, and our grandchildren.

v

About the Editors

Professor Asher Ben-Arieh Asher Ben-Arieh is a professor of social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the Haruv Institute in Jerusalem. He served for 20 years as the associate director of Israel’s National Council for the Child. He has been a visiting fellow at Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life in Clemson University. Since 1990 and until 2011, he has been the founding editor-in-chief of the annual The State of the Child in Israel. Professor Ben-Arieh is one of the leading international experts on social indicators, particularly, as they relate to child well-being. He initiated and coordinated the International Project Measuring and Monitoring Children Well-Being, was among the founding members of the International Society for Children Indicators (ISCI), and elected to be its first co-chair. Asher has published extensively on social policy, child welfare, and indicators of children well-being. Professor Ben-Arieh is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Child Indicators Research (CIR) and the book series Child Well Being: Indicators and Research. Ben-Arieh was born in Jerusalem; he is married and has three children.

vii

viii

About the Editors

Professor Ferran Casas Ferran Casas is a senior professor of social psychology in the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the University of Girona (Spain). He leads ERIDIQV research team (Research Team of Children’s Rights and their Quality of Life), at the Research Institute on Quality of Life, University of Girona. His main topics of research are children’s and adolescents’ well-being and quality of life, children’s rights, adolescents and audiovisual media, and adolescents-parents relationships. For the last 10 years, he has been involved in 10 international research projects, 3 of them supported by the European Commission – the most recent one being the YIPPEE project (Young People from a Public care background: pathways to Education in Europe). He has been a visiting fellow at the Universidad Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre (Brazil). At present, Professor Casas participates in new international projects and developing systems of subjective indicators of children’s and adolescents’ well-being, mainly for the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeB, Children’s Worlds). He is a member of the Boards of the International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI) and of the International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS). From 1990 to 1993, he was the director of the Centro de Estudios del Menor, depending of the Spanish Ministry of Social Affairs, in Madrid (Spain). From 1992 to 1996, Professor Casas was the chair of the Experts Committee on Childhood Policies of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France). He was the first president of the Advisory Board of Childwatch International (Oslo, Norway), until 1996, and continued as a member of that Board until 2005. Casas also was the first director of the Research Institute on Quality of Life of the University of Girona (Spain), and, for 18 years, he has been the director of the journal Intervencio´n Psicosocial. Professor Casas has authored and coauthored 15 books, more than 40 book chapters, and over 100 papers in scientific journals, in 9 different languages, most of them related to well-being and QOL.

About the Editors

ix

Professor Ivar Frønes Ivar Frønes is a professor of sociology at the University of Oslo, Norway, and senior researcher at the Norwegian Center for Child Behavioural Development. His work and international experience cover a variety of areas, with an emphasis on life course analysis; children, youth, and family sociology; well-being and social exclusion. Professor Frønes is a member of the Board of the International Society for Child Indicators. He is the founder of the journal Childhood, and among the group that initiated Childwatch International. His numerous publications cover a variations of perspectives on childhood, as illustrated by publications such as “Among Peers” (1995), “Status Zero Youth in the Welfare Society” (2007), “On theories of dialogue, self and society: Redefining socialization and the acquisition of meaning in light of the inter-subjective matrix” (2007), “Theorizing indicators – On indicators, signs and trends” (2007), “Childhood: Leisure, Culture and Peers” (2009), and (with Ragnhild Brusdal) “The purchase of moral positions: an essay on the markets of concerned parenting” (2013). In Scandinavia, he has published books on digital divides, modern childhood, marginalization and risk, cultural trends, and a variety of subjects related to childhood, youth, and life course development. At present, he is working on projects on life course, childhood, and marginalization.

x

About the Editors

Professor Jill E. Korbin Jill E. Korbin, Ph.D. (1978 U.C.L.A.), is associate dean, professor of anthropology, director of the Schubert Center for Child Studies, and codirector of the Childhood Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Her awards include the Margaret Mead Award (1986) from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology; a Congressional Science Fellowship (1985–1986 in the Office of Senator Bill Bradley) through the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Research in Child Development; the Wittke Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Case Western Reserve University (1992); and a Fulbright Senior Specialist Award (2005). Korbin has published on child maltreatment in relationship to culture and context, and edited the first volume on culture and child maltreatment, Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (1981, University of California Press). Korbin and Richard Krugman, M.D., are currently coediting a book series, Child Maltreatment: Contemporary Issues in Research and Policy, published by Springer. Korbin’s research interests include culture and human development; cultural, medical, and psychological anthropology; neighborhood, community, and contextual influences on children and families; child maltreatment; and child and adolescent well-being.

Advisory Board

Jonathan Bradshaw University of York, York, UK Vinod Chandra Lucknow University, Lucknow, India Jaap E. Doek Vrije Universiteit, Lisse, Netherlands Howard Dubowitz University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA Jeanne Fagnani The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, France James Garbarino Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA Scott Huebner University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA Bong Joo Lee Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea Yehualashet Mekonen The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Bernhard Nauck Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany Jorge Castella Sarriera Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Fiona Stanley The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia Cecilia Von Feilitzen So¨derto¨rn University, Huddinge, Sweden Thomas S. Weisner University of California, Los Angeles, USA Rita Zˇukauskiene˙ Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

xi

Contents

Volume 1 1

Multifaceted Concept of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Asher Ben-Arieh, Ferran Casas, Ivar Frønes, and Jill E. Korbin

Section I

1

Multiple Perspectives on Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

2

History of Children’s Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bengt Sandin

31

3

Culture, Context, and Child Well-Being Thomas S. Weisner

87

4

Children, Gender, and Issues of Well-Being Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen and Barrie Thorne

................

105

5

Childhood and Intergenerationality: Toward an Intergenerational Perspective on Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . Leena Alanen

131

Section II

...................

Multiple Approaches to Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . .

161

6

Child Well-Being: A Philosophical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexander Bagattini

163

7

Child Well-Being: Children’s Rights Perspective Jaap E. Doek

............

187

8

Neuroscience and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adeline Jabe`s and Charles A. Nelson

219

9

Educational Science and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sabine Andresen

249

10

Geographies of Children’s Well-Being: in, of, and for Place . . . . John H. McKendrick

279

xiii

xiv

11

Contents

Child Healthcare and Child Well-Being: From the Past to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Greeley and Howard Dubowitz

301

12

Public Health Aspects of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sally Brinkman and Fiona Stanley

317

13

Well-Being of Children: A Criminologic Perspective Mimi Ajzenstadt

.........

351

14

Economics of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabriella Conti and James J. Heckman

363

15

Social Work and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheila B. Kamerman and Shirley Gatenio-Gabel

403

16

Children’s Well-Being and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jo Moran-Ellis, Anna Bandt, and Heinz S€ unker

415

17

Mediated Well-Being from the Perspective of Media and Communication Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Divina Frau-Meigs

437

18

Child Well-Being: Anthropological Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edward G. J. Stevenson and Carol M. Worthman

485

19

Social Psychology and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ferran Casas, Mo`nica Gonza´lez, and Dolors Navarro

513

20

Psychology of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arne Holte, Margaret M. Barry, Mona Bekkhus, Anne Inger Helmen Borge, Lucy Bowes, Ferran Casas, Oddgeir Friborg, Bjørn Grinde, Bruce Headey, Thomas Jozefiak, Ratib Lekhal, Nic Marks, Ruud Muffels, Ragnhild Bang Nes, Espen Røysamb, Jens C. Thimm, Svenn Torgersen, Gisela Trommsdorff, Ruut Veenhoven, Joar Vittersø, Trine Waaktaar, Gert G. Wagner, Catharina Elisabeth Arfwedson Wang, Bente Wold, and Henrik Daae Zachrisson

555

Volume 2 Section III 21

22

Theoretical Approaches to Child Well-Being . . . . . . . .

633

Understanding the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents Through Homeostatic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert A. Cummins

635

Sociology: Societal Structure, Development of Childhood, and the Well-Being of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jens Qvortrup

663

Contents

xv

23

Children’s Well-Being and Interpretive Reproduction . . . . . . . . William A. Corsaro

709

24

Capability Approach as a Framework for Research on Children’s Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susann Fegter and Martina Richter

739

Socialization and Childhood in Sociological Theorizing . . . . . . . Lourdes Gaita´n

759

25

Section IV

Children’s Activities and Well-Being

..............

795

26

Schooling and Children’s Subjective Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Scott Huebner, Kimberly J. Hills, Xu Jiang, Rachel F. Long, Ryan Kelly, and Michael D. Lyons

797

27

Children’s Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Bourdillon

821

28

After-School Activities and Leisure Education Jaume Trilla, Ana Ayuste, and Ingrid Agud

..............

863

29

Play and Well-Being in Children’s Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Van Gils

895

30

Sport, Children, and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yngvar Ommundsen, Knut Løndal, and Sigmund Loland

911

31

Artistic Activity and Child Well-Being in Early Schooling: Revisiting the Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jolyn Blank

941

32

Civic Engagement and Child and Adolescent Well-Being . . . . . . Daniel Hart, Kyle Matsuba, and Robert Atkins

957

33

State of the Field: Youth Community Service in the USA . . . . . . Edward Metz

977

34

Time Use, Inequality, and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sara Raley

999

Section V

Arts, Creativity and Child Well-Being

..............

1033

35

Images of Child Well-Being in the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035 Ellen Handler Spitz

36

Role of Art and Creativity in Child Culture and Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053 Khin Yee Lo and Koji Matsunobu

xvi

37

Contents

Imagination, Play, and the Role of Performing Arts in the Well-Being of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079 Philip E. Silvey

Section VI

Spirituality and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1099

38

Relation of Spiritual Development to Youth Health and Well-Being: Evidence from a Global Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101 Peter C. Scales, Amy K. Syvertsen, Peter L. Benson, Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, and Arturo Sesma, Jr.

39

Religion and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137 George W. Holden and Paul Alan Williamson

40

Religion, Spirituality, and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171 Kurt Bangert

41

Islamic Education and Youth Well-Being in Muslim Countries, with a Specific Reference to Algeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1209 Habib Tiliouine

Volume 3 Section VII

An Ecological Perspective on Child Well-Being

.....

1227

42

Family and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1229 Cigdem Kagitcibasi

43

Effects of School on the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251 Francisco Juan Garcı´a Bacete, Ghislaine Marande Perrin, Barry H. Schneider, and Celine Blanchard

44

Community and Place-Based Understanding of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1307 Claudia J. Coulton and James C. Spilsbury

45

Children’s Social Networks and Well-Being Deborah Belle and Joyce Benenson

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1335

46

Ecological Perspective on Child Well-Being James Garbarino

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1365

Section VIII 47

Economy/Material Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1385

Poverty and Social Exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1387 Gerry Redmond

Contents

xvii

48

Well-Being and Children in a Consumer Society Ragnhild Brusdal and Ivar Frønes

49

Children’s Material Living Standards in Rich Countries . . . . . . 1445 Gill Main and Kirsten Besemer

50

Child Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1483 Bruce Bradbury

51

Child Labor and Children’s Economic Contributions . . . . . . . . . 1509 Scott Lyon and Furio Camillo Rosati

52

Childhood and Inequalities: Generational Distributive Justice and Disparities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1523 Helmut Wintersberger

53

Economics of Child Well-Being: Measuring Effects of Child Welfare Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1563 Anna Aizer and Joseph J. Doyle, Jr.

Section IX

. . . . . . . . . . . . 1427

Life Course and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1603

54

Infancy and Well-Being Heidi Keller

55

Early Childhood: Dimensions and Contexts of Development and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1629 Elizabeth Fernandez

56

Developmental Assets and the Promotion of Well-Being in Middle Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1649 Peter C. Scales

57

Child Well-Being and the Life Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1679 Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Megan M. McClelland, and Alicia Miao

58

Adolescence and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1713 Rita Zˇukauskiene˙

59

Monitoring the Health and Well-Being of Developing Children in Changing Contexts: A Framework for Action . . . . . 1739 Bonnie Leadbeater, Wayne Mitic, and Michael Egilson

60

Transition to Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1763 Janel Benson

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605

xviii

Contents

Section X

Interpersonal Relations

.........................

1785

61

Allomothers and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1787 Courtney L. Meehan

62

Sibling Relationships and Children’s Social Well-Being . . . . . . . 1817 K. Ripoll-Nu´n˜ez and Sonia Carrillo

63

The Role of Peers in Children’s Lives and Their Contribution to Child Well-Being: Theory and Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1843 Daphna Gross-Manos

64

Children’s Social and Emotional Relationships and Well-Being: From the Perspective of the Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 Colette McAuley and Wendy Rose

65

Children as Caregivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1893 Ruth Evans

66

Why Are Relationships Important to Children’s Well-Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917 Ross A. Thompson

Volume 4 Section XI

Media and Communication and Child Well-Being . . . .

1955

67

Analysis of Children’s Television Characters and Media Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957 Andre´ H. Caron and Jennie M. Hwang

68

News Media and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1979 Cynthia Carter

69

Conflict, Media, and Child Well-Being Dafna Lemish and Maya G€ otz

70

Advertising and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2031 Agnes Nairn

71

Media Literacy and Well-Being of Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . 2057 Manisha Pathak-Shelat

72

Internet and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2093 Veronika Kalmus, Andra Siibak, and Lukas Blinka

73

Children’s Well-Being and Communication Florencia Enghel

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2013

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2135

Contents

Section XII

xix

Well-Being and the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2151

74

Conciliating Parents’ Labor and Family Life Anna Escobedo

75

Parenting Styles and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2173 Marı´a Jose´ Rodrigo, Sonia Byrne, and Beatriz Rodrı´guez

76

Does Family Matter? The Well-Being of Children Growing Up in Institutions, Foster Care and Adoption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2197 Christie Schoenmaker, Femmie Juffer, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn, and Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg

77

Family-Related Factors Influencing Child Well-Being Lluı´s Flaquer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2153

. . . . . . . . 2229

Section XIII Health and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2257

78

Health and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2259 Tim Moore and Frank Oberklaid

79

Infant Rearing in the Context of Contemporary Neuroscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2281 Penelope Leach

80

Illness and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2319 Noboru Kobayashi, Yoichi Sakakihara, Kengo Nishimaki, Hideo Mimuro, Junko Shimizu, Akira Matsui, Nobuaki Kobayashi, and Yuichiro Yamashiro

81

HIV and AIDS and Its Impact on Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . 2355 Eddy J. Walakira, Ismael Ddumba-Nyanzi, and David Kaawa-Mafigiri

82

Cultural Roots of Well-Being and Resilience in Child Mental Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2379 Mo´nica Ruiz-Casares, Jaswant Guzder, Ce´cile Rousseau, and Laurence J. Kirmayer

83

Body Image and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2409 Kristina Holmqvist Gattario, Ann Frise´n, and Eileen Anderson-Fye

Section XIV 84

Well-Being and Children’s Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2437

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2439 Laura Lundy

xx

Contents

85

Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Its Effect on Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2463 Yehualashet Mekonen and Melhiku Tiruneh

86

Child Participation, Constituent of Community Well-Being . . . . 2503 Alejandro Cusiianovich Villara´n and Marta Martı´nez Mun˜oz

87

Children’s Perspectives on Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights: Implications for Development and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2537 Martin D. Ruck, Michele Peterson-Badali, and Charles C. Helwig

88

“Because It’s the Right (or Wrong) Thing to Do”: When Children’s Well-Being Is the Wrong Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2561 Gary B. Melton

Volume 5 Section XV

Risk and Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2575

89

Complex Roots and Branches of Antisocial Behavior . . . . . . . . . 2577 Terje Ogden

90

Plight of Victims of School Bullying: The Opposite of Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2593 Dan Olweus and Kyrre Breivik

91

Crime Victimization and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2617 Tali Gal

92

Children at Risk: The Case of Latin American Street Youth . . . 2653 Marcela Raffaelli, Normanda Araujo de Morais, and Silvia H. Koller

93

Maltreated Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2669 Ignacia Arruabarrena

Section XVI Methods, Measures and Indicators

..............

2697

94

Objective or Subjective Well-Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2699 Nick Axford, David Jodrell, and Tim Hobbs

95

Methodologies Used in the Construction of Composite Child Well-Being Indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2739 Vicki L. Lamb and Kenneth C. Land

96

Researching Children: Research on, with, and by Children . . . . 2757 Jan Mason and Elizabeth Watson

97

Mapping Domains and Indicators of Children’s Well-Being Bong Joo Lee

. . . 2797

Contents

xxi

98

Indices of Child Well-Being and Developmental Contexts . . . . . 2807 Kristin Anderson Moore, David Murphey, Tawana Bandy, and Elizabeth Lawner

99

Positive and Protective Factors in Adolescent Well-Being Laura H. Lippman, Renee Ryberg, Mary Terzian, Kristin A. Moore, Jill Humble, and Hugh McIntosh

. . . . . 2823

100

Different Sources of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2867 Robert M. Goerge

101

Mixed Methods in Research on Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . 2879 M. Clara Barata and Hirokazu Yoshikawa

102

Ethics of Researching Children’s Well-Being Virginia Morrow and Jo Boyden

Section XVII

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2895

Interventions and Policies that Promote Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2919

103

Overview: Social Policies and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2921 Jonathan Bradshaw

104

Children in State Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2945 Jorge F. del Valle

105

Child Protection and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2965 Lawrence M. Berger and Kristen Shook Slack

106

Key Elements and Strategies of Effective Early Childhood Education Programs: Lessons from the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2993 C. Momoko Hayakawa and Arthur J. Reynolds

107

Advancing Child and Adolescent Well-Being Through Positive Youth Development and Prevention Programs . . . . . . . 3025 Laura Ferrer-Wreder

108

Data-Based Child Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3043 William P. O’Hare

Section XVIII

Global Issues in Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3069

109

Reflections on the Well-Being of Child Soldiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3071 David M. Rosen

110

Migration and Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3101 Chadi Abdul-Rida and Bernhard Nauck

111

Well-Being of Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children Charles Watters

. . . . . . . . 3143

xxii

Contents

112

Child Well-Being and Ethnic Diversity in Affluent Societies . . . . 3159 Donald J. Hernandez

113

Globalization and Children’s Welfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3193 Peter N. Stearns

114

International Comparisons of Child Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3219 Dominic Richardson Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3249

Contributors

Chadi Abdul-Rida Department of Sociology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany Ingrid Agud Department of Theory and History of Education, University of Barcelona, Mundet, Campus Mundet, Llevant, Barcelona, Spain Anna Aizer Department of Economics, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA Mimi Ajzenstadt Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law and the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Leena Alanen Department of Education, University of Jyv€askyl€a, Jyv€askyl€a, Finland Eileen Anderson-Fye Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA Sabine Andresen Faculty of Educational Science, IDeA Research Center on Adaptive Education and Indivdual Development on Children at Risk, GoetheUniversity Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany Ignacia Arruabarrena Department of Social Psychology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, San Sebastia´n, Spain Robert Atkins Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA Nick Axford The Social Research Unit, Lower Hood Barn, Dartington, UK Ana Ayuste Department of Theory and History of Education, University of Barcelona, Mundet, Campus Mundet, Llevant, Barcelona, Spain Alexander Bagattini Philosophisches D€ usseldorf, Germany

Institut,

Universit€at

D€usseldorf,

Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Anna Bandt Center for International Studies in Social Policy and Social Services, Bergische Universit€at Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany xxiii

xxiv

Contributors

Tawana Bandy Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Kurt Bangert World Vision Institute for Research and Innovation, Friedrichsdorf, Germany M. Clara Barata Instituto Universita´rio de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal Margaret M. Barry Health Promotion Research Centre, Galway, Ireland Discipline of Health Promotion, School of Health Sciences, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Mona Bekkhus Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Deborah Belle Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA Asher Ben-Arieh Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Joyce Benenson Emmanuel College, Boston, MA, USA Janel Benson Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA Peter L. Benson Minneapolis, MN, USA Lawrence M. Berger School of Social Work and Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, USA Kirsten Besemer Institute of Housing, Urban and Real Estate Research, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland Celine Blanchard School of Psychology, Ottawa University, Ontario, Canada Jolyn Blank Department of Childhood Education & Literacy Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA Lukas Blinka Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Anne Inger Helmen Borge Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Michael Bourdillon Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe, Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe Lucy Bowes Centre for Mental Health, Addiction and Suicide Research, School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Jo Boyden Young Lives Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Contributors

xxv

Bruce Bradbury Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Jonathan Bradshaw Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York, UK Kyrre Breivik Uni Health, Uni Research, Bergen, Norway Sally Brinkman Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia Ragnhild Brusdal SIFO (National Institute for Consumer Research), Nydalen, Oslo, Norway Sonia Byrne University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain Andre´ H. Caron De´partement de communication, Universite´ de Montre´al, Montre´al, Canada Sonia Carrillo Universidad de los Andes, Bogota´, Colombia Cynthia Carter Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK Ferran Casas Faculty of Education and Psychology, Research Institute of Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain Gabriella Conti Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA William A. Corsaro Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Claudia J. Coulton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA Robert A. Cummins School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Alejandro Cusiianovich Villara´n Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos – Instituto de Formacio´n para Educadores de Jo´venes, Adolescentes y Nin˜os Trabajadores de Ame´rica Latina y el Caribe (UNMSM-IFEJANT), Lince, Peru Ismael Ddumba-Nyanzi Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Center for the Study of the African Child and Center for Social Science Research on AIDS, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Jaap E. Doek Family and Juvenile Law, Vrije Universiteit, Lisse, The Netherlands Joseph J. Doyle, Jr. MIT Sloan School of Management E62-515, Cambridge, MA, USA

xxvi

Contributors

Howard Dubowitz Division of Child Protection & Center for Families, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA Michael Egilson Child Health Indicators Project Lead, British Columbia Ministry of Health, Victoria, BC, Canada Florencia Enghel Media and Communication Studies, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden Anna Escobedo Department of Sociology and Organisational Analysis, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Ruth Evans Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK Susann Fegter Faculty of Educational Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Elizabeth Fernandez School of Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Laura Ferrer-Wreder Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Lluı´s Flaquer Department of Sociology, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain Divina Frau-Meigs Media Sociology and English Department, University Sorbonne Nouvelle, PRES Sorbonne Paris-Cite´, Paris, France Oddgeir Friborg Departement of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway Ann Frise´n Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Ivar Frønes Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioural Development, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Lourdes Gaita´n Grupo de Sociologı´a de la Infancia y la Adolescencia, Las Matas, Madrid, Spain Tali Gal School of Criminology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel James Garbarino Psychology Department, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Contributors

xxvii

Francisco Juan Garcı´a Bacete Departamento de Psicologia Evolutiva, Educativa, Social i Metodologia, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Universitat Jaume I, Castellon, Spain Shirley Gatenio-Gabel Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA Robert M. Goerge Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Mo`nica Gonza´lez Faculty of Education and Psychology, Research Institute on Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain Christopher Greeley Department of Pediatrics, Center for Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA Bjørn Grinde Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway Daphna Gross-Manos Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Maya G€ otz International Center Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI), Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, Munich, Germany Jaswant Guzder Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Culture & Mental Health Research Unit, Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Canada Daniel Hart Institute for Effective Education, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA C. Momoko Hayakawa University of Minnesota, Institute of Child Development, Minneapolis, MN, USA Bruce Headey Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia James J. Heckman Department of Economics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland American Bar Foundation, Chicago, IL, USA Charles C. Helwig University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Donald J. Hernandez Department of Sociology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

xxviii

Contributors

Kimberly J. Hills Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Tim Hobbs The Social Research Unit, Lower Hood Barn, Dartington, UK George W. Holden Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA Kristina Holmqvist Gattario Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Arne Holte Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway E. Scott Huebner Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Jill Humble Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Jennie M. Hwang De´partement de communication, Universite´ de Montre´al, Montre´al, Canada Marinus H. van IJzendoorn Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Adeline Jabe`s Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Xu Jiang Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA David Jodrell The Social Research Unit, Lower Hood Barn, Dartington, UK Thomas Jozefiak Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, St. Olav’s Hospital–Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway Femmie Juffer Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands David Kaawa-Mafigiri Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Center for the Study of the African Child and Center for Social Science Research on AIDS, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Cigdem Kagitcibasi Koc University, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey Veronika Kalmus Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Sheila B. Kamerman Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, NY, USA Heidi Keller Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Osnabr€uck, Osnabrueck, Germany

Contributors

xxix

Ryan Kelly Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Laurence J. Kirmayer Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Culture & Mental Health Research Unit, Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Canada Nobuaki Kobayashi The Supporting Network for Chronic Sick Children of Japan, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan Noboru Kobayashi Child Research Net c/o Benesse Corporation, Tokyo, Japan Silvia H. Koller Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Nonoai, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil Jill E. Korbin Department of Anthropology, Schubert Center for Child Studies, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA Vicki L. Lamb Department of Sociology, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, USA Kenneth C. Land Department of Sociology and Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Elizabeth Lawner Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Penelope Leach Institute for the Study of Children, Families & Social Issues, Birkbeck. University of London, Lewes, East Sussex, UK Bonnie Leadbeater Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Bong Joo Lee Department of Social Welfare, College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Ratib Lekhal Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway Dafna Lemish College of Mass Communication & Media Arts, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA Laura H. Lippman Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Knut Løndal Oslo and Akershus University College, Oslo, Norway Khin Yee Lo Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Sigmund Loland The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Ulleva˚l Stadion, Oslo, Norway Rachel F. Long Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

xxx

Contributors

Laura Lundy Centre for Children’s Rights, Queen’s University School of Education, Belfast, Northern Ireland Scott Lyon UCW program, Rome, Italy Michael D. Lyons Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Gill Main Department of Social Policy and Social Work, The University of York, York, North Yorkshire, UK Ghislaine Marande Perrin Departamento de Psicologia Evolutiva, Educativa, Social i Metodologia, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Universitat Jaume I, Castellon, Spain Nic Marks Centre of Well-being, New Economics Foundation, London, UK Marta Martı´nez Mun˜oz Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain Jan Mason School of Social Sciences & Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Penrith South DC, NSW, Australia Kyle Matsuba Kwantlen University, Richmond, Canada Akira Matsui National Center for Child Health and Development, Okura, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan Koji Matsunobu School of Music, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia Colette McAuley School of Social and International Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, England, UK Megan M. McClelland Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Corvallis, OR, USA Hugh McIntosh Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA John H. McKendrick School of Law and Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK Courtney L. Meehan Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA Yehualashet Mekonen The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Gary B. Melton The Kempe Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA Edward Metz US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Washington, DC, USA

Contributors

xxxi

Alicia Miao Human Development and Family Sciences, Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Corvallis, OR, USA Hideo Mimuro Tokyo Metropolitan Komei Special Needs Education School for the Physically Challenged, Tokyo, Japan Wayne Mitic Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Kristin Anderson Moore Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Tim Moore Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia Araujo Normanda de Morais Programa de Po´s Graduac¸a˜o em Psicologia, Universidade de Fortaleza, Fortaleza, Ceara´, Brazil Jo Moran-Ellis Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK Virginia Morrow Young Lives Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Ruud Muffels School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Reflect, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands David Murphey Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Agnes Nairn UPR Marches et Innovation, EM-Lyon Business School, Ecully, France Bernhard Nauck Department of Sociology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany Dolors Navarro Faculty of Education and Psychology, Research Institute on Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain Charles A. Nelson Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Ragnhild Bang Nes Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen Centre for Gender Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Kengo Nishimaki National Institute of Special Needs Education, Nobi, Yokosuk, Kanagawa, Japan Frank Oberklaid Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

xxxii

Contributors

Terje Ogden Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development, Unirand, University of Oslo, Majorstuen, Oslo, Norway William P. O’Hare O’Hare Data and Demographic Services, LLC, Ellicott City, MD, USA Dan Olweus Uni Health, Uni Research and University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Yngvar Ommundsen The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Ulleva˚l Stadion, Oslo, Norway Manisha Pathak-Shelat School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA Michele Peterson-Badali University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Jens Qvortrup Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Marcela Raffaelli Department of Human & Community Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA Sara Raley Department of Sociology, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD, USA Gerry Redmond School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Arthur J. Reynolds University of Minnesota, Institute of Child Development, Minneapolis, MN, USA Dominic Richardson Social Policy Division, Department of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (DELSA), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, France Martina Richter Institute of Social Work, Education and Sports Science, University of Vechta, Vechta, Germany Karen Ripoll-Nu´n˜ez Universidad de los Andes, Bogota´, Colombia Beatriz Rodrı´guez University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain Marı´a Jose´ Rodrigo University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain Eugene C. Roehlkepartain Search Institute, Minneapolis, MN, USA Furio Camillo Rosati Faculty of Economics, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy Wendy Rose School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK David M. Rosen Department of Social Sciences and History, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, USA

Contributors

xxxiii

Ce´cile Rousseau Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Espen Røysamb Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Martin D. Ruck The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA Mo´nica Ruiz-Casares Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Centre for Research on Children and Families, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Renee Ryberg Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Yoichi Sakakihara Graduate School of Humanities and Science, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan Bengt Sandin Department of Thematic Studies/Child Studies, University of Link€ oping, Link€ oping, Sweden Peter C. Scales Search Institute, Manchester, MO, USA Barry H. Schneider School of Psychology, Ottawa University, Ontario, Canada Christie Schoenmaker Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Arturo Sesma, Jr. St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, USA Richard A. Settersten, Jr. Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Corvallis, OR, USA Junko Shimizu Tokyo Metropolitan Komei Special Needs Education School for the Physically Challenged, Tokyo, Japan Andra Siibak Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia Philip E. Silvey Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA Kristen Shook Slack School of Social Work and Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, USA James C. Spilsbury Center for Clinical Investigation, Case School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA Ellen Handler Spitz Honors College and the Department of Visual Arts, University of Maryland (UMBC), Baltimore, MD, USA

xxxiv

Contributors

Fiona Stanley Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia Peter N. Stearns George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA Edward G. J. Stevenson Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK Heinz S€ unker Center for International Studies in Social Policy and Social Services, Bergische Universit€at Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany Amy K. Syvertsen Search Institute, Minneapolis, MN, USA Mary Terzian Child Trends, Bethesda, MD, USA Jens C. Thimm Departement of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway Ross A. Thompson Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA Barrie Thorne Departments of Sociology and of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA Habib Tiliouine Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Laboratory of Educational Processes & Social Context (Labo-PECS), University of Oran, Oran, Algeria Melhiku Tiruneh The African Child Information Hub, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Svenn Torgersen Centre for Child and Adolescence Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway, Oslo, Norway Jaume Trilla Department of Theory and History of Education, University of Barcelona, Mundet, Campus Mundet, Llevant, Barcelona, Spain Gisela Trommsdorff Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany Jorge F. del Valle Child and Family Research Group, Faculty of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain Jan Van Gils International Council for Children’s Play, Mechelen, Belgium Ruut Veenhoven Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands North–West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Joar Vittersø Departement of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway Trine Waaktaar Centre for Child and Adolescence Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway, Oslo, Norway

Contributors

xxxv

Gert G. Wagner DIW (German Institute for Economic Research), Berlin, Germany Eddy J. Walakira Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Center for the Study of the African Child and Center for Social Science Research on AIDS, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Catharina Elisabeth Arfwedson Wang Departement of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway Elizabeth Watson School of Social Sciences & Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Penrith South DC, NSW, Australia Charles Watters Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Camden, NJ, USA Thomas S. Weisner Departments of Psychiatry (Semel Institute, Center for Culture & Health) & Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA Paul Alan Williamson Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA Helmut Wintersberger Vienna, Austria Bente Wold Department of Health Promotion and Development, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Carol M. Worthman Laboratory for Comparative Human Biology, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Yuichiro Yamashiro Probiotics Research Laboratory, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan Hirokazu Yoshikawa Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA Henrik Daae Zachrisson Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development, Oslo, Norway ˇ ukauskiene˙ Department of Psychology, Mykolas Romeris University, Rita Z Vilnius, Lithuania

Multifaceted Concept of Child Well-Being Asher Ben-Arieh, Ferran Casas, Ivar Frønes, and Jill E. Korbin

Dictionary definitions of well-being emphasize a desirable state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous; that is, well-being refers to both subjective feelings and experiences as well as to living conditions. Well-being is also related to the fulfillment of desires, to the balance of pleasure and pain, and to opportunities for development and self-fulfillment. The concept refers to the qualities of life and to the many possible dimensions of a good or bad life. The breadth and heterogeneity of the idea of well-being is illustrated in human rights treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Rights are implicitly understood as creating well-being or opportunities for well-being, referring to the quality of children’s lives economically and emotionally; to their psychological states; to their material, social, and cultural environments; as well as to their development and to realizing their potentials.

Co-editorship of the Handbook, and authorship of this chapter are in alphabetical order. A. Ben-Arieh (*) Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] F. Casas Faculty of Education and Psychology, Research Institute of Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] I. Frønes Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioural Development, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] J.E. Korbin Department of Anthropology, Schubert Center for Child Studies, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 1 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_134, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

1

2

A. Ben-Arieh et al.

Perspectives on well-being provide a common ground for scholarly study and for diverse systems of indicators. The field bridges research and policymaking. These integrative functions are rooted both in the multidimensional character and in the normative core of the concept itself. The focus is on the level of well-being, the scale ranging from good to bad, involving implicit or explicit normative assessments. These judgments entail normative discourses – what is good or bad on the many dimensions of well-being – as part of analyses. The focus on children’s well-being is also sensitive to children’s vulnerability; children are especially at risk with regard to adverse trends and this risk factor is reflected in the number of organizations and institutions dedicated to the protection of children. A look at some of the titles behind the nearly 1,000,000,000 internet hits for “well-being and children” illustrates the multifaceted nature of the concept. Articles and headlines brought up by such a search refer to material well-being, emotional well-being, families and well-being, upbringing and well-being, health and well-being, and to a myriad of subthemes like social capital in relation to well-being, unintended pregnancy and well-being, and sickness and well-being – in short a plethora of themes can be found related to well-being and children. This implies not only that the concept of well-being is regarded as fruitful from many perspectives but also that it is a valuable perspective on all aspects of children’s lives. The heterogeneity of the concept not only makes it relevant to different perspectives but also gives a common direction to distinct studies in different domains. In disciplines and domains related to the development of policies and treatments, improvement in well-being has always been the point of departure. The increased monitoring of children’s lives through the development of indicators and the explicit relationships between indicators and policies has brought normative assessments into most studies of childhood and children. Well-being represents a conceptual framework that merges empirical studies and normative assessments as it also bridges policies and research. As the perspective of GDP and “standard of living” were gradually recognized as too narrow to grasp desired societal outcomes of economic policies, well-being became the point at which political, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on welfare and development converged. As an analytical and normative point of departure, the concept of well-being represents not only a new perspective on the quality of life and on positive and negative developments on the macro or societal level but also a framework fulfilling what Fitoussi et al. (2010) refer to as the multiple purposes of measurements that may capture details on the microlevels of lived experience. Well-being refers to individuals as well as to societies and to trends as well as to states. The concept as implemented in research and policy encourages not only measuring well-being but also reflecting on the very idea of what well-being is, on the different domains and related perspectives, and on the individual, group, and global levels. Well-being is the conceptual focal point for assessing the state of children and the discourses on their status.

1

Multifaceted Concept of Child Well-Being

1.1

3

The Meaning of Well-Being

The Constitution of the World Health Organization states that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The WHO statement also illustrates that well-being does not refer primarily to the moment, but to something that lasts over time, even if there is some overlap with happiness and the subjective experiences of the moment. The boundaries of the notion of well-being are elastic; in spite of this, the fact that the concept can convey a reasonable pre´cis, as illustrated by the WHO statement, made well-being a functional concept after the discourse on societal development and welfare transcended the perspective of GDP. The ability to work on different levels, themes, and perspectives, and the association with happiness as well as welfare, makes the notion of well-being functional for many purposes. In philosophy the well-being of a person in general refers to what is good for the individual from their own perspective. The hedonist equation of well-being as the best possible balance between pain and pleasure makes intuitive sense at one level but is problematic at another. The sum of all subjective facets of well-being do not necessarily aggregate to what may be best at the macro level, as illustrated by the detrimental effect that consumption has in global considerations. The tensions among subjective and objective well-being and its indicators, between the moment and possible future consequences, and between the individual and the macro level illustrate the challenges of theorizing well-being. This is even more complex in relation to children; well-being encompasses both children’s lives in the present and how the present influences their future and their development. Children’s development is not a delimited psychological issue but is related to characteristics at the societal level; various societies not only influence social and cognitive development in various ways but require different levels of competencies for members at different ages or of different genders. The emphasis of the CRC (a legally binding normative instrument setting the standards for children’s well-being in a series of domains in life), which underlines that the child has a right to education and to “develop its personality and abilities to the fullest” (Article 29), is implicitly related to the evolution of the educational knowledge society. Such norms are not detailed prescriptions. For example, general agreement on the principle that children should not live in poverty requires an elaboration of what poverty for children implies; underscoring the child’s right to develop his or her potential illustrates that poverty cannot be delimited by a purely material standard. Ongoing considerations with respect to child development from a global vantage point require further elaboration of the understanding of well-being as related to multiple perspectives, positions, and domains. The evaluation of the distribution of well-being with regard to children is especially complex because children are developing and because they are dependent on caretakers on the micro level as well as on politics and economy at the macro level. Children’s well-being is rooted in the interplay of a series of factors on the micro level, framed by the social structures of the wider society.

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The CRC emphasized children’s rights in general terms but did not go further into the relations between rights, freedom, and development. These relations are complex. For example, economic growth may be related to well-being not through subjective mirroring of wealth and income but through material standards that result in benefits to a population. Commodities are a means to an end; the point is to understand what one can achieve with resources, which is related to both opportunity structures and the agency of the subject (Sen 1999). Freedom is related not only to the right to use one’s resources in accordance with one’s own preferences but also to the capacity to transform resources into valuable activities. Related to children, the development of capacities to transform resources into valuable activities is an essential part of well-being. Values are not only subject to variation among individuals or groups and between these levels of organization as well, but values vary with capacities for reflection. In regard to children this implies that the right to well-being involves the right to the development of capacities for reflection as well as the right to freedom of choice. At the macro level well-being will be related to freedom not only in an abstract way but to the fairness of the actual distribution of opportunities. The well-being of a nation is related to both the sum of well-being and to its distribution. Aristotle underlined the pursuit of happiness alone as shallow; the good life for humans is to be understood in terms of the virtuous activities of humans, aimed at meeting a worthwhile purpose. From this perspective, well-being comprises more than individual happiness or individual wealth; it is rather a measure of carefully considered productivity and engagement.

1.2

Complex Roots of Well-Being

Happiness is in general understood as a basic indicator of subjective well-being, yet one that is difficult to capture by measurement. The Easterlin paradox states that after reaching a level where basic needs are covered, increased income on a national level does not increase the general level of happiness. Others argue that there is a relationship (Hagerty and Veenhoven 2003). The discourses on quality of life illustrate the many dimensions of well-being and the complex relations between subjective and objective indicators of a good life; they underscore that well-being is not identical to the indicators of the standard of living. Poverty may engender a lack of subjective wellbeing, but poverty itself is not identical to negative well-being. Reasonable standards of living and freedom can be understood as prerequisites for positive well-being, but do not represent happiness. Even though studies indicate a complex relationship between happiness and contextual factors framing subjective experiences, objective indicators of living conditions such as GNP are often used as indices of a good life. These representational efforts may be rooted in tacit assumptions of a positive correlation between objective indicators and subjective experiences as well as in the availability of objective indicators. The composite “Human Development Index” measures quality of life through interrelated assessments of life expectancy, wealth and education, with well-being understood as the potential for a good life reflected by these indicators.

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Studies of children’s well-being in general focus on trends in different groups and on developmental foundations of well-being, addressing risk as well as what enables children to flourish (Moore and Lippman 2005). On the micro level, achievements seem to facilitate happiness (Howell 2009), and the level of well-being is influenced by the reference groups with whom one compares himself or herself (Carbonell 2005). Further, studies of well-being, and the system of indicators tracking this concept, refer to specific areas of life and to the present as well as the future. In recent decades the development of longitudinal datasets has expanded the possibilities for studying the relationship between early childhood and later phases. Trajectories identified are related not only to the life courses of children but also to societal characteristics; for example, conditions in early childhood may predict unemployment in adulthood (Caspi et al. 1998), which is, in turn, related to the knowledge economy. Longitudinal studies also provide new opportunities for studying the relationship between biological and social factors and dynamics that through developmental processes reinforce initial inequalities among children. Sen (1999) illustrates that well-being is related to opportunity, to the capacity to utilize distinct opportunities, as well as to the freedom to do so in correspondence with one’s own preferences. As such, well-being is directly related to the perspectives and needs of the individual understood within their social milieu. In this arena, children’s own perspectives and voices have often been forgotten. Children are both on their way to a future as adults, involving the rights to develop their abilities, and they are citizens of the present, with the rights to immediate well-being as children. This child-centered focus is one that must increasingly be incorporated in studies of well-being.

1.2.1

Domains of Child Well-Being

Any comprehensive attempt to look at children’s well-being must balance the various socioeconomic and cultural domains of children’s lives and be carefully constructed to include current but historically often excluded subpopulations of children, e.g., those with disabilities; indigenous minorities; very poor or isolated populations; those separated from families; and those who are homeless, refugees, or immigrants (Andrews and Ben-Arieh 1999). Within each domain, preferences and values are socially based but they are not socially determined; well-being emerges at the intersection of agency and society’s frameworks. Within these frameworks, well-being is differentially pertinent and must be differentially assessed. The complexity of the concept is indeed illustrated by the tension among domains: Good well-being in one sector of life does not immunize children from poor well-being in other domains. In part well-being is related to domains because policies are sectored themselves. Housing policies, for example, need information on children’s housing as well as on their particular needs related to housing and these derive from different vantage points. When UNICEF emphasizes children’s need for a place to do homework, the educational society and the knowledge economy are contributing to the assessment of specific

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educational needs related to children and their home environments; citizenship as a domain is rooted in political ideology and rights. Domains can be construed in various ways, based on differing perspectives and methodologies. Key national indicators on well-being for American children focus on indicators from seven domains: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health (Land et al. 2001). UNICEF’s Innocenti Report Card 7 (Adamson 2007) refers to six dimensions of well-being: material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and subjective well-being (Bradshaw and Richardson 2009). Domains can be assessed differently and that makes the process of measuring well-being more complicated. Educational well-being can be evaluated with subjective indicators such as children’s levels of enjoyment at school or by objective indicators such as investment in education. In Report Card 7, educational well-being is indicated by an evaluation of scholastic performance. The set of indicators not only represents different vantage points or values within domains, but the domains themselves may be partly defined by an evaluative approach. Take, for instance, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index of US residents’ health and well-being. This index refers to domains including life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, and work environment. To this is added what is called “basic access”: a component of well-being related to satisfaction with the community or area, economic situation, access to medical treatment, health care, and other basic necessities. Many measures on quality of life in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index illustrate that domains do not exist outside the realm of culture and ideology. Different societies and different periods construct domains in different ways. As a result, the assessment of well-being must be a culturally and historically particular process prior to comparative or global treatments.

1.2.2

Historical Development of the Study of Well-Being

Reflections on present senses of “well-being” may be explored throughout history, among philosophers, religions, literature, and so on. Different notions have existed in different cultures and historical periods. What is good for children? What are the qualities of a good life for children? How do standards of well-being change as children develop? What are the goals of children’s development, education, and socialization? The answers to such questions are related to beliefs, stereotypes, values, “logics,” and social representations and should be examined by researchers looking into how adults in a given society construct (1) childhood, (2) the social problems and social needs of children involving social policies and requiring social interventions, and (3) the best methods for solving children’s social problems and requirements. Studying the phenomenon of things going awry has been a major focus of interest for human and social sciences. For example, for centuries medicine

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concentrated on illness/disease/sickness. However, a few decades ago interest in well-being began to complement the illness orientation: for example, through health promotion. This change of perspective, from negatively valenced challenges to positive constructs, is a silent but far-reaching revolution. Social and behavioral scientists have also long emphasized the emergence and development of social problems and only recently turned to studies promoting well-being or quality of life. While historically psychology focused on curing mental illness, in 1969, G.A. Miller, in his famous speech as new president of the American Psychological Association, proposed to redefine psychology as a “means to promote human wellbeing.” In recent decades many researchers have taken up this charge and moved to focus on a new perspective, positive psychology, the psychology of positive human functioning (Seligman 2002). The contemporary history of the concept of well-being as linked to scientific research (both basic and applied) shows two completely separate trajectories, both of them starting in the twentieth century and developing independently for some decades. One contemporary tradition of studying well-being comes from the health sciences and the other one from the social sciences. The health sciences situate their beginnings in the WHO constitution, in 1946, which states that health is not only the absence of illness or disease but also the presence of well-being. This principle has been repeated in several WHO documents in the following decades and has promoted extensive research (Andelman et al. 1999; WHO 1946, 1978). The tradition in social sciences was by contrast born in association with the so-called “social indicators movement” in the 1960s and appeared as an interdisciplinary approach involving economists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, and other disciplinary experts. Bauer’s book on social indicators (Bauer 1966) is considered by many to be the starting point for the movement toward a new concept: “the quality of life (QOL).” By that period – the end of the 1960s – serious attempts to develop significant research about people’s happiness, psychological well-being or satisfaction with life, or specific domains of life appeared and initiated important scientific debates (Casas 1989, 1991, 1996a). After decades in which this phenomena has been considered subjective and therefore “of no scientific value”, researchers have moved to develop different theoretical conceptualizations and scientific models for QOL, trying to reconcile material (“objective”) and nonmaterial (“subjective”) aspects of the human and sociocultural environment. Quality of life is defined as a construct articulating objective and subjective measures of people’s conditions of living: It is a function of the material (Mcl) and the psychosocial (PScl) conditions of living, that is to say, QOL ¼ f(Mcl, PScl). Defining the material conditions of living is not new. However, defining psychosocial conditions of living (measurable only with subjective indicators) is relatively new and has initiated endless debates. Probably one of the more useful definitions for psychosocial conditions of living was presented by Campbell et al. (1976) when they proposed it should include perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations of people on their own lives. This also became one of the best-known definitions of subjective

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well-being. Many authors consider subjective well-being as closely related or even synonymous with other psychologically positive constructs, particularly “happiness” and “life satisfaction.” Following Bauer’s introductory discussions, the concept of “QOL” was taken immediately into health sciences research. Most authors working in this area started to use the phrase as synonymous with well-being, thinking that well-being was rooted in a much older tradition and, therefore, not a new concept. However, in social sciences quality of life has never been considered synonymous with well-being but is rather treated as a broader concept. During the last two decades, a new concept “H-R QOL” (Health-Related Quality of Life) has created a pathway along which a reciprocal understanding between the two disciplinary traditions may develop. In the meanwhile, inside the social and behavioral sciences and particularly inside psychology, the humanistic tradition made specific new contributions to debates on subjective well-being developing a focus on “psychological well-being.” By contrast with the mainstream hedonic tradition in social science relating good life to happiness and satisfaction with overall life, authors in the alternative eudaimonic tradition defend a good life as related to fulfillment, self-determination, and meaning. The health-related tradition has contributed to the knowledge of child well-being mainly with research focused on clinical populations, before and after health interventions. The social sciences-related traditions began slowly focusing on adult subjects moving on to issues of child well-being only several decades later. Even with the move to studies of child well-being in the social and behavioral disciplines, there was a particular reluctance to study children’s subjective well-being. In recent decades, there has been an increasing amount of research on children’s and adolescents’ well-being in general (non-clinical) populations. Much of this involves developing and testing psychometric instruments, most based on the hedonic tradition with almost no instruments specific for children or adolescents provided by the eudaimonic tradition. Additionally, recent years have shown an increasing amount of qualitative research with children, related to their well-being. With the number of indicators of well-being growing, it is notable that in many situations, subjective and material components of QOL are not correlated. “Objective” measures by experts and “subjective” satisfaction of users of services may not correlate at all. Years of debates have ultimately shown that what is scientifically relevant in this regard is not the question “who is right?” but “why different “observers” (i.e., social agents) disagree?” Sorting through the diverse measures of well-being may be a first step to answering this question. In recent years, a broad consensus among researchers has arisen, considering psychological well-being a key component of QOL. Authors name this phenomena subjective well-being (Diener 1984; Huebner 1991; Huebner et al. 1998), psychological well-being (Casas 1998; Ryff 1989), human well-being (Blanco et al. 2000), social well-being (Keyes 1998), or subjective quality of life (Cummins and Cahill 2000). Starting with the 1960s (Bradburn 1969; Bradburn and Caplovitz 1965), most authors today agree that well-being has an important subjective dimension and that this dimension has an affective component related to the “happiness” concept.

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Another important and more cognitive dimension of well-being is “satisfaction” with life domains and with life as a whole. Both the affective and the cognitive dimensions are considered indicators or outcomes of good psychological conditions of living. Additionally, there is accumulated evidence in localized and crosscultural studies that well-being is correlated with other positive constructs such as self-esteem, perceived control, perceived social support (Huebner 2004; Casas et al. 2007), values (Diener and Fujita 1995; Diener et al. 1998; Csikzentmihalyi 1997; Coenders et al. 2005). According to Diener’s (1984) review, there is a broad consensus that subjective well-being has three basic characteristics: (1) It is grounded in each person’s experiences, and in his or her perceptions and evaluations of such experiences; (2) it includes positive measures and not only the absence of negative aspects; and (3) it includes some overall evaluation of life, usually named “life satisfaction.” However, since Andrews and Withey (1976) proposed a one-item life satisfaction index, this has been widely used as a basic indicator of well-being although with different formats (i.e., Cantrils’ ladder), and it has also been used with children and adolescents. Some authors consider this single item a higher-order measure of wellbeing (Cummins 1998) than the aggregated more focused measures, and it is frequently combined in questionnaires with other multi-items scales. Satisfaction with life as a whole is understood by many authors to be a global evaluation of life (Veenhoven 1994). Overall life satisfaction (OLS) is considered “more than” satisfaction with a set of life domains. On the other hand, life-domains satisfaction and OLS can be explained both through individual and cultural differences (Diener 1984). Many other authors have underlined how important satisfaction with specific life domains is for personal well-being. In the scientific literature long discussions have ensued about which are the most relevant life domains for an assessment of global life satisfaction. Cummins (1998) considers life-domains satisfaction a second order level and proposed the Personal Well-Being Index to evaluate life satisfaction with only seven different primary life domains, which he hypothesizes are the most cross-culturally relevant. When the concept QOL was defined in the 1960s, its political implications were “obvious”: Any society or any social group changing “for the better” would improve the quality of the lives of its citizens. Any valuable service will improve the quality of life of their clients or users. This implied that by improving material conditions of living, the psychosocial conditions of living and QOL would improve. However, while the meaning of “improving material conditions of living” is often clear, it has never been easy to specify how to improve the “psychosocial conditions of living” of a general population, particularly when subjective well-being is included. Today we know that the quality of public services and relative wealth do contribute to subjective well-being but less than expected, particularly for people at median levels of QOL or above, as is typical in more industrialized countries. Additionally there are external factors related to interpersonal relationships that contribute to subjective well-being and may be difficult to measure. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the primary scholarly debate is focused on two significant dimensions of subjective well-being – happiness and life

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satisfaction. The crucial point can be formulated with a question mark: Should governments develop policies aimed to increase citizens’ happiness or satisfaction with life? What would such policies be like? (Veenhoven 2001).

1.2.3

What is Quality in Children’s Lives? And from Whose Perspective?

Developmental psychologists as well as pedagogues, pediatricians, and other professionals have invested a great deal of energy in understanding what is good for children and for child development. Parents usually also want the best for their children. In addition, organizations such as UNICEF and legal documents such as the CRC may represent children’s best interests. What different people or institutions define as good or best for children may be considered standards or indicators of quality in young people’s lives. However, experts often do not agree among themselves about such standards; they may change their minds, parents may disagree with them, and the cross-cultural validity of such standards is often doubtful. This diversity is not to be discounted. In fact, there are important cultural (and individual or perspectival) differences about what is good for children (Childwatch International 1995; Ennew 1996; Casas 1997b, 2000a). Scientists often conceptualize childhood at least as a starting point by referencing typical representations from within their own sociocultural context (Chombart de Lauwe 1971; 1984; 1989; Casas 1996b, 1997a). Yet, social representations of childhood are biased by societal norms in the ways one perceives and conceptualizes what is good and what is bad for children, in perceptions of what social problems (as opposite to “private” matters) are particularly relevant for children, and in deciding what counts as a “good life” during childhood (for children themselves) (Casas 1998). In social science as well as in social life, qualitative and quantitative measures, as have been mentioned, often complement one another in measuring well-being for children. To identify a good quality of life in some domain, it is essential not only to have subjective and objective measures for conditions of children’s living but also to achieve some consensus about what constitutes “good quality,” that is, a normative standard to compare with “reality.” However, at present there is no clear agreement about such standards. To date, the definitions of “social problems” and “good quality” for children are strongly influenced by the way society implements social intervention programs (and social policies) to deal with children’s problems (and the problems of families with children) and/or to promote children’s quality of life (Casas 1998). In fact, an overview of the research on children’s quality of life studies finds few publications that include children’s own perspectives. The most usual research focuses on the attribution of needs or the perceptions of quality from adult (experts’ or parents’) vantage points. In many instances, this is a misuse of the concept “quality of life,” because it betrays the basic definition of the concept: people’s own perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations. Therefore, in practice, what has been referred to over decades as research on children’s quality of life does not truly

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address the quality of young peoples’ lives but of others’ perceptions or opinions about their lives. Traditionally what is good or best for children has been decided by parents or by experts who “know” about children’s needs from their own perspectives. Yet, step by step, the perspective of the child, which may indeed differ from that of adults, has become important in research. However, even though this change is often discussed in the scholarship on children today, it is still often taken for granted that children need not be asked, because they do not know (are not yet capable or competent to know) what is good for them. Who is right and who is wrong has been decided on beforehand. If we compare this situation with the recent historical process of studying quality of life, we may suddenly wonder about the best perspective from which to carry research forward. Perhaps if asked, children may sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with different groups of adults. Having data from multiple perspectives at hand would allow investigation of the reasons for such disagreements or consensus and promote learning from them. Disagreements between children and adults regarding aspects of children’s lives can be an important dimension of social life and of interpersonal and intergenerational relationships. For example, adolescents and youngsters in general are more often “risk takers” than are adults; having new and amusing experiences is important for them. For adults, “security” for youths is often more important. As a result, security measures imposed by adults from an adult perspective on what is best for young people may be considered by the youths themselves as a reflection of an adult desire to control their lives or limit their freedoms. Such disagreement might be better understood and more often mitigated if both children’s and adult perspectives were considered in research. The psychosocial context in which such disagreements occur is based in both adults and youngsters considering each other as opposed social groups or categories. Their interactions occur in what social psychologists call processes of intergroup categorical differentiation (Tajfel 1978; Casas 1996a). Adults appear to be vested in their differentiation from adolescents and younger children. Yet, it is a challenge to understand why adults are “interested” in this categorical social differentiation. When policymakers urge an increase in children’s participation and responsibility in society, adults are often reluctant to agree (Casas 1998). An alternative is to think in supra-categories (i.e., human beings, with universal human rights) instead of thinking as juxtaposed age-based categories perhaps – that thinking has more potential to encourage mutual understanding of perspectives and dialog and to stimulate the effort to build up social consensus between the new generations.

1.2.4

Global Perspectives on Children’s Well-Being

There is a remarkable diversity in the experiences of children and of their childhoods around the world. This diversity poses a challenge to conceptualizing wellbeing and demands a contextualized perspective along with any consideration of the more universal needs of children. While there has been a call and a moral stance

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taken toward looking for the optimal child situation, there are multiple pathways toward well-being each suited to particular cultural contexts. While globalization has led to improvements in child well-being in some domains, such as education, it has also increased disparities between those children who benefit through access to education and those who do not. Four major points should be remembered in considering child well-being in a cross-cultural or global perspective. (1) Childcare practices vary widely around the world and those that are taken for granted as normative or positive in any one society may be regarded as negative in others. Too often discrete practices are compared across cultural contexts without regard for their larger embeddedness within particular social settings. (2) For the most part, there is limited empirical evidence on the outcomes, positive and negative, of most cultural practices. Understanding the consequences to child well-being in particular cultural and contextual settings is a matter for empirical study rather than for judgments measured against a presumed universal standard. (3) The available evidence relevant to causes and consequences of well-being is largely limited to Western cultures (Henrich et al. 2010). “The study of child development has been largely confined to children in North America, Europe, and other Western countries, who comprise less than 10 % of all children in the world” (LeVine and New 2008, p. 1). (4) Differences in children’s experiences thought to lead to well-being may be highly contested both across and within cultural contexts.

1.2.5

Measuring and Monitoring Children’s Well-Being

The use of statistical data and indicators to specifically study the well-being of children is not new. Pioneering “State of the Child” reports were published as early as the 1940s (Ben-Arieh 2008; Ben-Arieh et al. 2001). Nevertheless, most researchers would agree that the current attention to child well-being indicators has its substantial origins in the “social indicators movement” of the 1960s, which arose in a climate of rapid social change, and in the sense among social scientists and public officials that well measured and consistently collected social indicators could provide a way to monitor the condition of groups in society at a particular moment and over time, including the conditions of children and families (Land 2000). Indicators of children’s well-being, in particular, are used by child advocacy groups, policymakers, researchers, the media, and service providers for several purposes (e.g., to describe the condition of children, to monitor or track child outcomes, or to set goals). Although there are notable gaps and inadequacies in existing child and family well-being indicators (Ben-Arieh 2000), there also are literally dozens of data series and indicators from which to form opinions and draw conclusions (Bradshaw et al. 2007). The rapidly growing interest in children’s wellbeing indicators stems, in part, from a movement toward accountability-based public policy, which demands more accurate measures of the conditions children face and the outcomes of various programs designed to address those conditions. At the same time, rapid changes in family life have prompted an increased demand

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from child development professionals, social scientists, and the public for a better picture of children’s well-being (Ben-Arieh and Wintersberger 1997; Lee 1997). In addition to the growing policy demands for accountability, the birth and development of the child indicators movement can be attributed to the emergence of new normative and conceptual theories as well as methodological advancements. Broadly speaking, three major normative or theoretical changes have contributed to the creation and evolution of the child indicators field: (1) the normative concept of children rights, (2) the new sociology of childhood as a stage in and of itself, and (3) ecological theories of child development. Similarly, three methodological issues gave rise to the child indicators movement: (1) the emerging importance of the subjective perspective, (2) the child as the unit of observation, and (3) the expanded use of administrative data and a growing variety of data sources. Finally, the call for more policy-oriented research also played a role in the evolution of attention to indicators. As efforts to measure and monitor children’s well-being have expanded in recent years, so has scholarly interest. This growth was evident in numerous joint projects by government, nongovernment, and academic institutes and in numerous “State of the Child” reports (Ben-Arieh et al. 2001; Land et al. 2001). State of the Child reports are published documents (not necessarily academic publications and definitely not scholarly papers) typically authored by academicians and advocates that address the status of children with the goal of monitoring their status in a given region or area (Ben-Arieh and Goerge 2001; Bradshaw and Barnes 1999). A quick look at the number of these reports published recently reveals children’s well-being and attention to indicators to be a growing field. Much of this new and enhanced activity can be accounted for by UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children annual report as well as the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count initiative in the United States. The UN’s CRC, through its global ratification and its reporting and monitoring mechanism, has also played an important role in increasing interest in these reports (Ben-Arieh 2012). This growth has enabled scholars to use the reports to examine whether any specific patterns or trends are emerging in the indicators field in general or in the production of the reports themselves. A number of reviews (Ben-Arieh 2006, 2012; Ben-Arieh and Goerge 2001; Bradshaw and Barnes 1999) as well as several other studies (Hauser et al. 1997; Moore et al. 2004) concluded that the field of children’s social indicators has evolved through several major shifts in the past 30 years. We outline this trajectory below. The evolution of child indicators has occurred in four, sometimes concurrent, stages noted as the first four items in the following list. Researchers have argued that the current field of child indicators can be characterized by these and additional features as follows. (1) Indicators, their measurement, and use are driven by the universal acceptance of the CRC. (2) Indicators have broadened beyond children’s immediate survival to their well-being (without necessarily neglecting the survival indicators). (3) Efforts are combining a focus on negative and positive aspects of children’s lives. (4) The well-becoming perspective – a focus on the future success of the generation – while still dominant, is no longer the only perspective. Well-being – children’s current status – is now considered legitimate as well. (5) New domains of

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child well-being have emerged, fewer efforts are professionally- or service-oriented, and many more are child-centered. (6) The child as the unit of observation is now common. Efforts to measure and monitor children’s well-being today start from the child and move outward. (7) Efforts to include subjective perceptions, including the child’s, are growing. Recent efforts acknowledge the usefulness of both quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as multiple methods. (8) Numerous efforts to develop composite indices are underway at all geographic levels, local, national, and international. (9) The shift is evident toward a greater emphasis on policy-oriented efforts. A major criterion for selecting indicators is their usefulness to community workers and policymakers. Policymakers are often included in the process of developing the indicators and discussing the usefulness of various choices. Clearly, the child indicators field has evolved. The various reviews of the field support this claim. The volume of activity is clearly rising, and new indicators, composite indices, and State of the Child reports are emerging. These and the above-noted changes are occurring widely, although at different paces (Ben-Arieh 2000, 2006, 2012). As new indicators are developed across additional domains, the field will continue to expand (Bradshaw et al. 2007; Lippman 2004).

1.2.6

From Survival to Well-Being

Much attention has been paid to children’s physical survival and basic needs, focusing often on threats to children’s survival. In fact, the use of such social indicators has spurred programs to save children’s lives (Ben-Arieh 2000; Bradshaw et al. 2007). Infant and child mortality, school enrollment and dropout rates, immunizations, and childhood disease are all examples of areas where data on basic needs has improved child survival broadly. However, a fundamental shift occurs when the focus shifts from survival to well-being. Both Aber (1997) and Pittman and Irby (1997) argued in the late 1990s for indicators that moved beyond basic needs of development and beyond the phenomenon of deviance to those that reflect the promotion of child development. These efforts in turn moved the field from efforts to determine minimums, as in saving a life, to those that focus on quality of life. This shift was further supported by efforts to better understand what QOL entailed and its implications for children (Casas et al. 2000; Huebner 1997, 2004).

1.2.7

From Negative to Positive

Measures of risk factors or negative behaviors are not the same as measures that gauge protective factors or positive behaviors (Aber and Jones 1997). The absence of problems or failures does not necessarily indicate proper growth and success (Ben-Arieh 2006; Moore et al. 2004). Thus, the challenge has become developing indicators that hold societies accountable for more than the safe warehousing of children and youth (Pittman and Irby 1997). As Resnick (1995, p. 3) states, “children’s well-being indicators are on the move from concentrating only on

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trends of dying, distress, disability, and discomfort to tackling the issue of indicators of sparkle, satisfaction, and well-being.” However, children’s positive outcomes are not static. They result from an interplay of resources and risk factors pertinent to the child, his or her family, his or her friends, his or her school, and the wider society. These resources and risk factors are constantly changing, and children, with their evolving capacities, actively create their own well-being by mediating among available supports and impinging risks. Antonovsky (1987) describes this process in his concept of “salutogenesis,” which he suggests captures the movement of people on a continuum between health and disease, balancing stress and resources.

1.2.8

Well-Being and Well-Becoming

The sociology of childhood underscores two dimensions, or axes, in the understanding of childhood and children. Each has its origins in the Greek philosophy that conceived the concepts of being (object or state) and becoming (change or development). These concepts refer to life as it is experienced in the present and life as it develops toward adulthood. Children’s rights refer both to their rights here and now and to their right to develop and “become,” as illustrated by the CRC emphasis on children’s rights to realize their potentials. We may view being as a state at a given point in time and becoming as the unfolding of the life course along trajectories shaped by social structures and the agency of the actor. An emphasis on becoming – as in the modern society – may entail that the state of being is intensely in focus because of the emphasis on becoming. Being may represent the cultivating of factors that are understood to influence future being. The investment in children’s futures may represent an important part of children’s well-being but may also imply a structuring of childhood that exploits the life of the present. The sociology of childhood, as well as modern advocacy of children’s rights, underline rights for children as citizens of the present, not only as beings on their way to adult positions. The relationship between being and becoming is, in itself, a part of children’s well-being. The child who spends countless hours on schoolwork may lose out on leisure activities of play but may gain in the future, while the child who invests little in schoolwork may enjoy the moment but weaken his or her future well-being. Similarly, a child who spends long hours practicing sports or music may lose on his present well-being but may gain affluence and achievements as an adult. The status and position of children have to be understood within the framework of the present, as description, and within a framework of life course and development, as predictions. Total well-being includes them both. In contrast to the immediacy of well-being, well-becoming describes a future focus (i.e., preparing children to be productive and happy adults). Qvortrup (1999) laid the foundation for considering children’s well-being in claiming that the conventional preoccupation with the next generation is a preoccupation of adults. Anyone interested in children and childhood should in this view be interested in present as well as future childhood. In other words, children are instrumentalized by

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forward-looking perspectives in the sense that their “good life” is postponed until adulthood. As such, perspectives on well-becoming focus on opportunities rather than provisions (de Lone 1979). Accepting the arguments of Qvortrup and others to concentrate on the well-being of children does not deny the relevance of a child’s development toward adulthood. In addition, focusing on preparing children to become citizens suggests that they are not citizens during childhood, a concept that is hard to reconcile with a belief in children’s rights. It is not uncommon to find in the literature reference to the importance of rearing children who will be creative, ethical, and moral adult members of a community. It is harder to find reference to children’s well-being and immediate creative social participation during their childhood. Indeed, both perspectives are legitimate and necessary for social science and for public policy. However, the emergence of the child-centered perspective, and its focus on children’s well-being, introduced new ideas and energy to the child indicators movement.

1.2.9

Children’s Own Perceptions of Well-Being

Children’s well-being should take into account: (1) children’s conditions of living and “objective” measures of their well-being; (2) children’s perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations regarding their own lives – including children’s subjective well-being; and (3) perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations of other relevant social agents (stakeholders) about children’s lives and conditions of living, i.e., the opinions of their parents, teachers, pediatricians, educators, social professionals, and so on. Studies of children’s well-being have seldom been conducted with children or adolescents, particularly if we compare these with similar research on adults’ wellbeing (Huebner 2004). Many of the preliminary studies with children 8 years old or older use the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) (Huebner 1994), which functions well in different cultural contexts (Casas et al. 2000). Cummins’ (1998) Personal Well-Being Index has also been used successfully with adolescents 12–16 years old in Romania, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Spain, and Australia (Casas et al. 2011; Casas et al. 2012; Tomyn and Cummins 2011), and longer lists of life domains have been explored at least in Brazil, India, South Africa, Norway, and Spain (Casas et al. 2004). In fact, throughout the last decade, subjective well-being in childhood and adolescence has flourished engendering productive discussions (Ben-Arieh et al. 2001), even while different authors use different concepts and approaches. Researchers have taken an interest in asking children about their own life evaluations, with the result that children’s answers may be unexpected and surprising for adults. Huebner (2004) reviewed correlations found by different authors between life satisfaction measures in children and adolescents and other measures of adaptive and positive functioning. Among his conclusions, it is worth pointing out the following: (1) Although the development of life satisfaction scales appropriate for children and adolescents has only recently been undertaken, there is support for convergent validity of diverse life satisfaction measures and (2) there is

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a developing support for discriminate validity. Life satisfaction appears to be related to, but separable from, a variety of psychological constructs, such as selfesteem, positive affect, and negative affect. Traditionally there has been reluctance among social scientists to accept children’s self-reported information as reliable in agreement with adults’ social representation of children as “not yets,” i.e., not yet competent (Casas 1999; Verhellen 1992). This attitude has recently started to change. A number of publications are now available recommending how best to communicate with children (Richman 1993), how to listen to children’s points of view in different contexts (Garbarino et al. 1989), and how to develop research with the children (Mason and Danby 2011). As Garbarino and colleagues (1989) stated, it is adult’s orientation and competence when relating and listening to children that raises the difference of children’s competence. Developmental psychologists have tested instruments over decades for successfully interviewing children in order to understand their cognitive capacities and other skills. Following the psychologists, probably those more interested in knowing children’s points of view have been publicists and professionals involved with the media: Children are consumers and media audiences, so their preferences are significant in market research. A couple of decades before the end of the twentieth century, publications began to appear in which children were asked what they think about something. A number of studies asking children for their opinions on the family (Van Gils 1995), about their own rights (Melton 1980; Cherney and Perry 1994; Ochaita et al. 1994), about their neighborhoods (Casas 1996c; Spilsbury et al. 2009, 2012), and so on, promoted international debates. This research transcends limitations on sample sizes posed by traditional studies using children’s compositions or designs and reduces the reliance on adult interpretation bias. The issue of whether children are able to answer appropriately or not to questionnaires exploring their overall life satisfaction or their satisfaction regarding particular life domains is critical. Huebner (1991) first tested both a onedimensional and a multidimensional questionnaire of satisfaction adapted for children. The multidimensional scale included measures about family, friends, school, living environment, and self. The complementary one-dimensional scale was simple (seven items) and was tested successfully with children 8–14 years old. From his findings, Huebner (1991) concluded that “the notion of children’s global life satisfaction can be reliably and validly assessed in children as early as 8 years old.” Parents’ and children’s perspectives and evaluations about widely ranging topics are increasingly being explored (Megı´as 2002; Barge and Loges 2003; Luk-Fong 2005). Values and audiovisual media are two examples of interesting fields for such comparisons (Coenders et al. 2005; Casas et al. 2001). Audiovisual media studies during the 1990s provided evidence of stereotypes that adults use to explain children’s lives. For example, many adults said that the preferred activity of their children was watching TV – some children never voluntarily moved, adults suggested, from sitting in front of a television set. When children started to be asked about their preferences, a different landscape emerged: Children and adolescents most preferred being with friends; television watching,

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children indicated, is useful for collecting information to talk about with friends, but only of interest as a focal activity when friends are not available (Casas 2011). Another documented difference between adults and children is their comfort levels with technology. While many adults feel incompetent with information and communication technologies (ICTs), children are adept and even enthusiastic in using them. In fact, in Europe, it is clear that “children in the household” is a variable that influences the level of ICTs at home (S€ uess et al. 1998). It has become obvious that many adults miss a lot of relevant information about children’s activities and interests with respect to new technologies, and they wrongly assume that children’s perspectives must be the same with that of adult’s. For example, in a research on video game use (Casas 2000b, 2001), questions were asked of children and then, in separately, parents were asked about their own ideas and their ideas about their children’s thoughts on exactly the same topics. Parents and children shared a number of ideas, for example, that video games are useless as a mean for learning. However, statistically significant discrepancies appeared between parents and male children about three topics: when children were asked whether video game playing is lost time, whether they prefer video games incorporating fighting and war, and whether they play video games to forget their problems. In relation to these topics, parents’ ideas about their child were related to their own desires, not to the children’s feelings. Last, but not least, traditional research on children often assumed that socialization is a one-way process, mainly related to parents’ skills – those with knowledge about life and about the world socialize those without knowledge, i.e., the children. However, a bidirectional model of socialization has been assumed among experts by the second half of the twentieth century (Kuczynski et al. 1997). Two main consequences arise from that new model: (1) Adults also learn and can learn from children. In fact they often do, although a general tendency is observed to undervalue the importance of such learning (these are “childish” things). (2) Adults have often attributed intergenerational relationship problems to the behavior of the younger-generation members. Aristotle, in his time, voiced his worries about young people losing and changing traditional values. On a tablet dated around 2800 BC similar thoughts appear: “Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching” (Layard and Dunn 2009, quoting information from David Piachaud about a tablet in the Istanbul Municipal Museum). Throughout history Western cultures have looked at youngsters without confidence in their emerging status and responsibility. Young people are often said not to “explain things to adults.” However, at present, research evidence in Europe suggests that adults are also changing traditional values on how to raise children (Commission of the European Communities 1990) and that adults are often the ones who avoid talking to younger people, particularly about topics where children show greater interest (Casas 2001). If one truly assumes that well-being and quality of life include perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations of people about their own lives, then research on children’s quality of life is at its very beginnings. Researchers are only starting to

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“listen to children,” to “discover” their opinions and evaluations, to recognize that children’s points of view may be different from adults,’ and to understand that it is no longer clear who “is right” or perhaps that the question of “rightness” is not the most useful focus for investigation. This allows a new question mark: Why do adults and children differ on the perceptions and evaluations of the important aspects of everyday lives? In order to develop well-designed intervention programs, a better understanding of conditions to be changed is essential. The present state of the art of well-being and quality of life research establishes crucial findings, not specifically researched for children yet, but that would appear to be valid for children’s populations: 1. Improving the quality of public services has a positive impact on people’s quality of life, including subjective well-being. 2. Participation of users of services in the design and functioning of those services has positive effects on users’ perceptions and evaluations and other positive consequences. For example, participation in the design of urban spaces has an “appropriating” effect and, as a consequence, the spaces are respected and those who have engaged with the process actively ask respect for these spaces by others. The same impact has been observed on children when they participate in the design of city open spaces for playing. In the general population, political democracy (respect for political and civil rights) has been shown to contribute to higher happiness levels (Veenhoven 2001). 3. Improving material conditions of living has a positive impact on people’s quality of life. The lower the material conditions of living are, the higher the impact when they are improved. 4. It is difficult to improve the subjective well-being for people who are happy or well satisfied with life. However, it is easier to improve the subjective well-being of those who are unhappy or unsatisfied with their own living conditions. An important political recommendation rises from such evidence: In order to have a clear impact on the mean quality of life of any population globally, it is most effective to focus action on those living in the worse conditions. 5. In order to understand the quality of life of any population, one needs to know the point of view of all social agents involved. This includes children’s points of view. Improving satisfactory interpersonal relationships is probably the best way to have a positive impact in people’s subjective well-being. Recall that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, in its article 25.1, states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” More than two decades ago, Williams (1993) discussed the importance of quality of life in policy decisions and concluded that quality of life measurement, as a way of measuring the relative value of the benefits of different interventions, has a tremendous future at all levels, from the monitoring of individual performance

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to the establishment of social priorities. However, he argued that it will probably take several decades before we can expect to see this kind of data used for policy decisions on a regular basis. Children’s perspectives are opening up access to “a different interpersonal and social world.” The idea of “children’s cultures” makes sense when we know that children and adolescents have their own opinions, experiences, evaluations, and aspirations, which are not only constructed in their interactions with adults but sometimes independently. In fact, many different researchers have suggested that experiences, values, and perceptions are much less shared between parents and children than once presumed (Kuczynski et al. 1997). That becomes particularly evident with research on audiovisual media use and on the interpersonal relationships related to or mediated by these technologies. After initial promising results, further advances require creative research replicating and improving designs and instruments for data collection.

1.3

Discourses on Well-Being

The concept of well-being is complex, encompassing problems of subjective wellbeing and happiness, Aristotelian perspectives on the good life, and the rights of the subject to a voice and to freedom of choice. The interplay of the dimensions of wellbeing and of well-becoming particular to childhood produces a special complexity related to children’s quality of life. Some families and cultures may focus on becoming and academic achievements, while others may argue that this focus on becoming overshadows the well-being of the present. Many of the most famous artists of the world spent their childhood with intensive rehearsals, realizing their potentialities and shaping fantastic adult lives, but perhaps losing the play of childhood. A prominent Western middle-class style of socialization, conceptualized as concerted cultivation, underlines parents’ obligations to guide, support, and push their children through educational systems, while a complementary working-class upbringing termed natural growth, implies less parental involvement in children’s development (Lareau 2003). The modern version of concerted cultivation also represents the development of children’s voices; the voice of a child as an adult is a fruit of learning and discursive reflection. Perspective and wisdom do not emerge solely out of social positions. There is an ongoing debate in many countries about the possible overburdening of children in educational systems and through organized activities, weakening their well-being and also weakening play, which has been the primary context for children’s learning and development through human history. The discourses of children’s well-being relate to the Aristotelian challenge, entangling individual well-being with the development of the reflexive subject and the greater good. The ideas of well-being are rooted in ongoing discourses of well-being. The position of the concept in politics and research encourages discursive and ideological reflections on its meaning in various domains, illustrating that the well-being of individuals and their societies is related to personal as well as social frameworks and global as well as to the local perspectives.

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Structure of the Handbook

This multivolume compendium on child well-being takes as its starting point that child well-being is best understood within a multicultural and multidisciplinary framework, encompassing a wide range of approaches and contexts. The organization reflects the project of exploring the multifaceted nature of child well-being. More than 110 chapters reveal wide-ranging interest in child well-being around the world through its conceptualizations, its topic areas, its policy implications, its context, its expression, and the myriad of components that comprise the well-being of children. The compendium also reflects broad geographic and global interest in child well-being with chapters representing nations and cultures around the world, not limited, as is often the case, to North American and European perspectives. By encompassing these diverse perspectives, the Handbook hopes to broaden discourses and their scholarly and policy relevances. In the first section of the handbook, contributors explore the history of well-being, the cultural context, and gendered and intergenerational perspectives. These orienting frameworks are then followed by a diversity of disciplinary approaches to well-being represented by the 15 chapters in ▶ Sect. II. The authors of these 15 chapters consider approaches that multiple disciplines have taken to understanding child well-being within their own disciplinary frames. ▶ Section III continues to set parameters by including various theoretical approaches to child well-being. In ▶ Sect. IV authors give consideration to children’s well-being in the context of activities that shape their lives and are shaped by their participation: well-being in school and in after-school activities, at play and at work, engaging in sports and artistic endeavors, volunteering and engaging in civic and political activities, and in the use of time. In ▶ Sect. V, attention is turned specifically toward children’s artistic activities in relation to well-being, and ▶ Sect. VI centers on the impact of religious and spiritual life. The importance of an ecological perspective on child well-being gives shape to ▶ Sect. VII in which scholars consider the child embedded in families, schools, communities and neighborhoods, and social networks. In ▶ Sect. VIII contributors focus on children’s material conditions: poverty and social exclusion as well as affluence, children as consumers as well as producers, the costs of a child as well as the intergenerational distribution of wealth, and costs and effects of child welfare interventions. Children’s well-being considered in a life course perspective is the frame for ▶ Sect. IX in which authors attend to the periods of infancy through early childhood, adolescence, and the transition to adulthood. The section also includes a consideration of how life course perspectives and the importance of changing contexts influence understandings. Interpersonal relationships, so critical to child well-being, are considered by those writing for chapters in ▶ Sect. X, where approaches encompass relationships with peers, siblings, and allomothers and include a consideration of children as caregivers themselves. In a globalizing world, the role of the media takes on increasing importance. In ▶ Sect. XI authors consider the influence of various aspects of the media on

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child well-being including television, news media, advertising, and the role of the internet. ▶ Section XII has a focus on the family and parenting, considering parental labor, parenting styles, and issues of adoption and children without permanent parents. ▶ Section XIII includes attention to a range of health issues as they relate to children’s well-being, from mental health to HIV and AIDS, from body image to how neuroscience is related to child-rearing practices. ▶ Section XIV moves to a consideration of children’s rights, particularly the role of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children’s participation in their own rights is a component of this section. ▶ Section XV focuses on scholarship identifying the roots of children’s aggression as well as children’s vulnerabilities to bullying, maltreatment, crime, and life in the streets. In ▶ Sect. XVI scholars draw attention to issues of methods and measures to understand child well-being and consider the indices that have been developed. Methods include considering children’s perspectives, subjective and objective indicators, and the use of mixed methodologies and multiple sources of information. Issues involved in international comparisons and the ethics of research on children’s well-being are included. Contributors to ▶ Sect. XVII explore the strategies and policies that have been aimed at enhancing child well-being including early intervention, prevention, and the use of advocacy to promote child well-being. The concluding section of the book, ▶ Sect. XVIII, includes the work of authors who bring forward global issues related to child well-being such as child soldiers, migration, self-determination, and the impact of globalization itself. The editors hope and anticipate that the project of this Handbook is but a beginning for more work by scholars and practitioners, policymakers, and child advocates on the issues that surround child well-being.

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Commission of the European Communities. (1990). Public opinion in the European community. Eurobarometre, 34. August. Brussels. Csikzentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York: Basic Books. Cummins, R. A. (1998). The second approximation to an international standard of life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 43, 307–334. Cummins, R. A., & Cahill, J. (2000). Avances en la comprensio´n de la calidad de vida subjetiva. Intervencio´n Psicosocial, 9(2), 185–198. de Lone, R. H. (1979). Small futures: Children, inequality, and the limits of liberal reform. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 542–575. Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1995). Resources, personal strivings, and subjective well-being: A nomothetic and idiographic approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 926–935. Diener, E., Suh, S., & Oishi, S. (1998). Recent studies on subjective well-being. Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 24, 25–41. Ennew, J. (1996). Indicators for children’s rights – A resource file. Oslo: Childwatch International. Fitoussi, J-P., Sen, A., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2010). Mismeasuring our lives: Why GDP doesn’t add up, New York: The New Press. Garbarino, J., Stott, F. M. et al. (1989). What children can tell us. Chicago. Jossey-Bass. (Trad.: Lo que nos pueden decir los nin˜os. Extraer, evaluar e interpretar la informacio´n infantil. Madrid: Centro de Publicaciones. M.A.S., 1993). Hagerty, M., & Veenhoven, R. (2003). Wealth and happiness revisited – Growing national income does go with greater happiness. Social Indicators Research, 64, 1–27. Hauser, R. M., Brown, B. V., & Prosser, W. R. (Eds.). (1997). Indicators of children’s well-being. New York: Russell Sage. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–135. Howell, A. J. (2009). Flourishing: Achievement-related correlates of students’ well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 1–13. Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial development of the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale. School Psychology International, 12, 231–240. Huebner, E. S. (1994). Preliminary development and validation of a multidimensional life satisfaction scale of children. Psychological Assessment, 6(2), 149–158. Huebner, E. S. (1997). Life satisfaction and happiness. In G. G. Bear, K. M. Minke, & A. Thomas (Eds.), Children’s needs II: Development, problems, and alternatives. Springer: Dordrecht Huebner, E. S. (2004). Research on assessment of life satisfaction of children and adolescents. Social Indicators Research, 66(1–2), 3–33. Huebner, E. S., Laughlin, J. E., Asch, C., & Gilman, R. (1998). Further validation of the multidimensional student’s life satisfaction scale. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 16(2), 118–134. Keyes, C. L. M. (1998). Social well-being. Social Psychology Quaterly, 61(2), 121–140. Kuczynski, L., Marshall, S., & Schell, K. (1997). Value socialization in bidirectional context. In J. E. Grusec & L. Kuczynski (Eds.), Parenting and children’s internalization of values. A handbook of contemporary theory (pp. 23–50). New York: Wiley. Land, K., (2000). Social indicators. In E. F. Borgatta, & R. V. Montgomery (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sociology (Rev. ed., pp. 2682–2690). New York: Macmillan. Land, K. C., Lamb, V. L., & Mustilo, K. S. (2001). Child and youth well-being in the United States, 1975–1998: Some findings from a new index. Social Indicators Research, 56(December), 241–320. Lareau, A. (2003). Uneqal Childhoods: Class, race, and Family Life. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Layard, R., & Dunn, J. (2009). A good childhood: Searching for values in a competitive age. London: Penguin

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Lee, B. J. (1997). The use of census and surveys: Implications for developing childhood social indicator models. In A. Ben-Arieh & H. Wintersberger (Eds.), Monitoring and measuring the state of children – Beyond survival, Eurosocial Report No. 62 (pp. 301–308). Vienna: European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. LeVine, R. A., & New, R. S. (2008). Introduction. In R. A. LeVine & R. S. New (Eds.), Anthropology and child development. A cross-cultural reader (pp. 1–7). Malden: Blackwell. Lippman, L. (2004). Indicators of child, family and community connections. Washington, DC: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Luk-Fong, Y. Y. P. (2005). A sear of new ways of describing parent–child relationships: Voices from principals, teachers, guidance professionals, parents and pupils. Childhood, 12(1), 111–137. Mason, J., & Danby, S. (2011). Children as experts in their lives: Child inclusive research. Child Indicators Research (Special Issue), 4(2), 185–189. Megı´as, E. (Ed.). (2002). Hijos y Padres: Comunicacio´n y Conflictos. Madrid: FAD. Melton, G. B. (1980). Children’s concepts of their rights. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 9, 186–190. Moore, K. A., & Lippman, L. (Eds.). (2005). What do children need to flourish?: Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive youth development. New York: Springer. Moore, K. A., Lippman, L., & Brown, B. (2004). Indicators of child well-being: The promise for positive youth development. ANNALS, AAPSS, 591, 125–145. Ochaita, E., Espinosa, M. A., & Grediaga, M. C. (1994). ¿Co´mo Entienden los Nin˜os el Derecho a la Igualdad? Infancia y Sociedad, 27–28, 61–76. Pittman, K., & Irby, M. (1997). Promoting investment in life skills for youth: Beyond indicators for survival and problem prevention. In A. Ben-Arieh, & H. Wintersberger (Eds.), Monitoring and measuring the state of children: Beyond survival. Eurosocial Report No. 62 (pp. 239–246). Vienna: European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. Qvortrup, J. (1999). The meaning of child’s standard of living. In A. B. Andrews & N. H. Kaufman (Eds.), Implementing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: A standard of living adequate for development. Westport: Praeger. Resnick, M. (1995). Discussant’s comments: Indicators of children’s well-being. Conference Papers (Vol. 2). Special report series. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institute for Research on Poverty. Richman, N. (1993). Communicating with children. Helping children in distress. London: Save the Children. Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069–1081. Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Positive psychology, positive prevention, and positive therapy. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spilsbury, J., Korbin, J., & Coulton, C. (2009). Mapping children’s neighborhood perceptions: Implications for child indicators. Child Indicators Research, 2(2), 111–131. Spilsbury, J., Korbin, J., & Coulton, C. (2012). “Subjective” and “Objective” views of neighborhood danger & well-being: The importance of multiple perspectives and mixed methods. Child Indicators Research, 5, 469–482. S€uess, D., Suoninen, A., Garitaonandia, C., Juaristi, P., Koikkalainen, R., & Oleaga, J. A. (1998). Media use and the relationship of children and teenagers with their peer groups. European Journal of Communication, 13(4), 521–538. Tajfel, H. (1978). Social categorization, social identity, and social comparison. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups (pp. 61–98). New York: Academic. Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2011). The subjective wellbeing of high-school students: Validating the personal wellbeing index – School children. Social Indicators Research, 101, 405–418.

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Van Gils, J. (1995). Les enfants et leur famille: Qu’en pensent-ils? Meise: Onderzoekscentrum Kind en Samenleving. Veenhoven, R. (1994). El estudio de la satisfaccio´n con la vida. Intervencio´n Psicosocial, 3(9), 87–116. Veenhoven, R. (2001, January 14–15). What we know about happiness. Paper presented at the dialogue on “Gross National Happiness”. Woudschoten, Zeist, The Netherlands. Verhellen, E. (1992). Los derechos de los nin˜os y las nin˜as en Europa. Infancia y Sociedad, 15, 37–60. WHO (1946). Constitution of the World Health Organization. International Health Conference held in New York from 19 June to 22 July 1946, signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Off. Rec. Wld Hlth Org., 2, 100). WHO (1978). Declaration of Alma-Ata. International Conference on Primary Health Care, Alma-Ata, USSR, 6–12. September 1978. WHO. Williams, A. (1993). The importance of quality of life in policy decisions. In S. R. Walker & R. M. Rosser (Eds.), Quality of life assessment: Key issues in the 1990s. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Section I Multiple Perspectives on Child Well-Being

2

History of Children’s Well-Being Bengt Sandin

2.1

Introduction

The well-being of children has historically been associated with a number of different social and political issues: participation in the labor force; the character, nature, and extent of schooling; notions of parenting; and the evaluation of the quality of family life. These issues have, in the past, involved evaluation by societal agents representing different kinds of “normal” childhood expectations and the environmental and structural conditions of the life of children, but largely without the use of concepts associated with well-being. This chapter will point out aspects of historical change in the well-being of children when their lives have been subjected to political attention. It will also demonstrate how and when children have been made visible as political issues and thus labeled and characterized in terms that might be recognized today as aspects of well-being or the lack thereof. Fulfillment of human biological needs necessary for survival interacts with culturally defined, subjective, and collective evaluations of quality of life for children. Aspirations on the part of children, parents, and societal agencies reflect specific historical experiences: for example, work, schooling, and family. Issues that today are important in the definitions of well-being have, in the past, often not been deemed important or have simply been conceptualized in terms hardly identifiable today. Consequently, well-being is also dependent on the definitions of childhood as shaped by gender, class, age definitions, and ethnicity, as well as on how care for children has been organized in different societies. It is intimately associated with how welfare surrounding children is historically understood, which, in turn, is also dependent on, among others, the definitions of the rights and social status of children and the legal role of the family. The interdependence of these issues has been expressed in different ways due to specific

B. Sandin Department of Thematic Studies/Child Studies, University of Link€ oping, Link€ oping, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_2, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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cultural traditions and political cultures. Measures and definitions of well-being are closely connected to systems of political governance and to the scholarly and intellectual traditions for which the life of children is, or has been, an important scholarly quest. This chapter will focus on general trends of change in the West concerning children’s well-being. Such trends are composed of a multitude of complex substructures embedded within different national or regional changes and developments. It is therefore important to acknowledge the differences between ways of understanding children, childhood, and well-being as they have evolved throughout Western history. The West is, in many ways, a cultural unit but is also very much defined by the differences among nations, regions, and cultures and, indeed, includes nations in the Eastern hemisphere. It is particularly interesting in the context of the changing understanding of children’s rights and its basis in different political regimes in different countries. The histories involved – of the family and children, of institutions of care and schooling, of work, of international cooperation, of imperialism and globalization – create a complex web of experiences that shape understandings of well-being that are both unique and different from that of one’s neighbors and yet a part of a common Western experience. It is in many ways both a story of the long-, medium-, and short-term changes and the limits of the possible (Braudel 1985, 2001). The longevity of institutions of child care and the permanent need for regulation of the life of children is staggering, as is the cultural permanence of certain aspects of notions of childhood and children. The influences of extrafamilial child caring institutions, such as orphanages, homes for foundlings, placing out, and so on, were formed during the Renaissance and have continued into the present day. The regulation of children’s lives within families and issues such as child labor are permanent features both in a global and a Western context. Even when these institutions have been abandoned in certain countries and contexts as inappropriate forms of care, they form the undercurrent of examples from which newer forms of care and well-being are defined. Indeed, war or other crises re-actualize forms of care that in other contexts are deemed less appropriate. Such events are at the same time isolated and limited in time and space and yet are almost permanent or recurrent features in the history of childhood. Given the nature of the vast topic covered the references in this article are of three types: one type refers to an example of the type of research or issues mentioned, a second consists of a reference to a specific arguments in earlier research, while the third type contains references to surveys on the topic or bibliographies with more extensive references to stimulate further reading. I have not been able to reference all the important work and most certainly neglected important studies and aspects of this complex history due to the limits of this article, but also as a result of my ambition to create a consistent narrative. Recently publiched histories of childhood can serve to fill the gaps in my presentation. (Fass 2004, 2012; Hindman 2009; Foyster and Marten 2010) The narrative in this chapter forms a story about a series of different, but sometimes parallel, regimes of governance of children’s well-being influenced by basic demographic and social conditions, systems of political governance and professional responsibilities, and understandings of the nature of social

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relationships of children and childhood in culture and science/scholarship. As such, they incorporate understandings of the rights of children as defined by the relationships between states/governance, family, and children (Foucault 1976/1978, 1979; Tr€aga˚rdh and Berggren 2010). Regimes of well-being also represent norms and value structures of how the lives of children are best construed in different societies, thereby also defining the normal and the abnormal. Based in both international and national or regional experiences, the different understandings of well-being will inevitably come to be a part of conflicting political cultures and conflicting interpretations of the world of children, as well as expressions of general and global and long-, medium-, and short-term trends of change.

2.2

Children’s Well-Being, Family, and Institutions in Transition

There are specific instances in history when the well-being of children becomes visible in the eyes of government at local and central levels and thus in historical sources. In the historical contexts, when children’s lives were shaped within households or on farms, there were, for the most part, no comments from religious and secular authorities. Clearly, however, this lack of attention should not be understood as being unproblematic in terms that today are associated with wellbeing. Both high mortality rates and the general living conditions indicate that children must have suffered both severe physical and mental hardships. There are many indications that parents cared about the well-being of their offspring. Artifacts such as toys, cradles, balls, and dolls are also evidence of age-specific stages of child development that point toward periods of childhood play. Such emotional commitment can be inferred from stories of religious miracles and the recording of childhood accidents. Such records indicate that the well-being of children did matter to both secular and religious authorities (Hanawalt 1993, 1986; Pollock 1983; Ferraro 2013). The life of children was also a matter for the larger society. In the Nordic countries, the introduction of Christianity involved the incorporation of children into the responsibility of the church. The inclusion of children conveyed the ambition of the church to reach populations as a whole and was expressed in, for example, burial practices, which included burying children in the churchyards (Mejsholm 2009; Lewis-Simpson 2008). In classical antiquity, children occupied an important role as cultural symbols and important bearers of the future, although even immature and powerless children were visible in images and documents. Children’s well-being was not a separate cultural or political issue, but was naturally integrated into a society that was aware of their importance to reproduction of the family and society (Vuolanto 2002; Bradley 2013; Ferraro 2013; Harlow and Laurence 2010). The world of most children was primarily shaped by the context of the family. Histories of the family reveal that the consequences of high mortality among adults, and the effects of war, famine, and poverty, made changing family constellations

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necessary and, indeed, a constant phenomenon. The high mortality of the young made permanent and stable sibling relations at times rare. Lasting relationships with the parental generation and the older generation might also be endangered by harsh economic and social situations as well as lower longevity in both upper and lower social strata (Anderson 1980). A majority of children grew up in household constellations and families, but these may have been reshaped several times during the life course of the children. At the same time, large households with servants and kin networks gave children a social context. Family research has demonstrated not only how the Western European family was characterized by nuclear units but also how these were transformed during the life course of the family and interacted with different forms of household construction. Family history research has pointed out how families also represented continuity and stability during periods of dramatic social transformations in spite of harsh conditions, during rapid industrialization and even earlier (Hareven 2000; Laslett 1973, 1977a; Anderson 1971). Although families may have been the de facto source of stability and identity for children during industrialization and in poverty, such transformations were the source of worries about children’s well-being from other points of view (Sandin 1986; Ferraro 2013). Both religious and secular authorities expressed anxieties about children’s moral and emotional well-being in families, sometimes in reference to concrete social problems, but also as an expression of general concerns about the family as a unit of socialization in matters of civic and religious morals. Such concerns can be identified in writings from different historical epochs and show variations in attitudes to child-rearing in Catholic and Protestant traditions. In the Protestant tradition care of children’s physical and mental needs formed the basis for the building of civil virtues and values of society that underwrote the need for education. The use of education in the care of the young was also marked by differences in the evaluation of original sin and natural evil, and they reflect the role of the parents in different national or regional cultures (Ozment 1983; Ferraro 2013; Delap et al. 2009). Moral and civic standing as defined by both religious and secular governments was an expression of an aspect of well-being for which the parents and/or the household were regarded as responsible. The role of such engagement in the well-being of the young during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation had political overtones (Ferraro 2013). It also reflected the emergence of secular political contract theories, such as those of Hobbes and Locke that reconceptualized the role of children in society. The distinction between religious and civic morals was not at all times an important one, as they were based on one another, particularly when applied to the young. Moral standing was not only reflected in behavior of the young. Poverty and illnesses could indicate not only moral flaws but also signify a lack of moral wellbeing in children as well as in adults (Cunningham 1995). Problematic social situations could also lead to child abandonment, which gained the attention of different religious, civil, and secular authorities, depending on political regimes. It is in these contexts that orphanages, foundling homes, and workhouses for children were established. The development of such institutions expressed a concern for children’s well-being in terms of their physical and moral

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status and reflected an ambition to protect society from the consequences of vagrant and criminal children (Cunningham 1991, 2006). These institutions represented an ambition to artificially replace the family and household. In other cases and historic periods, authorities strove to take care of children by placing them out in families or creating legal forms such as foster children and/or adoptions. Such measures show an interest in artificially engineering environments for children, but they also demonstrate that the understanding of what was beneficial for children varied, as did the understanding and definition of parenting/family (Cunningham 1991; Lindgren 2006; Carp 1998, 2002; Keating 2009). The character of institutions differed both in theory and practice in terms of the aims of the support given children. In some contexts, work was the most important tool for improvement and was closely associated with the economic needs of either the government or local economic interests; in others, the emphasis was on moral education or even secular education. Institutions tended to aim at being self-supporting in economic terms when possible (Cunningham 1991; Ransel 1988; Sandin 1986). The care of children was also associated with an evaluation of whether the children and families deserved support and, if so, which ones. It was at times of central importance for governments and welfare agencies to make distinctions between legitimate and non-legitimate needs. Civil society associations or philanthropic groups organized institutions or were instrumental in shaping legislation (Laslett 1977b; Sandin 1986; Cunningham 1991; Weiner 1995; Ipsen 2006; Keating 2009). The well-being of children and the ambitions to offer support were clearly negotiable in these terms. At the same time, the capacity to give help in practice was limited and subservient to varying national political economic agendas. The production of clothes for the army or for local manufacturers made the care of orphans less expensive for governments. The relationships between the families and government were also cast differently in the varying legal systems in the West, which could also influence the care of children. A rough distinction can be made between four “families according to the law”: the common law family, the family under Roman law, the Germanic family, and the Nordic family (Therborn 1993; 240). In the parts of Europe that were dominated by Roman legal patriarchy, the authority of the household head defined children as wards of the patriarch only as long as the child did nothing criminal. The ability of the state to intervene against abusive parenting was limited. Children that were taken care of by the state were strictly defined in legal terms as foundlings or orphans by the courts. In the UK, the common–law system gave judges greater leeway to interpret in which situation a child needed protection. This influenced custody cases, as well as the vague descriptive nomenclature used to describe children in the streets as gutter snipes, street Arabs, and so on (Jablonka 2013; Cunningham 1991; Gilfoyle 2013). Differences also defined the relationship to children born out of wedlock. The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was important in all countries, but the nature of the treatment and status of such children was different and indicated variances in the commitment to the wellbeing of different categories of children and definitions of family (Therborn 1993; Grossberg 1988; Fuchs 1984).

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The role and character of institutions that provided help consequently differed throughout Europe. In Catholic areas, the role of foundlings tended to be important, while orphanages for homeless and neglected children of different kinds played a larger role in Germany and the Scandinavian countries (Cunningham 1995; Jablonka 2013; Kertzer 1991; Ipsen 2006). In England, the placement of children in foster homes by poor law authorities and later the transportation of children to the colonies were important (Cunningham 1995). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a newly awakened interest in the care of foundlings to supplement national population growth can be noted in many of the European nations (Ransel 1988). The greater role of educational facilities such as work schools and other schools and institutions of mass education characterized development. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a parallel development with the rise of disciplinary institutions, asylums, training ships, and reformatories established to address the problems of wayward children and children who did not adapt to the regulation of educational facilities. Some educational institutions continued to combine begging for support in the streets or choir singing with the education of children (Sandin 1986, 2009; Jablonka 2013; Cunningham 1995). It must be noted that distinctions between different kinds of institutions and the nomenclature used were, in reality, often blurred and changed over time. The difference between children defined as orphans, delinquents, or different variations of street children was not always distinct. Educational institutions also played a role for parents, who could send children to schools knowing that they would participate in street begging and choir singing during school hours – and be remunerated for these efforts. Daily life in such institutions also made room for activities – work, disciplining, or schooling – that in a different context may have led to a redefinition of the institution. Orphanages gave way to educational activities for middle-class children living outside the institution or to schools that were opened up for street children (Sandin 1986; Laslett 1977b; Jablonka 2013; Gilfoyle 2013). Worry and concerns about children suffering from social or moral deprivation and the threats to society deriving from such shortcomings have historically been central forces in creating institutions for the care, education, and control of children and the young. These institutions ranged from establishments oriented toward replacing the family and households to a mere emphasis on keeping children at work and selfsupported in educational facilities or religious institutions. Definitions of the dangers arising from such sources were, to a great extent, informed by a critique of the lowerclass family and household or the lack of families and households. The nation-building process, with the creation of new nations in parts of Europe, most likely also influenced an interest in the well-being of children living in the streets (Miller 1998; Sandin 1986; Cunningham 1995; Jablonka 2013; Ipsen 2006; Safley 2005). Such worries gained prominence in the emerging market economy, when the living conditions of working children became observable; at the same time, the changing class structure formed alternative notions of what the well-being of children entailed. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the number of children and young outside the established parameters of a largely paternalistic social structure

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gave impetus to a discussion about disciplining institutions before the Industrial Revolution. In the long term, middle-class families became a norm for both the nature of family life and the appropriate understanding of childhood (Miller 1998; Stearns 2013; Grant 2013; Jablonka 2013), which also fed a critique of how poor working and deprived children fared. Such normative foundations were also the core of the critique against institutions such as orphanages and the basis for arguments for the placement of parentless or destitute children in families. Non-family-based institutions have had problems living up to the organizational norms of family life. Family placement or adoptions became an alternative in environments where state and local government agencies could administer such complex social responsibilities. The importance of family placement was also dependent on the definitions of religious and state responsibility and were clearly more important in Protestant countries than in Catholic. The sanctity of family made the placing out of illegitimate children a problem in Catholic countries (Kertzer 1991; Ipsen 2006; Cunningham 1991; Sk€old 2006, 2012).

2.3

Industrious Children: Child Labor and the Configuration of Well-Being

When child labor in the mines, on the streets, and in the factories and sweatshops expanded during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, children’s work was transformed from a fact of life in the framework of the household into something that was defined as a social problem. The effect of labor on children’s well-being became an issue when the number and concentration of children working under hazardous conditions became observable. The emergence of the issue was consequently also tied to a historic period when government or civil society defined its responsibilities to include children, although for a variety of reasons. Discussions included both deliberations about the consequences for children’s bodies and souls: for example, short- and long-term health hazards and the moral dangers of working conditions in the factories and mines. The latter also had implications for children’s current wellbeing and their futures as adult workers and/or raisers of families, as well as for the global position of the nation (Bolin 1989; Heywood 2007, 2013; Hindman 2002, 2009; Olsson 1980; Rahikainen 2004; Hendrick 1997, 2003). The discussion was consequently not only about children’s work, per se, but about how the welfare of children was organized in relationship to the family and other ways of caring for the welfare of children. The family’s inability to care for the physical and moral well-being of their offspring worried reformers and philanthropists. Families dependent on child labor displayed traits that deviated from the norms for family life that were being established in nineteenth century Europe. Generational and gender roles might be overturned when adults were unemployed, while the labor of children could be bought at a cheaper price. Children’s work came into conflict with both the economic interest of adults and the understanding of the family or the household as the unit for care and the creator of welfare for children. Debates of this kind first surfaced in the most developed economies in Europe but also shaped the character of

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the discussion elsewhere. Reform movements were fed by a critique of the economic system that made child labor possible, both from the politically conservative and the politically radical (Heywood 2013; Hindman 2002). Child labor in rural areas attracted less attention, although it was certainly as common and widespread. Rural and family-oriented settings offered a context for the moral upbringing of children that made the use of children as workers appear less morally problematic (Heywood 2001, 2007, 2010; Sj€oberg 1996; Sandin 1997). Children had traditionally participated in work on family farms, and the breakthrough of agricultural capitalism in the eighteenth century made the work of children an asset to the laboring family. The early stages of the Industrial Revolution also made children’s labor valuable in the labor market, and child labor grew in value during the late eighteenth century with the expansion of household industries. The education that reformers demanded for children was clearly aimed at improving the moral aspects of the care of children, as well as their physical health. It was feared that, when they became adults, working children would lack the necessary education and would be intellectually and morally hampered, thus becoming a menace to society even as youngsters. It was argued that working children might grow up in danger of becoming criminal and morally depraved. These notions also ran through the arguments about the meaning of childhood as it appeared around the late nineteenth century. Working children came into conflict with the understanding of how a good childhood was to be construed as a period of emotional and physical growth under the protection of a family. Their independence and use of money and public arenas did not match the notions of an appropriate childhood (Cunningham 1991; Zelizer 1985; Heywood 2001, 2007, 2010; Sj€ oberg 1996; Sandin 1997). The existence of such children also indicated a failure on the part of the parents. Children working in family settings, in smallscale craft work, or in manufacturing industries under adult supervision were for that reason sometimes acceptable, but excessive use of children in the labor force became an upsetting phenomenon. Opinions were not unanimous, however, as child labor also provided income for families and kept children off the streets. The effort to abolish child labor extended over many decades. This delay reflected not only opposition from employers, who exploited low-wage child laborers, but also from working-class parents, whose children’s earnings helped make the crucial difference in the family’s income, even if these earnings at the same time suppressed adult wages. It also reflected a deep-seated ambivalence among many parents about the cultural value of work for children’s development into adults. Working-class culture encompassed the notion that becoming an adult involved the formative experience of labor. Experience regarded by others as negative for the well-being of children was in the eyes of parents an important aspect of this same well-being. Legal conflicts around child labor also shaped the cultural construct of children’s labor in the working classes in some places. The understanding of the well-being of children was most likely in parts contradictory and complex (Schmidt 2010; Heywood 2001, 2010, 2013; Levene 2012). The prohibition of child labor also came into conflict with important economic interests, and exceptions had at times to be made for economic sectors

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dependent on child workers, for example, the agricultural sector and industries such as glassworks or sawmills (Olsson 1980). Prohibiting the labor of children also reflects the role and organization of state power. In some nations with weak national regulatory power, prohibition of child labor came late in spite of broad criticism of the practices and even, in some places, successful local regulation (Hindman 2002; Lindenmeyer 1997, 2013). In some cases, the possibility of legislating against child labor was dependent on the technological level of industry that had already made the use of child labor redundant. In Western Europe and the United States, the decline of child labor was less due to enactment of statutes banning the practice than to technological change, which drastically reduced the need for bobbin girls and boys. The system of industrial management also had an important role in the development of child labor (Bolin 1989). The extent and the ways in which child labor was deemed a problem for children’s well-being also reflected different national positions in the processes of industrialization. In the UK, the regulation of excessive use of child labor focused on health and developed during the 1830s, prior to any real evolvement of compulsory education. In France, the legislation against child labor came soon after and was influenced by the English example. In both France and the UK, regulation was directed toward industry rather than intervention in families. In the German states such as Prussia and in the Scandinavian nations, regulation occurred later, a consequence of later industrialization, but it also had a different focus, on the morals and schooling of children. In this region the educational provisions for children predated any real industrialization, and the regulation of laboring children was associated with the maintenance and development of educational provisions. Here the criticism of child labor also involved an extensive discussion of the negative moral consequences of a failed education and the need to support the family as a moral entity. In southern Europe both the development of industry and the development of educational provisions came later (Heywood 2013; Sandin 1997; Rahikainen 2004). Consequently, debates on the effects of child labor on the well-being of children paralleled that of the need for educational provisions in many countries as did the concerns about the health status of children. The development, however, was uneven. Ambitions sought to bring children’s schooling in line with protective legislation against child labor, the age of confirmation, and regulations in the penal code. These developments can be noted as well as important international interaction between social reformers all over the Western world (Jablonka 2013). Their arguments were based on a combination of educational, political, and practical considerations and the evaluation of the family as an institution of moral and civil upbringing. Industrial labor and work as street vendors or newsboys signaled moral danger. Working outside the confinement of the family and in public spheres could jeopardize the morals and behavior of children. It was not compatible with the kind of normative understanding of childhood that became engrained in the Western European experience during the late nineteenth century. The child’s place was within the family or in an educational setting. This change was the product of several factors, including a shift in the nature and location of the work

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children performed; a romanticization of childhood innocence and a horror over juvenile precocity; a heightened emphasis on formal schooling; fears for children’s health and physical and mental well-being; and the struggle to create a family wage (Zelizer 1985; Miller 1998). Education could be motivated by different purposes: sometimes by the developmental needs of children, sometimes by ambitions to control the urban environment and to keep children off the streets. The civic or national identity of children also became an aspect of well-being and combined the needs described as appropriate for children with the needs of the emerging nation states. The construction of a national identity was of central importance in the educational systems and reflected the establishment of imperialist nation-states and, for that matter, the manifest destiny of white supremacy over the world and other nations. This reflects the ambition to shape childhood that at the same time expressed the exceptional and specific destiny of each nation, be it the United States or England, France, the emerging German nation, or small countries like Sweden. Mass-schooling ironically made visible the poor physical quality of the laboring poor and consequently implicitly also their mental condition, which prompted initiatives to improve the stock of children to support national endeavors. Different national trajectories are largely associated with the timing and phases of industrialization, mass-schooling, and systems of governance. It is significant that a federal structure delayed national legislation in the United States and that factory inspections in the UK filled a different role than did the factory and school inspections in the Scandinavian countries (Davin 1996; Sandin 1997, 2010; Schrumpf 1997; Hendrick 1997; Lindenmeyer 1997; Coninck-Smith 2000). Education had in no way the same implications for children of all social classes, but rather indicated different regimes of well-being and the varied responsibility of Western states for children of different backgrounds.

2.4

Education, Well-Being, Intersectionality

Enrollment in institutions that provided mass-schooling improved towards the end of the nineteenth century, but with large national and regional variations. Different waves of introduction of compulsory schooling can be identified that also reflect differences in the understanding of the role of education in the lives of children. The pattern corresponds, on the one hand, to the early introduction of schools as a result of state initiatives in the northern German and Scandinavian states and, on the other hand, to the initiative of states to create educational provisions that took advantage of existing religious and civil organizations. In parts of Southern Europe, the legislation for compulsory education expressed state-building processes but lagged after the development in Northern Europe (Green 1990; Miller 1998: 143–248; Soysal and Strang 1989: 277–288; Maynes 1985; Sandin 2010). The educational system developed dramatically during the nineteenth century, but only slowly did it become important in the lives of children. Their well-being was defined by the family and by participation in the labor force. However, by the

2

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41

end of the nineteenth century educational institutions had a dominant influence over the lives of children and the character of childhood in many parts of Europe and created a model of the ideal childhood. This model was also important in the shaping of childhood in the most industrialized areas and influenced social policy and politics concerning children. Educational institutions created and inspired an understanding of the normal childhood and the basic standard of definitions of well-being (Sandin 2010). This model was not the same for all children. Girls, as future mothers, were central to educational efforts for the lower classes, but the education of girls remained a private matter in other social classes. Such an attitude reflected a negative evaluation of the moral character of the working-class family, and, at the same time, a lack of commitment on the part of the state to the education of women, which had a bearing on the evaluation of well-being. Intellectual activities were looked upon as a threat to a girl’s well-being and were thought to undermine her health. The inference was that the social role of women was a nonpublic one. The reflections of gender and class divisions in the schools reinforced the economic and social background of children and the class- and gender-specific definitions of well-being. It was assumed natural that children of the laboring poor would be able to do physical work and have a shorter period of education, while it was not reasonable for middle- and upper-class children (Davin 1989; Miller 1998: 221–273; Maynes 1985: 83–102; Sandin 2010: 105–110). The same can be assumed for children with ethnic backgrounds that judged them according to other standards of well-being in the eyes of the educational reformers (Bernstein 2011; Ramey 2012). This Western model of childhood was also very ambiguous in its application in the territories of Western empires. On the one hand, it was used to criticize the ways of the colonized people, but colonizers were also hesitant to apply the same norm of childhood and educational standards to all children in the colonies (Pomfret 2004, 2010). Such an application would no doubt run contrary to both economic interests and the system of governance applied at that time in the majority world. In most countries, the teaching of girls at the secondary level was not accepted as a responsibility of the state. During the second half of the century, however, an increased interest arose, closely associated both with the feminist movement and the changing cultural values of the middle-class family. The differences between children and between the different types of childhood were reflected in the structure of education and defined the parameters of well-being applied for children of different social backgrounds. At the secondary level, an educational system that was created was distinctly gendered and marked by class in France, Britain, Scandinavia, and the German states, while in the United States the public high school was formally designed to include children from different layers of society, though in reality it also reflected varying strategies marked by class and the cultural backgrounds of immigrant groups (Tyack 1974; Fass 1989; Green 1990; Kaestle 1973; Kaestle and Vinovskis 1980). The different understandings of well-being are also played out in the differences between the family and the educational system. Immigrant families in the United

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States who had toiled as farm-hands or factory workers looked at schooling with suspicion, as working-class parents tended to do elsewhere in the West, but this attitude was aggravated by their status as newcomers with a foreign cultural background. Such conflicts are not unique to the United States, but can also be seen in other countries where mass migration and urbanization were central aspects of modernization. Doubt was cast upon the usefulness of skills acquired in schools, as it also was on the attitudes to life and the future that children might pick up in schools. Schools also imparted routines and values that were grounded in conceptions of time associated with a factory-like time control foreign to the rhythm of the agricultural background of the parents. Such debates focused on urban centers but had consequences for the organization of rural education as well. Rural schooling became increasingly valued after the establishment of a national framework by large school bureaucracies and departments of education (Fass 1989; Tyack 1974; Sj€ oberg 1996; Lassonde 2005; Davin 1996; Maynes 1985; Mintz 2004). It was possible for new citizens to appreciate an education that could lead to a profession or degree and serve the family interest, even if it was in conflict with the background of the parental generation. To immigrant groups like the Irish, Polish, and Italians, schooling beyond the minimum was not foreign by the beginning of the twentieth century. However, there were consequences for the identity of the young adolescents. The detachment of the cognitive, emotional, and social growth of the youths from these families was worrisome to immigrant families. A separate cultural space for young people, distanced from the loyalty and demands of the family, threatened the core of the values immigrant parents had taught their children. Education also produced cultural distance to the family, and new patterns of peer culture and notions of development that were nourished by the extended schooling may have had consequences for experiences of well-being among children (Lassonde 2005). An important legacy for the future produced by these institutions of mass education was the establishment of an idea, and in some locations a reality, that national educational institutions as a whole should include children from different social backgrounds and reflect a government responsibility to provide similar opportunities for all children. Educational systems tended to visualize national commitments to the younger generation as a whole. The appropriateness of a comprehensive school for all classes of society influenced the discussion in countries with parallel school systems – different schools for different social classes – as well in the United States. The apparent democratization of education, with working-class children in the education system and with more middle-class children in public education, made the relationship between public and private educational facilities problematic in some countries for those children who aspired to longer education, as the curricula and educational norms differed. The cost of the investment in children and the demographic transition, with the fall in the birth rate and the emergence of smaller families, may have influenced increased educational investment. Childhood had a definite price for these parents. Schools institutionalized different childhoods that reflected class and gender divisions, as well as the division between urban and rural environments (Fass 1989; Lassonde 2005; Maynes 1985; Miller 1998; Sandin 2010; Ipsen 2010).

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The universalistic ambition had consequences for the categorization of children who did not meet the demands that these educational institutions entailed. The consequences of a broader recruitment of children also created problems, as the inclusion of all children contributed to the formation of notions of normality (closely associated to education for national citizenship) that were to be introduced. It also made it necessary to sort out children who did not match the criteria of a normal childhood. In this historical context it became necessary to separate out the physically and intellectually handicapped. The ability to keep pace with teaching in ordinary schools also became a criterion of normality: a way of defining difference and a way of defining citizenship. Children living under moral and material deprivation had to be weeded out from the public schools and placed in other institutions, as were children with cognitive problems. Children of the poor became visible, not only from the pulpit and as an item in the registers, but in overt contrast to all other children. In this project, the teachers, physicians, and philanthropists began to try to transform the children of the poor – as all children – into children of the nation, subjects of the new nations. Deviation from normality – or normal behavior – created by compliance with the demands of education could be observed and noted in the registers of the educational system. It was also described and measured with instruments such as intelligence testing and tables of normal development (Sandin 2010; Turmel 2008; Hendrick 1997; Løkke 1990; Sundkvist 1994; Axelsson 2007; Beatty et al. 2006). The enormous expansion of school construction that took place in urban centers in the Western world during the latter half of the nineteenth century reflected the expansion of elementary educational institutions (Coninck-Smith 2000, 2011). These impressive buildings also signified an ambition to shape children’s healthy bodies in spacious classrooms that had appropriate air circulation. These ambitions for schools covered a wide and complex array of aspects of well-being, from the protection of children’s bodies and health to education, morals, and behavior. Historically, these are intertwined with, for example, the moral content of behavior, cognitive abilities, physical posture, and educational participation. The significance of childhood also changed in this process. Working gave children of the working classes social status and a role in the family. Children’s earnings could be interpreted as a sign of adulthood and may have been expressed in what was considered inappropriate independence when the children disposed of these resources. In societies where children in the upper classes were dependent for a long period of their lives, images of street peddlers and independent laboring children became problematic. This had a different meaning relative to children in the colonies, where the otherness of native children reinforced the uniqueness of the Western understanding of child protection. Children – in the ideal childhood – should not work, but should rather be dependent on adults for their welfare for a long time during their upbringing. In the discourse, children’s work in the streets and elsewhere was associated with loitering and idleness. To a certain extent, work in the countryside could be associated with play and sound physical and intellectual development. The establishment of universal education provisions hampered the use of children as laborers, even though many rural areas also found a way around

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the compulsory school attendance regulations. It must be noted that compulsory schooling did not put an end to children’s work. Some school systems were constructed to make possible children’s participation in the workforce, while others intentionally tried to hinder such work. Success varied depending on the social context. Children have nevertheless continued to combine schooling with domestic work done within the family (Miller 1998; Sandin 2010; Cunningham 1991, 2006; Heywood 1988, 2001, 2013; Sj€ oberg 1996; The dynamics of child poverty 2001).

2.5

Well-Being, Nation-Building, Child Saving, and the Study of Children

The moral coherence and identity of the nations around the beginning of the twentieth century put special emphasis on the meaning of childhood. Children were not only a matter for the family but also for the survival of the nation, both morally and physically. Special focus was put on both the physical and moral environment of the working classes. This developed differently in various national contexts, depending on the character of the demands for national cohesion, social responsibility, and the democratization of education. Children in schools and summer camps arranged for poor children began to be described and measured in different ways with the aid of the newly emerging medical and psychological sciences. The Child Study Movement became an international intellectual movement. It made important contributions to the development of social and behavioral sciences and expanded the knowledge of children’s developmental needs. With an impressive start in “the child study era” in the early twentieth century, studies on children were for many years mainly conducted within education, medicine, and psychology with the focus on child development, normalcy, and delinquency. Child saving created a legacy that defined the academic interests in the role of children in schools and in the family (Platt 1969; Platt and Cha´vez-Garcı´a 2009; Lindenmeyer 1997; Beatty et al. 2006; M€unger 2000; Richardsson 1989; Smuts 2006). Children were conceptualized in terms of normal and abnormal development, both cognitive and emotional, and studies were often conducted in experimental settings. An underlying notion was the importance of early childhood for the future of adult life, identity, status, and competencies. From these foundations, research in psychology, sociology, and education developed these child-focused disciplines and made important advances in understanding children’s development and their social interactions (Beatty et al. 2006; Axelsson 2007; Fass 2004; Turmel 2008; Lawrence and Starkey 2001). The educational system provided a channel for politicizing many of these initiatives. We can note the development of programs to feed hungry school children, to improve hygiene, to provide school baths on Saturday afternoons, and to campaign for mass vaccination. Afternoon leisure activities or holiday camps for the poor were initiated to keep children off the streets during the long summer vacations. Classes were introduced and curricula developed in the urban schools to fill the spare time of otherwise idle children. Social programs were

2

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developed around the educational system or in proximity to it. The playground movement took initiatives in the cities for the benefit of the children of the urban poor (Cavallo 1981; M€ unger 2000; Paris 2001, 2008; Fass 2004). The new demands on children to participate in education also involved demands on families. It was important to create a childhood of a certain standard, as defined by the criteria of well-being. Mothers were expected to be able to send clean, healthy children to school on time. Fathers were expected to provide for the whole family, non-working wife and children alike. The ideal of motherhood, which was so strongly emphasized in national sentiment at the turn of the century, complemented such a childhood: a non-useful child and a school child, dependent on a breadwinning father and a caring mother. The emotional dimension of family life – the caring element – was also consistent with this kind of change and helped shape the notions of well-being. A childhood of universal validity had been established as a norm, based on the demands of educational systems and with consequences for the universalistic definitions of male and female parenting. It was certainly not a childhood that always matched up with the social reality of children in the West, but it could at least be used to measure and define deviance from the norms and motivate social reform to improve children’s well-being (Davin 1989, 1996, 1997; Sandin 1997, 2010; Coninck-Smith, Sandin and Schrumpf 1997; Coninck-Smith 2000; Hendrick 1997; Lawrence and Starkey 2001). The development of education not only provided the basis for the analyses of the “normal” childhood, it also produced a division between school time and “free time.” This tended to underpin the creation of a youth culture in the twentieth century. Youth culture and its expression created new sources of worries centered on films, literature, music, and drinking, that is, about the well-being of children and the young. Moral panics over children’s consumption and its detrimental effects for the well-being of children were expressed in the early twentieth century. Discussions about dime novels and films also led to the restriction of the use of such literature and film censorship. Similar discussions form the undercurrent of debates about reading comic strips and cartoons, watching videos, and participating on the Internet during the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The icon of a child in need of protection from exploitation intermingled with fear over children’s use of spare time combined to provide the underpinnings for the development of organizations to keep children busy and their energies directed toward appropriate goals. Youth organizations – from scouts to wanderf€ ogeln – expressed ambitions to form a healthy and sturdy youth who exhibited well-being (Mechling 2013; Springhall 1977, 1998; Cohen 2002; Sparrman et al. 2012; Strandgaard 2013; Welch et al. 2002). As a consequence, a number of political issues emerged that had a bearing on children’s well-being: the upbringing of children in working-class families, the behavior of children on the streets of urban centers, the effects of new media such as cheap dime novels and films, the plight of foster children, and single mothers. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, nations in the West initiated legislation to address such issues as fostering, adoption, and delinquency.

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Such legislation paralleled developments in Western nations during the era of the child-saving movements. Laws concerning children laid down the framework for the protection of those deemed valuable and also the punishment and correction of those who deviated from the norms. Protection of the well-being of children involved the protection of society and thus also established the fine line between protection and punishment. Normality was influenced by what the educational system required of both parents and children and also by the norms of normal family life as established by behavioral sciences and the child studies movement. The emotionally valuable child was entrenched in the norms of the educational system and protective legislation of different kinds, such as banning the auctioning of children in need of care to the lowest bidder and legislation on adoption and fostering (Zelizer 1985; Sundkvist 1994; Hendrick 1990; Platt 1969; Lindgren 2006; Keating 2009; Sandin 2012; Lawrence and Starkey 2001; Gleason 2010). The development of systems of protection for children empathizes their special status as children and signifies a way of looking at children’s needs as different from those of adults. This comes to the fore, not only in the creation of educational systems and systems of protection but also in the development of special penal and correctional institutions for children. During the early nineteenth century, such correctional institutions were established in France, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. It was clear to the reformers that the correction of young criminals demanded other means than those used for adults. Neither in the short nor the long run could young offenders be kept in the same institutions as adults. The development of special institutions for children was closely tied to mutual study visits to other countries in Europe and the United States (Jablonka 2013). These institutions form the background for the development of special legal institutions for young offenders during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The juvenile court system in the United States made it possible to try underage offenders in separate and not very court-like proceedings. Children were sentenced to correction and education rather than prison. At the same time, this court functioned within relatively poorly defined legal parameters. The juvenile court had its parallel in the development of similar institutions in Europe. The first such institutions were established in Norway and in Illinois (Tanenhaus and Schlossman 2009; Tanenhaus 2011; Jablonka 2013). There was interaction between child reformers with different backgrounds concerning how such institutions should be set up, but we can also note that the legal character of the institutions was not so distinct. In Scandinavia, the task of taking delinquent children away from their parents and sending them to reform schools of different kinds was originally entrusted to the local school board (1902) and, a decade later, to a child welfare board. This board could also intervene in cases where the children were considered to be in moral danger, as defined by the behavior of the children and the caring capacity of the parents. The ways of treating children clearly reflected the moral values of the middle-class family that were confronted with the working-class norms and values (Sundkvist 1994; Ericsson 1996, 2002).

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The rights and well-being of children formed one perspective on the parents’ ability to live up to such normative standards. Juvenile courts spread as a phenomenon, but in practice they may have reflected different systems of defining the well-being of children at risk in different countries. Together they expressed the idea that children who deviated from the norms were to be dealt with differently from adult norm-breakers. As a consequence, the institutions that dealt with children gave less leeway for children to complain and make appeals. Punishments were meted out that were not limited in time (Sundkvist 1994; Tanenhaus 2011; Runcis 2007; Ipsen 2006; Bush 2010). The implications of this aspect of well-being were that children became wards of society rather than autonomous right-bearing individuals. The protection of children and of childhood involved philanthropic, central, and local government agencies and evolved in some places into state or central government ventures. This also entailed the need to define the social commitments of the welfare obligations in Western nations, including the role of professionals in child care, particularly in relation to the children of the working classes where the children seemed most endangered. The interest in children led to a huge number of new publications, journals, and professional societies. It also brought a need for clearer definitions of the roles of different professionals in child care. Medical specialties such as pediatrics and areas such as education and psychology gained strength and later began to make claims about the nature of children’s well-being. These professional groups also had influence outside governments and their organizations. States throughout the West created the basis for welfare schemes through legislation and institutionalization of government agencies, but they varied in the extent to which support was given and how it was distributed. This was dependent on the political culture and role of central and local government (Beatty et al. 2006; Dickinson 1996; Hendrick 1997). The very existence of such initiatives, however, served to underwrite the understanding of the value of all children for society, counting them as a cost for the nation and, implicitly, for taxpayers. In some countries, the state stepped in in lieu of the parents or provided simple support to parents, while in others, the family was not questioned as the only caring agents in spite of the formation of ambitious professional societies. National experiences of the urgency cover a wide range. There was concern in some countries about the consequences of the imminent population decline due to falling birth rates, while others worried about strong population growth and migration or the social consequences of the depression (Hatje 1974; Lindenmeyer 1997; Lindenmeyer and Sandin 2008; Ohlander 1980; Hirdman 1989; Marshall 2006; Ipsen 2006). Philanthropic welfare organizations traditionally had their social base in the upper classes, but during the first part of the twentieth century it shifted to professional groups. They also started to look for financial support from the local taxpaying communities and to influence national politics. Steps were taken within civic society to tie its ambitions to the creation of welfare systems in parts of Europe, while in the United States, the White House conferences demonstrate how such initiatives usually fell short of establishing national (i.e., federal)

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interventions. Non-governmental organizations, advanced, internationalized, and partly financed the child study movement and supported organizations for child guidance in Europe. Such initiatives influenced both philanthropic and government projects in Europe (Weiner 1995; Hendrick 1997; Lindenmeyer 1997; Beatty et al. 2006; Schmidt 2013; Gullberg 2004). Child guidance, specifically, and, in more general terms, child saving were part of the beginning of an internationalization of relief help and social work that targeted children (Horn 1989; Richardsson 1989; Thom 1992; J€onson 1997; Jones 1999; Stewart 2006, 2009). The atrocities during the First World War and international awareness of the vulnerability of children during the period that followed stimulated the internationalization of philanthropic work for children, as well as the ambitions to form international conventions. The internationalization went hand in hand with the development of philanthropy over borders and mobilized financial support from states as well as civil society organizations (Birn 1996, 2012; Marshall 2013; Janfelt 1998; Nehlin 2009). Non-governmental organizations made it possible to do social work in other nations’ territories. At the same time, different ways of approaching the issue of responsibility for the well-being of children came to the fore in these processes in Western welfare societies. The distinction between the legal patriarchy dominant in countries that inherited the rule of Roman law, such as France, and the approach that stems from the countries whose systems are grounded in common law, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, also marked the development of social policy and politics. In France, the government could not intervene and prevent the abuse of children as long as family authority was upheld and maintained. But in cases where the household (the patriarch) failed, the government could completely take over responsibility for the upbringing of children as wards of the state (Jablonka 2013; Schmidt 2013). Welfare support of families to stimulate population growth was at the same time directed towards the family rather than individuals in the family. The care of children was the responsibly of the family. The uniform French system of government also underlined the strict application of the same system in all parts of the nation as defined by the law, allowing little room for interpretation (Jablonka 2013; Fuchs 1984; Tilly and Scott 1978). In the common law system in the United Kingdom and the United States, the moral quality and aptitude of fathers and mothers, as well as their ability to care for their offspring and their health and education could be evaluated by the court and lead to the separation of unfit parents and children. The English system was sensitive to parental rights and particularly their responsibilities to maintain care and economic support of the children (Schmidt 2013). In the United States, intervention by the state to protect children against maltreatment and abuse in families did not supersede parental rights and implied a distinct distrust of the federal government’s right to intervene in the protection of children. This characterizes the early twentieth century efforts in the United States to develop involvement in the well-being of children, while, for example, the Scandinavians took a different route. However, Scandinavian countries also differ in regard to the situations when governments can legitimately intervene in family

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life to support children’s well-being. Social work in the various Scandinavian countries has, for example, used placement of children differently (Lindenmeyer and Sandin 2008; Downs 2002; Sealander 2003, 2004; Sandin 2012a; Runcis 1998, 2007; Marshall 2006; Andresen et al. 2011; Rutherford 2013). In this way, the meaning of childhood and well-being was intimately associated with the way welfare was organized in different countries, but it was also formed by responses to other important social and political issues. The worldwide depression stimulated large-scale programs to survey and come to terms with issues such as child labor, failing educational provisions, and migration in the United States. It also indicated, for a time, a larger role for the federal government (Lindenmeyer 2013; Schmidt 2013). In Europe the depression heightened the awareness of the consequences of declining birth rates and stimulated the development of welfare programs that would also lead to more stable population bases in the Scandinavian countries and France. Maternity welfare programs, family (community) housing programs, and different kinds of labor legislation were created to entice families to have more children. In some countries, day care for children of working mothers and free meals in public schools were provided. Awareness of the declining population gave a specific urgency to the need for “more children of better quality.” The population quality issue was accompanied by ambitions to stimulate interest in children’s normality and normal development. Tendencies to hinder unfit mothers and fathers from reproducing were also supported with the ambition of shaping the future well-being of children. Such tendencies were expressed differently in the countries of the Western world, but it certainly shaped the need to define both family and mothering (Hirdman 1989; Runcis 1998; Ohlander 1980; Lind 2000; Sandin 2013; Dickinson 1996; Jones 1999; Schafer 1997, 1992; Ladd-Taylor 1986, 1994; Ladd-Taylor and Hageman 1997).

2.6

Well-Being, Welfare, and Children’s Rights

Protection of children was initially directed at assuring children had access to education and health care, and creating and normalizing a standard understanding of children. Socialization of children aimed, ideally, at the formation of habits and behavior and the establishment of norms of familial behavior. During the 1930s, signs of a growing focus on children’s individual, child-centered outlook pointed to the importance of parents not only as trainers of children but as care-takers of an egalitarian family culture. The criticism of authoritarian political regimes during and after World War II linked a behavioral-oriented system of childrearing to fascism, authoritarian personality traits, and collectivist group behavior. Arnold Gesell, Francis L. Ilg and Louise Bates Ames 1943 book, Infant and Child Care in the Culture of Today, supported a developmental ideology based on the individual child in a democratic family and a democratic society. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1948), popularized parental

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advice based in a developmental understanding of the child and the common sense of mothers. The recurrent conferences on children in the White House in Washington brought up a new topic. The happiness of children replaced more socially oriented topics from before the war, a change that ran parallel to an interest in and discovery of children as emotional beings (Grant 2013; Beatty et al. 2006; Stearns 2013; Hendrick 1997). The importance of the biological and nuclear family was also stressed in the discourses on the well-being of children. During the 1950s and 1960s, these ideas formed the undercurrent of questions raised about the care of children in orphanages and similar institutions. Policies concerning adoption and foster care that were developed during the 1950s also emphasized the engineering of situations for children that were as much like the biological family as possible. Academic and psychological scholarship also emphasized the need for a close attachment between mother and child. Attachment theory was influenced by the experiences of the children evacuated during and after World War II and could point to a number of negative consequences of the break-up of families resulting from government policies that removed children to the countryside. Fresh air and country living could not compensate for the emotional bonds within the family. Thus, during the 1950s, an understanding of children’s well-being developed that stressed the emotional side of family life rather than the importance of habit formation. Such modes of understanding also provided the backdrop for the ambitions of professions to reach and support children in the postwar period. The professions that represented the new era, such as the partly transformed child psychology and child psychiatry, supplemented institutions of child guidance and social services for children. These experts had a strong ideological commitment to provide better social conditions for children and young people by better accommodating children in society. Psychoanalytic thinking was also emerging that challenged the ideas of authoritarian education and child rearing that had as goals habit formation and moral adjustment in childhood. Instead, children were seen as emotional beings with strong bonds to the adults in their surroundings, be it parents, other family members, teachers, or other important adults (Grant 2013; Beatty et al. 2006; Stearns 2003, 2013; Hendrick 1997; Zetterqvist 2009; Zetterqvist and Sandin 2013; Qvarsebo 2006; Stewarts 2006; Moeller 1998, 1993). In the years to come, psychiatry would also define psychiatric disorders and treatment specific to children, which meant that child psychiatry came to be looked upon as a medical specialty. At the same time, child welfare services, social services, and school health services treated children and youths with psychological and social problems by means of practices that had been formed in the development of social work in different national contexts (Horn 1989; Richardsson 1989; Thom 1992; J€ onson 1997; Jones 1999; Fishman 2002; Ludvigsen and Elvbakken 2005; Ludvigsen and Seip 2009; Evans et al. 2008; Rous and Clark 2009; Weinstein 2002). Such support involved institutions for children with problems, as well as the placement of children in families that often lacked the capacity to consider the well-being and needs of children. We can assume the existence of an everyday pragmatic way of treating children and understanding well-being that was dictated

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by national and local cultures as well as international cooperation. Many professionals, including the child psychiatrists themselves, maintained a critical distance from the use of a stricter application of psychiatric diagnostic classifications (Zetterqvist and Sandin 2013; Ludvigsen 2010; Eysenck 1985; Geissman and Geissman 1993). National cultures created divergent understandings of definitions of children’s well-being and the preconditions necessary for its existence. For example, from the 1950s the Anglo-Saxon emphasis on the attachment between children and parents as the central aspect of good child rearing did not have the same strong position in Sweden until the late 1990s, in spite of a strong emphasis on the nuclear family. Swedish psychologists and psychiatrists resisted this stress on the attachment between mother and children, arguing instead for more modern, institutional solutions, such as educational and child care facilities, to support the adjustment of families to modernization (Zetterqvist 2009, 2011, 2012; Lundqvist 2007, 2008). The educational systems that developed after World War II in European countries faced the challenges posed by the war in another way that affected the understanding of children’s well-being. In Germany, the treatment of handicapped children before and during the war led to the establishment of a special school system for such children to compensate for their disabilities. In other European countries, educational systems struggled with how to deal with children with special needs in educational systems that were increasingly designed to include all children. In countries such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, this led to the development of a variety of special educational provisions within the schools and a classification of the needs of such children for extra support. The necessity to solve the problem was universal, but the solutions for dealing with the well-being of children were marked by national cultures (Altstaedt 1977; Sander 1969; Richardsson 2002; Riddell 2002; Riddell et al. 1994; Meyer 1983). Such legacies are in part reactions to World War II, as in the case of the emphasis British scholars placed on attachment. Development in the Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States represents very specific experiences shaped by World War II. Equally important is the way the well-being of children was subsumed during the war. Children were affected by the absence of parents, the need to participate in the war efforts as workers or soldiers, and as the causalities due to bombings of civilian populations on both sides and to the Holocaust. Children from occupied provinces were also put to work in the war industries in Germany and during the many years of reconstruction in the postwar period. The large numbers of displaced children in search of families and kin after the war illustrate that notions of the dependency of children’s well-being on a close attachment to mothers were far from reality for many European children. The number of children repatriated to their former homelands also made the use of orphanages common in many parts of Europe. Such placements were seen as environments with potential to shape ideal future citizens in accordance with an understanding of the well-being of parentless children. Such institutions remained important and defined the role of governments in Eastern Europe up until the fall of the Iron Curtain, and after, which illustrates conflicting and parallel understanding of well-being

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(Zahra 2008, 2011; Holian 2011; R€ oger 2011; Venken 2011; Mayall and Morrow 2011; Schuman 2013; Marten 2002; Mann 2005). Expansion of elementary and compulsory schooling in the post-war period clarified the central role of the teaching profession as the transmitter of democratic values in many countries. The development of the understanding of well-being in the Sweden took a specific turn as a consequence of the traditional character of the educational system. Innovative national legislation concerning school discipline created a legacy that linked well-being and rights, which in due time also became a foundation for the evaluation of well-being in the family. Respectful child rearing was not compatible with of the right of teachers to discipline children physically, as was the case in Swedish elementary schools. The grammar school and the elementary school in Sweden (folkskola) had permitted different ways of disciplining children, which also reflected the social make-up of the school. In elementary schools corporal punishment was allowed, but in grammar schools it was banned. During the 1950s, the merging of the two school systems to create a comprehensive school for all social classes led to a re-evaluation of which system of discipline should be used. The discussion ended with a blanket ban on corporal punishment as early as 1957. Psychology – the new science of childhood – was to fill the gap and help the socialization processes in schools and families. This also established a notion of children’s integrity and rights as separate individuals (Qvarsebo 2006; Sandin 2012a). Education as a bastion of democracy was differently understood in Germany. German, American, and British reconstructors was wary about the collective education of children outside their families as something that had nurtured fascism and, later, communism. In both Britain and Germany, the making of a democratic citizen was in the aftermath of war and fascism closely associated to family upbringing rather than institutional and collective solutions (Moeller 1993). The important issue in Sweden, in perspective, was that children in the process were given the right to the integrity of their bodies, the same right that adults had, thus transcending, in a manner of speaking, the traditional limits of childhood that had accorded them special protection and access to social rights such as physical (or mental ) integrity. This was the beginning of a discussion of children’s integrity in terms that were taken further in the late 1960s. This led to a ban on the parents’ right to physically discipline their children that was implemented in 1979 and included in the family law code (Schiratzki 2000b; Singer 2000; Ewerl€of et al. 2004; Sandin 2012a). In doing so, the state displayed its ambition to protect the individual child and also to educate the parents. The law was largely perceived as an educational instrument and was intended to run parallel with efforts to educate, primarily, parents of foreign extraction. The well-being of children was built on notions of the individuality of children and related to a strong welfare state and an egalitarian, comprehensive educational system. We see here an indication of an emerging link between well-being and rights with relevance for the Scandinavian welfare models (Sandin 2012a). This indicates how understanding of the role of the state and its agencies versus the family in the provisions for children is expressed both in common traits and in

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specific national and culturally bound characteristics. Common traits included the expansion of schools and, in some countries, preschool care and the influence of professional groups on children’s everyday lives. Family life was increasingly organized in collaboration with the welfare system in a way that, from an international comparative perspective, to varying degrees included and accepted state regulation of family life and care/well-being of children. International conventions have also marked the global commitment to an understanding that conflicts with children’s work in industrial and agricultural sectors throughout the world, as well as their participation in an adult labor market. This is a part of processes whereby children are granted rights that transcend mere access to social services. Children’s rights to social care form the essence of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) but also their physical and intellectual integrity as individuals. Children may be interpreted as bearers of special rights rather than the universal human rights expressed in the Conventions of Human Rights (Schmidt 2013). An alternative way of understanding this development is that the emphasis on the UNCRC extension of the right to physical and intellectual integrity to children and the right to be listened to places them on equal footing with adults in these respects. It is clear, however, that as international conventions are given meaning in national and regional contexts, they will determine how children’s rights gain significance and influence welfare policy and policies regarding children’s well-being. In that respect, the Scandinavian welfare states represent a contrast to, for example, the United States (Archard 1993, 2003, 2004; Archard and Macleod 2002; Eekelaar 1992; Ewerl€ of et al. 2004; MacCormick 1979; Schmidt 2013; Sealander 2003; Grossberg 2012; Sandin 2012; Fass 2012).

2.7

Welfare in Transition, Child Studies, and New Notions of Childhood

In different national political contexts, even the concept and practices of welfare have come to represent entirely different things. In the United States, it is limited to the support of the destitute and pension schemes, while in Europe the context is broader and refers to a more fundamental set of institutions in a general infrastructure of institutions. The different welfare models define the understanding of the responsibility of the state for the well-being of children (Sealander 2003; Esping-Andersen 1990, 1996; Meyer 1983; Kamerman and Kahn 1981; Kahn and Kamerman 1981). The late twentieth century brought a focus on children’s individual rights just as the states in Europe abandoned some of their ambitions in shaping living conditions for children. With market-oriented solutions, the influence of local government on the welfare policies was strengthened and the responsibility of parents was emphasized. At the same time, the late twentieth century was a period during which criticism of the welfare state’s ability to provide for all children also illustrates its shortcomings in dealing with aspects of children’s well-being that are now in focus (Immervoll et al. 2001; Wintersberger et al. 2007; Qvortrup 2007; Bradshaw and Hatland 2006; SOU 2001: 55). Such critical analyses have pointed to remaining

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inequalities in health, but perhaps most importantly to the aspects of children’s well-being that include emotional and psychological well-being. Interest in children’s emotional and psychological well-being is an expression of the evolving understanding of childhood that also involves the development of a new type of scholarship concerning children and childhood. This transformation of the scholarship surrounding children and childhood historically parallels the changes and advances in the child studies movement of the early twentieth century. During the 1960s and 1970s, research in the humanities and social sciences opened up such research fields as new family and children’s history, history from below, and women’s studies, all of which served to pave the intellectual path for child studies as a field (Wintersberger et al. 2007; Speier 1976). In the 1980s, there was increasing concern that the study of actual children, if not absent, was a worryingly rare subject. Researchers with different backgrounds criticized the way children’s voices and opinions were muted in research and how there was dependence on perceptions defined by institutional perspectives, by adults and by professional interests. Knowledge about children reflected, it was claimed, an adult-centered, paternalistic, and institutional-centered outlook (Goode 1986; Waksler 1986; Sandin 1986). In its infancy the social study of children also criticized traditional developmental psychology as it had evolved during the twentieth century, because the child was construed as a universal category. Models of development inherent in socialization theory were opposed as being “adultist” in character, with an emphasis on what children should become rather than taking an interest in what they were (Ambert 1986; Hallde´n 1991; Wintersberger et al. 2007). The new social study of children was based on an ambition to advance the need for a new research agenda, and it was indeed important in the creation of a new field of research, though there are reasons to critically question the novelty of some of the perspectives (James and James 2004; James et al. 1998; Wintersberger et al. 2007; Ryan 2008). Scholarship in sociology, and also in disciplines such as history, literature, and psychology, began to focus on children’s own activities, experiences, skills, and knowledge, and not merely on their interaction and negotiation with the adult world. The strongest professional identity in this newborn “child study movement” was created by a largely British group that proclaimed the birth of the sociology of children, the new social studies. One early research trend was a strongly socialconstructivist position, which also made the critical analysis of the actors and agents behind certain constructions of childhood an important part of its scholarship. At the same time there existed a structural sociology of childhood that regarded children as social facts, structuring society in much the same way as “class,” “gender,” and “race” (Qvortrup 1994, 2005). The starting point of child studies as a field was that both childhood and the child are socially constructed and defined categories, which are multiple and dependent on time and place (James and James 2004; Jenks 2005; James et al. 1998; Wintersberger et al. 2007; Hallde´n 1991). Child studies engendered knowledge, not only about children and childhood, but also about the society that children and

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adults inhabit – the restrictions and opportunities that form everyday life, and how changes and conflicts affect identities, goals, values, and actions. The “adultism” of political and social institutions is an underlying premise in the search for a children’s perspective. In this regard, claims have been made that it is essential that researchers develop dialogic practices that encourage children to take part and that may involve engaging with children’s own “cultures of communication” in everyday life. The implications are to develop research around the systems of communication that children use with their peers and with their parents (Roberts 2000/2008; Christensen and James 2000; Sparrman et al. 2012; Harrison 1997; Harris and Holms 2003). Much research in this broader field of child studies has been based firmly on disciplinary traditions, although it has also been attentive to common intellectual frameworks. The new sociology of childhood has been challenged from within to broaden its perspective and to be more interdisciplinary and more empirically focused (Prout 2005). Children and childhood have also become a part of a wider on-going discussion of approaches such as sociological standpoint theory, linguistic/anthropological discourse theory, visual research methodology, the bottom-up perspectives in the social sciences, and social and narrative history – all of which have been applied to children and childhood, both separately and in close interaction. Sociological, anthropological, and psychological researchers have influenced one another in the study of children’s conditions and the construction of childhood, as have historical and sociological scholars (Hendrick 2003; Turmel 2008). Other edited volumes on child studies illustrate the breadth of alternatives in defining the field. We can therefore note many different ways of carrying out child studies, influenced by various theoretical and methodological frameworks and by combining different scholarly traditions (Kehily 2004; James and James 2008; Christensen 2008). A view of children as a social group – a structural perspective (Alanen and Mayall 2001; Qvortrup 1994; Wintersberger et al. 2007) – has also enabled scholars to break down the sectorially defined perception of children and to cast new light on the meaning and consequences of age structuring in modern societies (Qvortrup 1994; N€arv€anen and N€asman 2007). Childhood is a constant social phenomenon but is created by different generations of children. Childhood therefore always exists, but it is given different meanings as a consequence of political and social changes. Children’s lives can be understood as a whole, and research about school and the private and public spheres must be interlinked. Children’s experiences of childhood are composite – influenced by age, gender, class, and ethnicity –- and are dependent on variable temporal and spatial contexts, but at the same time they are permanent social phenomena. As childhood emerged as a contested category in scholarship and in current European society, it underscored how different professional groups and institutional agents claim to know “what is best for the child” and what constitutes an auspicious childhoods as has been discussed by a long series of scholars. This supports the need for scholarship that is critically oriented to combine the study of children’s interactions with that of welfare systems and politics (Prout 2005;

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Turmel 2008; Alanen 2007; Sandin 2012a, b). Others have stressed the importance of joining the traditions of childhood sociology with welfare studies in a more coherent and integrated approach. Such discussions about the interrelationship between the welfare system, families, and children and between the political and the lived experiences are also deeply rooted in historical perspectives that combine studies of children, childhood, and policy (Therborn 1993; Hendrick 2003; Cunningham 1995; Lassonde 2005; Fass 2007; Sundkvist 1994; Sandin and Hallde´n 2003). A number of studies also amount to support for political claims, for example, the idea that children have the right to compensation for schooling (Qvortrup 2005). The significance of this newborn and redirected interest in child studies is found not only in the parallels to the child studies movement around the turn of the nineteenth century, but also its participation in shaping institutions and policies for children. It is the very intellectual underpinning of an understanding of children as agents and of a governance of society that includes listening to children’s needs. The best interest of children is not only a directive in an international convention but also an instrument of governance in modern welfare societies.

2.8

Dilemmas of Childhood and Change: The UNCRC, Well-Being of Children, and Children’s Rights’ Regimes

The well-being of children in today’s Europe (16 % of Europe’s population is fifteen years old or younger (EUROSTAT 2008)) comprises new challenges in the dilemmas that confront the new generations. The members of this group are to be seen not only as individuals soon to enter adulthood and enjoying citizenship, but also as current members of society with a given status that includes the right to have their own voice heard and their present lives and interests elucidated. In a manner of speaking, children are granted a sort of citizenship in limbo at the same time as current social, material, and cultural changes are creating new challenges for children and their families in their everyday lives (Changing childhood in a changing Europe 2009; Sandin 2012a,b; Schmidt 2013; Kamerman and Kahn 1981; Na¨sman 1998). Children are experiencing the effects of changed patterns of household formation and dissolution, transnational migration, religious and civil tensions and conflicts, increasing economic inequality, and more socially differentiated spatial patterns in cities. This means that the experience and contexts of the lives of children are becoming – or at least are understood to be – more diverse but also more influenced by factors that create greater similarity. Children experience the parental strains of work and family obligations and are part of the complex daily routines that households and communities set in place in response to the activities and needs of their different members. At the same time, concerns about children’s deviant and antisocial behavior and increased levels of youth violence form part of on-going debates and stimulate the launch of stricter legislations and policies in relation to children.

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Social and cultural spaces for children are being transformed and illustrate new demands and dilemmas. Across the Western world, children spend much of their everyday life in institutions such as schools, day care centers, and after-school clubs, as well as a significant amount of time moving between these places and their other activities. Within these different locations children interact in friendship and peer groups that are important for the ideas, values, and practices they develop. Children have access to many sources of information and values, which further broaden their socialization. The mass media, consumerism, and public services constitute children as individuals who then have to construct their personal and social identities from a diversity of ideas, beliefs and products (Bradshaw and Hatland 2006; Frønes 1995, 2006; N€asman 1992; Zeiher 2007; N€arv€anen and N€asman 2007; Sparrman et al. 2012; Cook 2013). Children’s individuality and independence are also encouraged through discourses of child participation in decision-making at both central and local levels. Different national political and legislative traditions that define family and generational relations come to the fore in increased European cooperation, and they illustrate dependency on different cultural, historical, economic, and political traditions. At the same time, and partly as a consequence, conflicting notions and ideals of everyday life have been highlighted in contemporary Europe and North America. For many, life is characterized by uncertainty and anxiety, the change of recognized social institutions, and the development of new forms of social networks and relationships, combined with a greater personal responsibility for the shaping of one’s own individual biography, Such are the arguments of sociologists such as Giddens and Beck (Giddens 1993; Beck 1997; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002). These conflicting notions, uncertainties, and practices also shape understandings of childhood in society and the situation of children and young people. They affect relationships between children and adults in different settings or the strategies children and young people use to cope with the ambiguities that these opposing ideals produce (Thorne 1993; Lee 2001; Frønes 2003; Danby and Theobald 2012; Goodwin et al. 2012; Tuitt 2000; Turkoski 2005; N€asman 1992). The claims of modern sociology in the portrayal of an increasingly individualistic society also shape the way the family and children are addressed by welfare systems. These claims also create an understanding of modern children as vulnerable and of childhood in the classic sense as a period of innocence and growth that is threatened. While globalization has formed new identities, the role of the state has changed and given professionals new and different positions. Professionals have to assert their knowledge in a market of consultants in competition with an array of experts, rather than being the mere agents of the state. Welfare is defined in new ways and “the best interests of the child” – whether formulated as rights or protection – is at the core of these formulations (An-Naim 1994; Lundqvist and Petersen 2010; Sandin and Hallde´n 2003; Zeiher 2007; Bennet 2006). Participants are expected to take children’s rights and “the best interests of the child” into consideration, which again supports an understanding of well-being voiced by children and its institutional and familial contexts (Bluebond-Langner 1975, 1980, 1996; Harris and Holms 2003, Harrison 1997, Gillies 2005b, 2012).

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UNCRC forms the undercurrent of the distinct set of international norms that support the need to listen to the voice of children. In this process, “the best interests of the child” and “quality of life for children” have been held up as the goals of social policy interventions and of private institutions within the welfare system, and they involve an imperative to listen to the views of children. “The best interests of the child” are expressed in partly new modes: as children’s rights in legal and pedagogical terms, as a right to be an informed and empowered citizen, and as an individual right. Citizenship takes on a meaning for the younger generation. Moreover, it is formulated as a right to gain access to information channels and media technologies. These rights are made means and goals in many forms of welfare distribution, social-policy interventions, private institutions, and the global market (Ericsson 1996, 2002; Stang 2007; Sandin and Hallde´n 2003; Sandin 2013; Sparrman et al. 2012; Mayall 1994, 2002; Aarsand 2007; Lindgren and Hallde´n 2001; Brembeck et al. 2004; Buckingham 2000). Important aspects with consequences for the understanding of children are the focus on children’s need for protection, the responsibilities of society, and the idea that children have rights of their own that are not subordinated to the family. Children’s own voices should be heard and respected, and they should have access to independent information. Children are described as competent and autonomous. This way of presenting children as both dependent and competent is also important and reflects the reorganization of welfare systems with a long historical legacy in the Scandinavian countries (Lindgren and Hallde´n 2001; Sandin and Hallde´n 2003; Therborn 1993; Theunissen et al. 1998). This runs contrary to the understanding and development of children’s right as conceived in the United States, where the Supreme Court has had difficulty accepting legal doctrines defined by international agencies such as the UN. Nor can it readily accept the rights of children surpassing those of the family (Grossberg 1983, 1988; Alaimo and Klug 2002; Guggenheim 2005; Popenoe 1988, 2009). The UNCRC upholds a notion of childhood as a period where children’s lives are organized differently than lives in the adult world; they are dependent, growing and cared for, while they are also competent agents. In such an ideological framework children should not work as adults. In some Western societies, the understanding of children’s work has been re-evaluated and reconceptualized to include a large variety of work (Samuelsson 2008, 2012b; S€oderlind and Engwall 2008). Large numbers of teenage girls and boys have entered the workforce, balancing school with paid employment. Some scholars also claim that children’s schooling must be regarded as work and properly rewarded as such. Children’s acquisition and production of knowledge in schools constitute productive work as much as any work done in knowledge-based industries and should receive reasonable pay (Qvortrup 2007). Looking at children’s work in this manner undermines the notion of difference between children and adults and gives certain legitimacy to the participation of young people in the workforce with the same kind of welfare protective measures as for the adult world. The role of the family and parenting vis-a`-vis children is still crucial in a society that stresses the relative autonomy of children and the dependency of children on

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actors outside the family. But more importantly, the concept “the best interests of the child” and the voice of children have become links between the individual and the state; between children’s everyday lives and international norms; and between norm formation and politics (Sandin and Hallde´n 2003; Kilkelly 2001; Alston 1994; Elde´n 2012). Children’s lives are subsumed in the expectation that they relate to the same human arenas in which adults interact. There is no selfevident, separate space for children, and they must share conceptual spaces with adults in terms of the arenas that shape children’s lives. At the same time and as a consequence of young people’s difficulties of representing themselves politically, a significant aspect of the struggle over the well-being of children is the establishment of organizations for children and young people with the purpose of representing their rights in society. The relationship between such organizations and governments vary and reflect the character of the welfare systems (for examples, see Children’s Helplines). This does not necessarily mean that adults define all such spaces. Quite the contrary, children are exposed to the global commercial market in new ways. New media and media technologies are made part of children’s everyday lives (Aarsand 2007; Buckingham 1998, 2000; Deakin 2006). Preschools, schools, private homes, and public spaces are saturated with images from an international popular culture that portrays life in novel ways. Children are expected to interact with these images and use them as they construct an identity. By stressing children’s rights to information channels and access to media, the UNCRC denotes the idea that media technologies are important, empowering tools for children. However, such rights underpin the risk that the consequent media consumption also can be understood to represent a significant risk for their health and well-being (Sparrman 2006; Vallberg Roth 2002; Sparrman et al. 2012; Holland 1992; James and Prout 1990). The evolving understanding of the individuality of children and the rights of children in relationship to the state and governments has other consequences. Children that grew up and were maltreated in orphanages or in foster care now demand compensation or an apology for being wronged in the past. A certain standard of childhood is presented as an inalienable individual right that can be reclaimed – or compensated – as an adult. The voices of adults also become important as sources of information about well-being during their lives as children. This politics of apology has marked the political debates in Western countries and ranges from the apology for maltreatment of children of German fathers in Norway in the aftermath of World War II to foster children in Sweden and the children of ethnic minorities in Australia. There is renewed interest of the psychological effects of World War II experiences (R€ oger 2011; Andersson 2011; Swain and Musgrave 2012; Sk€ old et al. 2012; Sk€ old 2013; Pesonen and R€aikk€onen 2012) that represents both a common trend and very specific modes of dealing with issues resulting from actual historical events. This development is also shaped by the culture of gender, class, and ethnic relationships, as well as the role of government. In this context, the evolution of Western governance becomes an important issue in the shaping of an understanding of children’s well-being.

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The position of children has also evolved from the point of view of government, according to Esping-Andersen (1990, 1996, 1999, 2002). The welfare states of Europe are identified with essential features of today’s societies, from the importance of children to the social investment state. He demonstrates that Europe is moving away from primarily securing the distribution or redistribution of wealth. Rather, welfare spending has become an investment in future economic growth, and children are important targets for such investment. The social investment state sees children as a form of human capital at the same time as children’s participation is set in focus. Children are (and are encouraged to be) important in constructing their own futures and in acquiring the skills and competencies for work and citizenship. This perspective has encouraged the integration of education, health, and social services for children in different ways (for example, in Children’s Services) which presuppose an investment in the child as a whole. Esping-Andersen’s understanding and definition of welfare is based on the notion that children and young people are understood to become something different, to grow out of the childish state and become productive adults. Such an understanding of the organization of the modern welfare system can be described as adult in character, disregarding the social agency of children and adding that it is incompatible with a sociological understanding of children as being and not simply becoming (Alanen 2001; Lee 2001; Hallde´n 1991; Lister 2006, 2008). It is certainly difficult to reconcile this view with the focus on children’s agency as it is presented in much current research on childhood in the welfare state. Childhood in the late welfare state has been increasingly viewed as a period when the child’s competence is stressed through the state’s less normative and regulatory role, and children’s rights are defined on the basis of international conventions. The formation of concepts such as “the best interests of the child” and “a child perspective” mobilizes children as citizens and legal subjects and emphasizes children’s autonomy from the family. Simultaneously, children’s rights are no longer the basis for only administrative decisions in the welfare state, but are instead negotiated in different contexts in terms of the norms established in the UNCRC, although applied differently in various European countries. However, it is the parents who are responsible for realizing the true potential in the investments in children. Such expectations are complicated as research shows that different modes of parenting/marriage patterns have definite consequences. Marriage patterns go hand-in-hand with the character of the birthrates and investments in children’s welfare. These differ when broken down on national and regional levels in the Western world, and they indicate the important role of parents as agents in interaction with welfare systems (Qvortrup 2007). Esping-Andersen points to the differences between the different welfare regimes. A neo-liberal regime, also defined as an Anglo-Saxon model, minimizes state involvement, targeting social risk groups and high levels of need with a sector of private welfare providers. The social democratic model is built on universal state-run models of welfare, while a conservative model is found in countries such as France, Italy, and Germany. In reality these ideal types are blurred and have changed (Arts and Gelissen 2002) but they have shaped the development of policy towards children and families and confirm patterns that can

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be identified from earlier centuries. However, a new aspect is the fact that European cooperation establishes a new arena for negotiation of the standards of well-being for children. The implementation of the UNCRC has made children’s lives and well-being an increasingly important part of politics in Europe. In the last decade, various EU institutions have taken an increasing interest in child law (Towards an EU Strategy 2006). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) renders verdicts on child law issues on a regular basis. There are several reasons for this development, such as the impact of the EU’s social and rights-based agenda, the delineation of domestic and EU competence, children’s rights campaigns that transcend national borders, and the increasing perception of children as key investments in securing the prosperity of the aging, as touched on above (Stalford and Drywood 2009). The importance of parents in the realization of welfare schemes, the evolution of a social investment model of welfare, and interest in children’s experiences and voices cast light on the understanding of children and childhood. Children’s agency and competence are certainly central aspects that provide the rationale and spur an interest in how children define their understanding of the world and life situation. It is these initiatives by government agencies and civil society organizations as well as by scholars and research funding agencies that will decode the well-being of children that has become such an important aspect of welfare systems. Such new knowledge also redefines notions of the normal and gives substance to an expansion of diagnoses and a debate between competing professionals about the substance of such diagnoses. Consequently, new children’s maladies or scenarios of risk are being described, much within territory earlier disregarded as less important to the development of society, that is, children’s emotional and mental well-being, and particullarly the difference in the measures of well-being between girls and boys. Social and welfare policy also expect such knowledge to be shaped so that it can be of use in social planning. This points to the need for so-called evidence-based social science, but it also raises critical objections and questions about how it redefines social policy (Furedi 2001; Kamerman et al. 2010; Sandin 2011, 2012b; Bremberg 2004; Bergne´hr 2012; Barn 2012; Dekker 2009; Erchak and Rosenfelt 1989; Petersson et al. 2004; SOU 2008:131, 2001:55; Dahlstedt 2012; Wiss€o 2012; Frosh et al. 2002; Changing childhood in a changing Europe 2009). In this context, we can also identify novel arenas in which the well-being of children is seen as a common problem with different outcomes in different countries. The relationship between peers in schools and in media has led to attention being paid to bullying and children’s understanding of such interaction, which actualizes the many different ways bullying can be interpreted culturally (Coloroso 2003; Li et al. 2012; Hinduja and Patchin 2009; Osvaldsson 2011; Cromdal and Osvaldson 2012; Horton 2011; Watson et al. 2012). International adoption has, during the last decades, been discussed in terms of the psychological and mental well-being of adopted children. In the Scandinavian countries such interest has focused largely on the racialized identities construed for children with foreign backgrounds in relationship to the mainstream society. Similar concerns over the well-being and culture of adoptees are also voiced in

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other countries as, for example, the United States, but with very different discursive patterns, which reflect both the differences of the ethnic character of social work and politics of identity in the United States (Gill and Jackson 1983; Haslanger and Witt 2005, H€ ubinette and Andersson 2012; Andersson 2012; Lind 2012). The migration of children with and without families, escaping from oppression, war, and natural disasters has also put focus on the well-being of migrant children in Europe. This includes their reception, caring facilities, and interpretation of the best interests of the children as well as the grounds on which some children are extradited. In some cases, it has also caused an intensive debate on what psychiatric diagnoses can be used to describe mental conditions of apathy in children, which brings to the fore both the character of the reception children receive and the cultural biases of psychiatric diagnoses, and the on-going political negotiation of the meaning of childhood in Europe, where notions of childhood are shaped by the interaction with politics in a post-colonial majority world (Lundberg 2009; Andersson et al. 2010; Andersson 2005; Hansen 2008; Eastmond 2007; Gold and Nawyn 2012; Ingelby 2005; Watters 2008; Schiratzki 2000a, b, 2003, 2005, 2009; Tamas 2009; Bodega˚rd 2006; Brekke 2004a, b; Hacking 2002; Halligan et al. 2003; Bhabha and Young 1999; Keselman 2009; McAdam 2006). The focus in policy debates about mental well-being and parenting have shaped the background of new aspects of the welfare policies in European countries and at the European level. Educating parents to care for children has become a central aspect of the transformation of welfare, but it also reflects the interdependence of notions of children and parents. Competent children require a notion of competent parents. At a central European social policy level, and also in the United States, such ambitions point toward common trends in the models of support of parents to further the wellbeing of children (Gillis 2005a, b, 2008, 2012; Oelkers 2012; Rutherford 2013; Changing childhood in a changing Europe 2009; ESO 1996; Ellingasaeter and Leira 2006; Edwards and Gillis 2004; Fashimpar 2000; Gustavsson 2010; Hallde´n 2010; Johansson 2012; Kutscher 2012; Larner 2000; Lansdown 2005). In some nations, such as Sweden, policies for developing a system of comprehensive parental programs form the backbone of social conservative welfare that is set on protecting the rights of children within the families by further educating the parents. The ambition to shape a comprehensive system of support demonstrates at the same time the dependence on the traditional Swedish social welfare model. It also demonstrates the problems associated with importing support programs developed in cultural contexts where parenting and rights of children are set according to different cultural norms in, for example, the Anglo Saxon countries, but are ironically used to reach groups of immigrants to Sweden from majority world countries (Gleichmann 2004; Sandin 2011, 2012a, b; Barn 2012; SOU 2008:131). In parts of Europe, the ambitions are less systematic and based on initiatives from certain sections of government or welfare agencies. A divide exists between Northern and Southern Europe that may reflect different understandings of the integrity of the family and the role of government (Boddy 2009). It is therefore not surprising that the common cultural values as expressed in the UNCRC disintegrate into different national or regional ways of defining childhood

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and norms for the lives lived by children. The evolution of internationalization creates the need for comparative data on children’s well-being in different countries and regions. This, in turn, also necessitates the conceptualization of the terms in which children’s lives are understood – in terms of not only poverty levels but of health, education, income, and subjective well-being (Kamerman et al. 2010; Richter and Andresen 2012; Webb 2010; Bradshaw 1993; Bradshaw and Hatland 2006; Bradbury et al. 2000). Comparative data reveal dramatic differences, not only between rich and poor countries, but also between and within rich counties (UNICEF 2007; Bradshaw and Hatland 2006). Analyses show that children’s de facto well-being varies quite dramatically even among rich countries that do not lack the financial resources to promote children’s rights and protect their well-being. Reports from UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre reveal major differences between Northern European countries, including Sweden, and Anglophone countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, when it comes to indicators measuring a variety of dimensions of well-being. For example, while child poverty remains above 15 % in the Anglophone countries, it has fallen to below 5 % in the Nordic countries. Similarly, looking at data measuring infant mortality rates, Sweden has a rate lower than 3 deaths per 1,000 births, whereas the rate in the United States is more than double (7 %). Similarly stark differences apply if we look at data on low birth weight rates and other dimensions of well-being such as education, accidents, childhood death rates, and housing (UNICEF 2007). While careful analysis of each dimension and the indicators that are used to measure these suggest a degree of complexity, no one country performs satisfactorily in all aspects. It is nonetheless clear that certain patterns do emerge. Among the 21 OECD countries, at the aggregate level UNICEF ranks a cluster of countries that score well (Netherlands and the Nordic countries) as well as a few countries (the United Kingdom and the United States) that score poorly, while other countries, including France, occupy a middling position. Furthermore, it appears that no correlation exists between sheer economic wealth and levels of well-being, suggesting the need for a more subtle approach in analyzing these differences. A similar pattern emerges when we turn from well-being to rights, laws, and policies, which indicate interdependence. While the broad support for the United Nation’s Convention on Children’s Rights of 1989 suggests a general agreement on what such rights entail, differences of interpretation, in fact, run deep, widely reflecting varying norms regarding childhood, family values, and the proper relations between the state and family. In the case of the United States, we also have to assume that the resistance to the convention is based on a reluctance to accept international conventions as formative for US law. Differences can be understood as reflecting the differences between rights’ regimes that can be understood to steer the relations between individual, family, and state (Berggren and Tr€aga˚rdh 2009; Tr€aga˚rdh and Berggren 2010; Alston and Tobin 2005). These political orders will produce distinctly different ways of defining well-being. Variations in children’s well-being are related to variations in the way in which children’s rights are institutionalized and rooted in fundamentally distinct

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conceptions of the proper relationship between state, family, the individual, and civil society. While protection of the child has historically been the most compelling argument in favor of statist intervention, the state’s claims to authority in the domestic realm have challenged the sovereignty and privacy of the family and have therefore not gone uncontested. The nature of these conflicts and the ways that boundaries between state and family have been redrawn were, however, shaped by particular national, cultural, and religious contexts. We have seen how the Western nations represent different models and very different examples of typical regimes of children’s rights and well-being that express an historical legacy with deep cultural roots. With respect to well-being rates, according to the latest UNICEF review of “Child Well-being in Rich Countries,” Sweden ranks very high, the United States very low, and France in-between (UNICEF 2007). Secondly, they represent radically divergent models in terms of how relations between the state, the family, civil society, and the individual are institutionalized (Berggren and Tr€aga˚rdh 2009). In the United States, political culture has been characterized by a tension between progressive elements oriented towards social engineering and an antistatist tradition committed to individual liberty and the autonomy of civil society. Whereas in the early twentieth century progressivism held sway, later in the century socially conservative “family values” have often superseded children’s rights by giving primacy to the integrity and privacy of the family in its relationship to the state. The federalist structure also makes it difficult to create coherent policies concerning children and children’s rights (Sealander 2003; Grossberg 1983, 2012; Fass and Grossberg 2012). By contrast, in Sweden the child has served as both the imaginative and political linchpin of the incipient welfare state, and children’s rights have therefore played a central role. The Swedish welfare state or folkhemmet (“the people’s home”) has represented itself not only as a metaphorical home for its citizens, but also as the emancipator of the autonomous individual seeking refuge from the authority of the patriarchal family and, by extension, other hierarchical and patriarchal institutions of civil society. The state’s role herein has been a dual one: to preserve the autonomy and integrity of each individual, including the child, and to promote a far-ranging conception of social equality across gender, age, and class lines. The effect of this alliance between state and individual with respect to the family has been complex. It has made individual members of each family, including children, less dependent on one another, while it has also made the family as a whole less dependent on the institutions of civil society and the vagaries of the market (Berggren and Tr€aga˚rdh 2009; Tr€aga˚rdh 1997, 1999; Sandin 2012a; Bradshaw and Hatland 2006; Popenoe 1988, 2009; Duvander and Andersson 2006; Ferrarini 2006; Hernes 1987; Hinnfors 1992; Johansson 2004, 2009; Klinth 1999, 2002; Lundqvist 2008; Forsberg 2009). In France, one also sees a strong statist approach to children. However, in contrast to Sweden, the state has been less concerned with the emancipation of individuals; rather its chief concern has been to preserve the integrity of the traditional family. Until the last couple of decades, the agenda of the French state with respect to the family has primarily been that of promoting population growth

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through the creation of conditions under which families can live healthy, productive lives. France has shared with Sweden a decommodified approach to the family, and to children in particular, seeing them more as a link to state policy as opposed to autonomous actors in a market society. Thus, the French historical experience and sociopolitical model contrasts in crucial ways with both those of Sweden and the United States (Downs 2002; Meyer 1983; Schafer 1997; Kamerman and Kahn 1981; Tilly and Scott 1978; Fuchs 1984; Fishman 2002; Rosanvallon 2007; Bermeo and Nord 2000). Such differences in normative ideals that are hard to quantify and measure are expressed in the variation found in concrete laws, rights, and policies, which are easier to analyze. While there is a relative paucity of systematic, comparative data on laws and policies, another recent report from UNICEF, which seeks to rate the early childhood services of 25 OECD countries in terms of 10 legislative benchmarks, has produced a list remarkably similar – though not identical – to the well-being rankings discussed above. Again, Nordic countries occupy the top tier, while Anglophone countries (Ireland, Canada, Australia, United States) are found at the very bottom (UNICEF 2007).

2.9

Summary

The narrative in this chapter demonstrates both international and national or regional understandings of well-being that express general and global and long-, medium-, and short-term trends of change. It also points out that the understanding of children in history is shaped by local, regional, and national developments and international changes. Such trends are made by different political or religious cultures in various nations that shape how specific childhoods were formed and consequently how wellbeing was to be understood. The understanding of well-being is expressed both through the institutions of education and care created for children and through discussions about what is good for children that are voiced by the professional groups that claim precedence in the defining of well-being. Different political and academic cultures will ultimately have significance for what roles these professionals play in defining the life and role of children. The struggle over the meaning of childhood derives from the parallel existence of different institutional arrangements and various understandings of childhood. In a given historical context, progressive reform has existed side-by-side with traditional systems of care. The understanding of children’s well-being is consequently never homogenous. Family history research demonstrates how the resilience of families in periods of rapid transformation created a continuity between rural and urban areas, between agrarian and industrial regions, and between old countries and new, but its shortcomings in terms of ability to provide necessities for children were reflected in restructuring of decimated families and in high rates of child mortality and child abandonment. It is from that perspective religion, secular government, and civil society regulated, controlled and supported families. Throughout history such support has involved moral preaching, spreading knowledge, and providing

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material assistance to families defined as inadequate to guarantee the well-being of children. The well-being of children has been of importance to families and households given the material and cultural frameworks. Consequently, households also demonstrate different ambitions and abilities to care for and to meet the needs of children, both in terms of past definitions and in terms used in present societies. A struggle of definitions of need and well-being between classes, regions, and cultures can be traced over the centuries. Such needs are constantly redefined and the government and religious and civil society organizations have evaluated which needs were to be deemed legitimate for support – thereby setting standards for well-being. Such standards have also always had a moral and political side and included an interest in how parents managed the moral upbringing of their children. Different religious communities and legal traditions define the family as a spiritual and moral unit. Its relationship to the state has shaped the character and extent of institutions such as foundling homes, orphanages, and schools differently in different parts of the West. Physical and mental care have also had a moral side. Child welfare became an issue during the eighteenth century and earlier, partly due to criticism of children’s participation in the labor force, but also a result of extreme poverty and child abandonment. The discussions also had implications for children’s moral, psychological, and mental states, which connected evaluations of the working conditions with family care and the living conditions of street children, abandoned children, and children of single parents. The establishment of foundling hospitals and orphanages for children reflects concerns over the well-being of children. Sensitivity to children’s social and material well-being included concerns about their moral and civic roles and the social consequences of a failed up-bringing for society at large. Political discussions during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries combined these matters with a focus on criteria for the deserving and undeserving poor. Poverty at a young age and the failure of the older generation to provide transformed the child’s status among the lower classes to a risk criteria that in no way guaranteed support from society. The mid- and late nineteenth century saw an emerging interest from governments to survey and discuss the conditions under which young people lived. These focused on child labor, health, emigration, and housing conditions. Such engagement was an expression of fear that children’s detrimental social conditions hindered national efforts to develop industries or uphold overseas dominions and wage war. It also involved extensive charting and description of the conditions under which children lived. These efforts were also closely linked to moralizing over the life choices of children and women and the connection between poverty and poor morals. The development of mass education reflected to a great extent such worries in the Western world. The well-being of children also had a moral educational side and a relationship to children’s civic roles as future adults and citizens. In the educational systems that were developed from the late nineteenth century, different criteria of well-being were applied to children of different social classes, genders, and ethnic groups. Well-being was also understood differently given the perspectives of the school reformers and those of parents. The objectives of having children go to schools were fundamentally different.

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The development of education also had other effects. It went hand-in-hand with increased interest in children’s health, and mass education opened an avenue to inspect children in terms of development and health. By means of school medical inspections and the work of other health organizations, medical professions were able to increasingly observe the detrimental effects of children’s social conditions and family life: attempts to combine schooling and labor; social, physical, and emotional deviance; abnormality; and disease. In some countries these institutions became an integrated part of the health commitments made by central governments. Common features are a joint Western intellectual interest in the study of children and young people in the early twentieth century. The Child Study Movement thrived on the large numbers of children assembled in the educational system and initiated discussions about the qualities that made for a good upbringing. This led to the creation of social and institutional arrangements that normalized the child through a wide variety of instruments. These ranged from testing in schools, organized play, and summer schools to institutions for children at risk. These processes also indicate the relationship between the visibility of children on the streets of the towns and in factories, on the one hand, and an urge among political elites to regulate the life of children of the lower classes, on the other. Well-being was accordingly contextualized in relationship to the nature of children’s activities but also to their location or place. Work within the context of the family was preferred to work outside the household. Hazardous work conditions for children could be accepted on the family farm and have been up until the present day in some national contexts. But children’s independent activities as breadwinners were not condoned as appropriate and could also easily be labeled as idling. The well-being of children was closely associated with dependence on adult providers, a certain quality of family life, and certain kinds of activities such as play and education. At the turn of the twentieth century and during it first half, childhood took on its shape as a special period in a person’s life, and children were described as having distinctive features and possessing special rights. Childhood was also defined as a period of limited capacities and growth – a period to get through as soon as possible – but not before attaining an appropriate level of maturity. Childhood became a period of development under the eyes and support of parents and professionals and, as such, an important arena of research for the emerging professions. An important aspect of the sanctification of children was their vulnerability and need for protection. As a consequence of the social and cultural perils, it became a state of being where one should not linger too long, for to be a child was to be incompetent, half, and incomplete. It could be a dangerous period if in the care of incompetent adults; problems with children were at times sought in the underperformance of families, or, more specifically, of mothers. The well-being of children was clearly closely associated to upbringing in families and to female care. The construction of welfare meant that children’s welfare was evaluated vis-a`vis the welfare and role of parents. This has meant that different bodies of legislation have defined the meaning of childhood and the responsibilities of the state in

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relation to the family and children. Many initiatives and social services for children were implemented by nongovernment organizations. Philanthropic organizations increasingly engaged not only the philanthropic upper and middle classes but also professionals to a greater extent. Their ambitions, combined with those of the public child care professionals and politicians, led them to seek full-scale state support and backing by national legislation. This was the case with child care, child guidance clinics, maternity clinics, and compulsory school lunches in the most ambitious welfare systems, while in other Western nations the state was less ambitious in the shaping of coherent systems. All these different schemes indicate ways of problematizing children’s well-being and the need to shape the behavior of parents or simply support children. General welfare schemes balanced against more selective measures, and the role of national governments sought its place in relationship to the role of local governments (regional authorities) in the support of children’s well-being. Depending on the national context, the role of the family and professionals varied in importance and in its designated political role. State actions in loco parentis to protect children were arbitrated in relation to the role of institutional and professional influence and in relation to the integrity of the family. Such interventions to protect the well-being of children were shaped differently depending on legal traditions and the relationship between the family and the state. It was also different when applied in different sectors, whether it was distribution of milk to babies, examinations of newborn babies, or juvenile crimes and breaking norms. A thin and negotiable line was drawn between disciplining, punishments, and support in regard to mothers, children, and the young. These changes were also shaped by different national trajectories before and after World War II. In countries hard hit by depression, the policies for children and the understanding of childhood looked different than in nations that worried about a declining population or the disastrous effects of World War II on families and children. It is in such a light that the history of children’s well-being during the second half of the twentieth century can be understood and can explain the variations in the guises that provisions for children have taken. It also explains some of the conflicts concerning the well-being of children. The emergence of child welfare committees, child health care, educational policy, and legislation on adoption, fostering, delinquency, and the family can all be understood as examples of the way that children were viewed as politically important objects of welfare by governments or other agencies. Exactly what that interest has entailed has varied enormously, and has obviously been interpreted in different ways by the various agents involved and in different countries. Some may have subordinated it to other political priorities, such as the need to solve poor relief problems, population growth, housing shortages, or, for that matter, in some countries, a priority to create democratic citizens. Children’s rights have primarily been an issue of social rights rather than civic rights. Throughout the twentieth century, the child’s best interests in cases of adoption have, for example, been clearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of

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children in need of adoption and definitions of the nature of a family as a legal, psychological, social, or biological unit. Clearly the best interests of the child were evoked in situations when children were subject to problematic social situations, and when the “normal” living conditions afforded by the protection of a biological family were wanting. By the late twentieh century, children’s rights became central in addressing children’s issues and shaped the context for defining well-being. The rights of adults to parenthood or children’s rights to parents and the ranking of the rights of the family over the rights of the child are examples of issues that needed to be arbitrated in a context where well-being was an issue. The emphasis on children’s autonomy, competence, and independent agency also opened the doors for civil society and professional organizations to offer children support, protection, or legal advice in lieu of the guarantees previously afforded by the state. The phrase “the child’s best interests” became connected to children as competent individuals. The emphasis shifted to the judicial system’s responsibility to define children’s rights in relationship to the UNCRC. The child’s best interests became a unifying concept that is enlisted by partially rival agents – government authorities, voluntary organizations, lawyers, professional organizations and scholars – who view themselves as mediators of children’s rights and thus children’s best interests. They are prepared to listen to the voices of children, while at the same time representing and voicing their professional interests. A long-term shift involves a movement away from the idea of children that emphasizes their vulnerability and fragility toward a view of children that emphasizes the similarity of children’s needs as individuals to those of adults. Simultaneously, children’s voices also become important as sources of information about the well-being of children, and children are described as competent informers. The notion of children as having separate rights is consequently eroded; the social and citizens’ rights attributed to children in the UNCRC are largely identical to those of adults. This creates an issue in today’s society concerning how children’s rights should be negotiated between, on the one hand, care and dependence and, on the other, adult-like independence and rights as individuals but with very different outcomes in different countries. The trends also reflect a renewed interest in the study of children that accounts for children as social agents. The significance of this newborn and redirected interest in child studies is not only that it parallels the child studies movement around the turn of the century, but that it also participates in shaping institutions and policy for children. It is the very intellectual underpinning of an understanding of children as agents and of a governance of society that includes listening to children’s needs and definitions of well-being. The best interests of children are not only a directive in an international convention but also an instrument of governance in modern welfare societies. In essential respects, conditions have thus changed for interaction between the state, professionals, nonprofessionals, and children. But the debate concerning children’s well-being has been fundamentally altered from an issue of national concern, albeit based on international cooperation, to a basically international issue.

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During both the late twentieth and early nineteenth centuries the politics of children became an increasingly important part of politics in general, not least as reflected by the work of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also because of the creation of welfare institutions for children, changing gender relations, and an aging population in the industrialized Western world. The UN General Assembly accepted the convention in 1989 and all countries (except the United States and Somalia) ratified it. Even if different countries have varied interpretations of its meaning, the support surrounding UN’s children’s convention is unique in the context of international law. The signing was the culmination of a heritage dating back to the First World War and the confirmation of the Geneva Convention of 1924, which formulated rules for protecting children. It thus represents a set of principles that have developed on an international level but illustrates a shift in the meaning of childhood and the understanding of well-being At the same time, these principles are clearly founded in national agencies and NGOs focusing on child protection, child guidance, education, psychology, and social work. They reflect efforts on the national level and, more importantly, extensive international cooperation between professionals and scholars, thus building a cultural identity around the protection of children. One can also argue that it is a long-term consequence of international cooperation on different aspects of children’s well-being that has shaped the institutions for children from the eighteenth century onward. Children’s rights and understandings of well-being are clearly export products that reflect international power relations and dominance and consequently also ambitions to resist such hegemonic processes. Changing notions of well-being are simultaneously dependent on international and global changes, systems of evaluation, notions of rights, scholarship, national cultures, and the individual voices of children. In addition, it indicates recognizing and meeting children’s developmental and emotional needs. In the late twentieth century, the promotion of children’s rights indicated a shift from an emphasis on social rights and access to welfare provisions to individual participatory rights. One symbol of these changes was the emergence of the concept of the “best interests of the child,” which also influenced legal doctrines. It is in this context that we can also see the emergence of a discussion about the well-being of children also an issue of comparison between nations. As the best interest of the child was closely associated with the UN convention recognition of children, it also spurred an interest in comparative aspects of children’s lives. Comparisons demanded clear criteria for the measure of well-being to motivate and legitimatize social support. Sensitivity about the consequences for the life of children with new family patterns, extensive schooling, unemployment, and migration also created an awareness of how such changes influenced children’s quality of life. At the same time, children are understood as increasingly important investments in the welfare state. As governments are reluctant to uphold traditional welfare systems, this development has stimulated interest in the education of parents, equipping them both to fend for the well-being of children and to take part in the task of redeeming past inadequacies in the care of children in institutions.

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Zetterqvist, N. K. (2009). Under den aggressiva och kontaktovilliga ytan… In J. Lind, C. Lindgren, M. Sjo¨berg, & N. K. Zetterqvist (Eds.), Historien, barnen och barndomarna. Linko¨ping: Linko¨ping University Press. Zetterqvist, N. K. (2011). The Sandtray technique for Swedish children 1945–1960: Diagnostics, psychotherapy and processes of individualisation. Paedagogica Historica, 47(6), 825–840. Zetterqvist, N. K. (2012). Fra˚n samha¨llets barn till egna individer. Barnpsykiatrisk behandlingsideologi 1945–1985. Scandia, 78(2), 40–67. Zetterqvist, N. K., & Sandin, B. (2005). Politics of reading and writing problems. Changing definitions in Swedish schooling during the 20th century. History of Education, 34(2), 189–205. Zetterqvist, N. K., & Sandin, B. (2013). Psychodynamics in child psychiatry in Sweden: From political vision to treatment ideology, 1945–1985. History of Psychiatry (Accept. for publication).

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Culture, Context, and Child Well-Being Thomas S. Weisner

3.1

Introduction

There are different conceptions of what it means to be happy and what the goals of life are in different communities around the world. Diversity within societies regarding the circumstances that can make for well-being and what we want from life is also apparent, and diversity often includes cultural and ethnic variations. Including “culture” is a way to insure that research does not assume what the goals are, and what makes others happy, since “. . .there is no unambiguously single pursuit of happiness–rather there are multiple ‘pursuits of happiness’” (Mathews and Izquerdo 2009: 1). Another reason to include culture is that well-being includes subjective and experiential aspects, as well as objective material and health and other assessments. Culture includes models for everyday living, beliefs, goals, and values held in the mind – in other words, subjective experiences that shape the interpretation of what happens and do not only respond to but organize behavior and the choice of contexts. What is life’s meaning, what is the moral direction of good child development, and what would be good parenting to strive toward to reach that valued way of life? Cultural communities vary in their answers to these questions, and more open-ended, conversational interviews and naturalistic observations and fieldwork in communities are essential ways to learn about these differences (LeVine et al. 1988). Hence, cultural evidence is important for understanding well-being. Studying well-being in a wide range of communities with differing beliefs and practices requires qualitative understanding as well as closed-ended survey or questionnaire methods (Weisner 2013). What is going on here? Why are you investing so much

T.S. Weisner Departments of Psychiatry (Semel Institute, Center for Culture & Health) & Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_3, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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into religious devotion, ritual bathing, or earning money? Why are the rhythms of your days and weeks and the activities you do organized this way? Qualitative methods to explore and discover the life patterns, the life-worlds, of communities are important for the study of well-being.

3.2

Studying Well-Being in a Diverse Family World

In the current interconnected, relatively easy-to-access media and our rapidly changing demographic circumstances, it is increasingly difficult to find a culturally homogeneous sample that would be uninfluenced by multiple models and other groups’ conceptions of what is good and what matters for well-being. Yet for this very reason, the globalizing world around us today demands a diverse, pluralistic approach to well-being, not an increasingly uniformitarian one. Of course, there are many demographic variables and social categories that also influence well-being, in addition to cultural communities, including religious affiliation, ethnicity, race, class, age, gender, and other categories. Cultural evidence adds to such social address categories by asking what unifies these diverse demographic and social categories and institutional influences on well-being and human development. This idea that there are emergent, reasonably coherent cultural models that influence well-being, in addition to social and demographic categorical variables, is a proposal, not a given – it is a suggestion that needs evidence. As many chapters in this Handbook show, there is ample proof of the value of a cultural-contextual perspective. At the same time, these no longer are easy to identify, stable cultural groups with isolated, clearly shared models and patterns of belief and practice. These are empirical questions to ask of study populations: to what extent are beliefs shared and what practices and ideals define group identity (Weisner and Lowe 2005)? However, there is considerable evidence that culture continues to matter to wellbeing and to human development. Broad differences in family and parenting patterns continue to be found around the world, for instance. With regard to family and household diversity, for example, Therborn (2004, 2009) characterizes seven broad cross-cultural family patterns: Christian European; Islamic West Asian/North African; South Asian Hindu; Confucian East Asian; sub-Saharan African; Southeast Asian; and Creole (U.S. South, Caribbean, Brazil, parts of South America). Each of these seven broad family systems differs along social dimensions that have profound influences on family life. They differ in the norms concerning inheritance (e.g., whether all children inherit equally, or only males, or only firstborn males) or descent rules (e.g., bilateral as in the United States or patrilineal); marriage customs that are preferred or permitted in different communities (e.g., whether there is an ideal norm of lifetime monogamy; whether divorce and serial monogamy are allowed or plural marriage is permitted); beliefs about sexuality, gender, and patterns of household formation (e.g., whether couples form independent households, live with parents, or form joint or extended households; whether children

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typically remain in one household or move between multiple households during childhood; how marriages are negotiated; roles of fathers; socially distributed care of children and elderly) also vary across these world family systems. Religious practices of course also influence these and other aspects of family life as does class and other cross-cutting circumstances. Qualitative fieldwork describes the variability, adherence, reach, emotional significance, enforcement, and extent of influence of these diverse family norms. As Therborn (2004, 2009) summarizes the impact of these broad differences: “The boys and girls of the world enter many different childhoods and depart them through many different doors” (p. 338). Kagitcibasi (2013, ▶ Chap. 42, “Family and Child Well-Being” in this Handbook) further explores the family as a developmental context, emphasizing the integration of social and cognitive intelligence, multiple forms of self-construal to be found around the world, and the dimensions of autonomy and relational self-development. Well-being is an intentionally holistic, inclusive, contextual, hard-to-preciselydefine construct. Hence, there are significant difficulties in cultural interpretations and measurement of well-being. Yet constructs much more specific than well-being also are difficult to transport cross-culturally, and require local modifications. There also are competing constructs with more established measures (stress, happiness, goal orientations, preference hierarchies) that are more specific and sometimes substitute for and overlap with well-being, but may not capture cultural differences in well-being. Going to other cultural communities around the world opens the door to new, surprising cultural concepts and activities for well-being – but it does not mean that we do not also find universal aspects of well-being when we go to other communities. Vast differences in purchasing power, living conditions, chaotic contexts and family settings, war and violence, state-level oppression, and other circumstances can deeply affect well-being, net of cultural influence.

3.3

Conceptual Frameworks for Well-Being and Culture

The conceptual framework of this Handbook is remarkably broad and inclusive, and clearly considers well-being in a global, international context. Cultural perspectives are very much a part of child well-being looking across the Handbook and from the points of view of the editors. The conceptual framework includes the understanding that well-being is within “. . .a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary framework”. It includes “. . .the social opportunities to realize goals.” Well-being includes subjective experiences and meaning as well as objective indicators of material conditions, health, and behavior. Well-being of course also involves parents’ children’s, and community members’ “. . .own points of view, opinions, perspectives and perceptions, evaluations and aspirations.” The final sign of the important role of culture is the statement proposing that “Child well-being and well-becoming are tied to social and cultural contexts necessary for the realization of development consistent with cultural values and goals.” This points to the important role of well-being as including the moral direction of life and of child development. This includes the present condition of a child and family (well-being) and the future that is being pointed

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toward (well-becoming). So there is no need for this chapter to knock on the door of the methods, theory, and samples elsewhere in the Handbook, and remind us that cultural pluralism matters and that qualitative and quantitative methods are important. Instead, the focus can be on some examples of well-being and some frameworks for using a cultural approach in the study of well-being. Colby (2009) considers contemporary cultural study of well-being as understanding the self-world of individuals in context, a framework that encourages combining the personal/experiential with the cultural context. He assesses three domains that link a person’s reports of happiness and well-being to the context: the natural and cultural ecology perceived by a person – the material and biophysical situation; the social relational and interpersonal realm; and the symbolic realm of language categories, religious, and other beliefs. Super and Harkness (1999) have developed an influential construct of the cultural niche of development, which also includes three domains: the resource and material setting; the beliefs shared within a cultural community; and the practices or behaviors that parents, children, and others engage in on a regular basis. Many cultural definitions in the field of child development include versions of these three: resource setting and ecology; beliefs, goals, and values; and behaviors/practices. Hollan (2009) also provides examples of ways to link person-centered to contextual or culturally centered accounts through methods of person-centered interviewing. LeVine (2003) conceptualizes enculturation as the acquisition of “local idioms” for action, based on goals and practices within diverse local populations. These local idioms (meanings, beliefs, scripts for action, shared practices, ways of organizing everyday routines of life) shape how families sustain family life and how they conceive of and socialize for well-being.

3.4

A Definition of Well-Being as Sustained Engagement in Culturally Desired Activities

These and many other cultural concepts point toward a useful way to think about well-being and to use cultural evidence in research on it. The focus is on how culture, along with other environmental circumstances, shapes the activities of everyday life. Well-being is the engaged participation in the activities that are deemed desirable and valued in a cultural community and the psychological experiences that are produced by such engagement. This definition includes the resources and support needed for activities as well as the experience and meaning of participation in activities, the contexts and activities that matter in a community, and the active engagement of a person, including their feelings about those activities. Note that this view of well-being foregrounds social activities that produce and drive psychological experience, not the other way around, which is not the more common approach to the direction of effects. Actually, of course, the relationship is bidirectional, and the evidence clearly shows this throughout child development.

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Every individual has a unique history and psychological predispositions and temperament, all of which influence the activities the person engages with in the first place (which niches or activities they pick and prefer) and the degree of happiness they have both as a baseline and in varied settings. This conception of well-being as engaged participation in desired activities that matter is a functional approach to well-being, which also includes the experiences and affective state that would go along with the competence and sense of effectence that such participation entails. Unlike the association of well-being with happiness, however, well-being includes affective states such as engagement, attention, satisfaction, struggle to accomplish goals, and sometimes distress, frustration, and disappointment. Effective, engaged participation in activities we desire does not always lead to immediate happiness, but if sustained over time, can lead to wellbeing. Given the importance of cultural practices and beliefs for well-being, the quality of daily activities and family routines, on the one hand, and well-being, on the other, are closely connected. The connection likely has to do with the ability to sustain a meaningful routine in some cultural community. Every family and community is involved in the project of sustaining their household and family and community – that is, keeping it going, hopefully in the ways and along the path desired, using morally significant cultural idioms and shared values. What could we expect to find in any culture that might link daily routines and activities to well-being in positive ways (Weisner 2008)?

3.5

A Cross-Cultural Contextual Universal About What Produces Well-Being: Sustaining a Meaningful Daily Routine

Sustaining a daily routine involves four processes (Weisner 2002; Weisner et al. 2005): fitting the routine to family resources, balancing varied family interests and conflicts, experiencing some sense of meaningfulness of family activities with respect to goals and values, and providing stability and predictability of the daily routine. Routines that have better resource fit, less conflict, more balance, more meaningfulness, and enough predictability are posited to be better for families, and so to provide greater well-being for those participating in them. Sustainability in the life of a family and children is better for a child’s development and for parenting. To the extent that these features of a sustainable routine can be assessed and understood in a community, these data would be evidence for a reliable and valid contextual universal for comparing families and communities across cultures. Well-being, like sustainability, is an ongoing project, not a one-time end point. It is contextual, embedded in an everyday routine of life, and so part of some local social context with its local idioms. It includes both the local resources and ecology of the family and community, and the goals, values, and meanings that the community affords and people bring to their practices. For this reason, understanding well-being requires contextual and ethnographic data and methods, just as

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sustainability does. Such methods are complementary and add value to quantitative assessment methods and the growing use of mixed methods in family and child developmental research (Barata and Yoshikawa 2013, ▶ Chap. 101, “Mixed Methods in Research on Child Well-Being” in this Handbook). With these notions of well-being and cultural pathways in child development in mind, this chapter reviews ways to measure cultural context and provides some diverse examples of how variations in children’s socialization can lead to differences in the qualities that matter for well-being.

3.6

The Units of Analysis for Studying Well-Being, Culture, and Children’s Developmental Pathways

A cultural perspective on well-being does not require a single definition of what “culture is” to guide good research. It does not require a single measure. This is fortunate, since it is fair to say that there is no agreed-upon definition of culture, just as there is no agreed-upon method for measuring cultural factors. Rather than a single definition, it could be more useful to establish a set of key concepts and indicators that would be important to include in any cultural study. There are perhaps three key processes to focus cultural measurement on, and they would be valuable for well-being research and children and families. Three such keys are: 1. Widely shared and accepted scripts and norms for behavior and thought in the context of important settings and activities 2. Cultural models of the person; what is good; what are the shared (or at least widely recognized) beliefs about the nature of the sources, causes and consequences of well-being, wellness, and well-becoming; the valued moral directions for one’s life 3. Experiences and their meanings common in a community regarding well-being and the circumstances (health, resources, threats and dangers, uncertainties, etc.) that contribute to well-being A study that included these key constructs, with the measures and qualitative descriptions for them clearly presented, would provide a useful, scientifically sound cultural account. Those methods would probably include both qualitative and quantitative methods. Using the Ecocultural Family Interview approach to assessing the family daily routine, reliable coding of sustainability and the other dimensions that go along with it are possible and have been done in a number of studies (Weisner et al. 2005). These domains also are included in most theoretical frameworks for the study of development. For example, the most widely cited conceptual framework for child development in an ecological context is Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) work. Bronfenbrenner (2005) subsequently extended this model in his “person, process, context, and time,” four-part approach. In this latter approach, the child is an individual person, engaged in complex developmental processes, growing within particular family and sociocultural and historical contexts, which are changing across both developmental time and historical time.

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In keeping with the broad scope of the Handbook, I would suggest that an approach to understanding culture and well-being could usefully center around a cultural learning environment (CLE) conceptual framework. John and Beatrice Whiting, Carolyn Edwards, and others provided the psychocultural model for development in cultural context, which includes the subsistence base and wider environment, the community and family context, the settings and activities that children and others are in, and the social behaviors and beliefs that are associated with differential experiences in those varied settings (Whiting and Edwards 1988). CLE studies are oriented toward culture and human development topics, but are not limited to those topics. A recent paper by Carol Worthman (2010) reviews several of these models: the developmental niche, from Super and Harkness (1999); ecocultural theory from Weisner (2002); and bioecocultural approaches from Worthman (Worthman et al. 2010). ▶ Chapter 20, “Child Well-Being: Anthropological Perspectives” in this Handbook (Stevenson and Worthman 2013) also further describes this approach. That chapter usefully distinguishes between heuristic models (the CLE being one instance) and predictive models, which offer the potential to predict or account for regularities that can account for variations in child well-being across cultures and through time. The many transitions in the ecological and health contexts around children and families that affect well-being (such as the demographic transition, mass schooling market and state economies, and the postcolonial world and others) also are captured by such models. The CLE approach outlines what culture is and how it directs our behavior and thought with particular reference to child development. It includes the following components: – Culture is found in the everyday settings (activities, contexts, events, practices) we live within and engage with: bedtime, getting ready for school; visiting your cousins; helping plan, prepare, and cook dinner; going to Sunday school; doing homework; getting a checkup; hanging out with friends, etc. Activities are an important unit of analysis for seeing and measuring culture because this is where it is experienced and lived; context is bracketed into studies of well-being by using activities as a unit for analysis, not bracketed out. – Settings and activities have common attributes that organize our behavior and thought in them. Those characteristics include: resources and material objects available; values and goals that provide the purposes and endpoints for actions; scripts and norms (“customs” or “beliefs” or an “ethnopsychology”) that provide guides for the ways to act in that setting; emotions, motives, and feelings brought to the setting and created by it; people and the social relationships among those people; the stability, predictability, and familiarity of that setting. While we would not know everything – we would know a great deal about the cultural world of a person or community if we understood and measured the key activities and settings, and these six characteristics of those settings. These features organize and direct our behavior and thought in cultural contexts. – The activities and settings of a community are organized into a daily routine of life and are linked together into community ways of life. Culture creates pathways through development using these linked activities and routines.

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Activities and settings are the stepping stones making up those cultural pathways. Differences in cultural pathways influence health behaviors, well-being, and outcomes for children. – Activities and settings are influenced by the wider cultural ecology (demography, ecology, subsistence system, institutions, public health context, inequalities, community safety and threats, heterogeneity of ways of life, and others). It is an empirical question, which if possible should be assessed, as to the extent culture is shared among a community. A cultural analysis does not expect complete homogeneity, but rather predicts some diversity, and expects both internal and social conflicts and ambivalence (Weisner 2009). Cultural analysis is not about only finding homogeneity. Evidence of some heterogeneity is not an indication of the absence of shared culture if there are patterns and common shared beliefs and activities as well. Although for many studies, we will need to use social address categories to gloss a cultural group or nation (India; China; Hispanics; African-Americans), unpacking those categories is preferable where possible. Our deep proclivity to learn from our environment throughout life in a shared group context is an evolved capacity. Hence, well-being is always a mutually constituted process involving neurophysiological processes learned in a cultural and family context. We are prepared to be “cultural acquisition devices” (CAD) from before birth (Konner 2010). These endogenous factors influence how we acquire, store, and transmit cultural knowledge. Although there is a core psychic unity across all mankind (the CAD being such a capacity), this does not mean that there are no individual differences in CAD competence and tendencies. This variability also produces expectable variability in the extent of shared cultural beliefs in a community, as well as in how individuals within any community respond and adapt to “the same” culture (Worthman et al. 2010). Cultural transmission is bidirectional and selective (Sch€onpflug 2009). A great deal (arguably most) of such cultural learning occurs without verbal instruction but rather though mimicry, imitation, play, rehearsal and practice, apprenticeship, and observational learning. Hence, the perception, acquisition, storage in memory, recall, patterning in the mind, and ways of expressing and teaching culture throughout childhood and throughout life are essential aspects of how we define, measure, and describe the impacts of culture for health and well-being outcomes. Until the recent introduction of formal schooling throughout the world, all child learning occurred in everyday activity settings, mixed-age play groups, and adultmanaged work and family settings. The ways cultural knowledge is transmitted are key components for understanding cultural influences on health, because learning and transmission of cultural knowledge always can transform that knowledge. There is intentional design and change built into cultural practices. Well-being can always be changed and improved in cultural context. Components of activities and behavior settings in cultural learning environments are not static; but this static view often leads to culture being viewed as a barrier to positive changes in health beliefs and behaviors. To the contrary, cultural studies can discover levers for effective interventions and

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change to improve well-being. Translational research on health and well-being can utilize cultural practices for positive outcomes, not only get around them as barriers to well-being. Put more strongly: Unless good ideas for health and well-being are finding a place in daily routines and activity settings (in organizations, groups, families, individuals) such that new beliefs and behaviors take hold, good ideas and interventions will not diffuse, or be able to scale up. ▶ Chapter 18, “Child WellBeing: Anthropological Perspectives”, by Stevenson and Worthman (2013) in this Handbook offers a number of positive suggestions for implementing child policy around the world to improve child well-being.

3.7

Some Examples from Cultural Studies of Well-Being

Cultural beliefs and emotional regulation norms influence how members of different cultural communities describe how happy they are, how satisfied they are with life, and how well they are doing. Mathews and Izquerdo (2009) describe an example of this, contrasting Japanese and North American ideals of how to present oneself to others. A frequent finding in survey research on subjective well-being and happiness is that East Asians say they are less happy than North Americans. How might we interpret this result? Cultural beliefs about the goals of life (one should “pursue” happiness) and of the social regulation of pride and boasting (one should not boast much) can influence responses to questionnaires, surveys, and interviews, as well as public displays of well-being. . . .in a society declaring in its founding document the inalienable right to “the pursuit of happiness,” one is culturally enjoined to pursue and proclaim one’s happiness. . . In East Asian societies such as Japan, on the other hand, personal modesty is an ingrained social value–one is enjoined not to boast about one’s success in life or declare too loudly one’s personal happiness or well-being (Mathews and Izquerdo 2009: 7).

Assessing well-being using questionnaire, survey, observation, or qualitative interviews would benefit from a cultural understanding of display rules for pride or happiness in various cultural contexts and the patterns of emotional regulation (both internal states and feelings, and outward expression) learned in childhood and reinforced in that community for adults. Absent this cultural understanding, the collection and interpretation of data about happiness and emotional states is likely to be incomplete. The term ikigai in Japanese explicitly, lexically points to the basic question of what a good life is, what is the right moral direction, the right activities, and life practices, that give your life meaning. Hence, ikigai is “that which makes one’s life worth living.” One asks in conversation in Japan, “what is your ikigai? Now it is likely that communities everywhere recognize the intent of that question, and offer answers: my family; my work; making money; my church and service to God. But according to Mathews (1996), only the Japanese lexicon actually has a term for this. A fuller definition of ikigai for Japanese includes: “one’s deepest bond to one’s social world” and “one’s deepest sense of social commitment” (Mathews 1996: 173).

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The example of Japan emphasizes the importance of cultural differences in how children are socialized with regard to social cues, social context, and interdependence, rather than the ego-entered attentional focus, independence and autonomy, and personal cues for recognition much more common in the EuroAmerican world. Well-being, at least the social engagement and functional aspects, is more socially centered in many communities. Ochs and Izquerdo (2009), for example, offer this contrast in learning and socialization, comparing the US middle class in Los Angeles, the Matsigenka of Peru, and Upolu, Samoa. Note that the unit of analysis is the everyday routines of family life, particularly tasks and chores and responsibilities for children and what they mean. The outcomes are the goals for well-being, including social intelligence and appropriate behavior. There are clear developmental strengths for the Matsigenka and Samoan children and youth that are linked to desired goals for a good person that are in turn linked to family practices in those cultural groups. The emphasis is on tasks, chores, social cooperation, and other competencies. The child is oriented to learn from others in the social world in Samoa and among the Matsigenka, emphasizing learning through social intelligence and through the observation of others in their daily activities, rather than through dyadic instruction directed only at the child by a parent. We propose that social awareness, social responsiveness, and self-reliance are keystone properties of moral personhood and use these properties to articulate ways in which actions and stances of others influence children’s accountability in everyday family life. Building on cross-cultural studies of children’s domestic activities, this study advances the literature by arguing that much more than practical competence and social responsibility are afforded by children’s assistance in tasks. We hypothesize that practical household work is a crucible for promoting moral responsibility in the form of a generative crosssituational awareness of and responsiveness to others’ needs and desires. (Ochs and Izquerdo 2009: 391)

The importance of the development of social responsibility in childhood for well-being is that it occurs in the middle of everyday family expectations for tasks and chores, and that it is clearly associated with moral directions that are frequently included in conceptions of family and child well-being: “. . .social awareness, social responsiveness, and self-reliance integral to hearth and home and the fabric of family life.” (Ochs and Izquerdo 2009: 408). Well-being is not marked by awards for the child, or boasting about doing a good job at something, but rather by displays of culturally meaningful tasks, work, and activities. What might be glossed only as child work in an observational measure is an indicator of well-being for much of the world. Now, the child and others might not be feeling “happy” or “joyous” while doing the work, yet he or she might feel satisfaction and well-being at the social inclusion and participation that is part of such work. What those experiences are is an empirical question to be assessed. There are other efforts in cross-cultural studies to explicitly ask about wellbeing – the local worlds, the actions, the beliefs, and kind of moral life direction that characterizes it. Izquerdo (2009) further describes this for the Matsigenka, an isolated fishing, hunting, foraging, and horticultural Amerindian group. The Matsigenka are

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a family-level society, though they more recently live in small group settlements. Well-being is shinetagantsi, which embodies “ideals and beliefs of what the Matsigenka consider the basic premise of a good life.” (p. 251). This involves little self-conscious reflection – questions about personal happiness elicited only blank stares – but rather the ideals of providing for one’s family, improving upon one’s productive skills, and keeping harmonious social relations throughout a long and peaceful life. The physical health of Matsigenka has been improving over the past 20 years or so – yet the community’s own appraisal of well-being is that they personally, and their community, are declining. They fear the future due to the rapid change and encroachment of globalization, oil exploration, and other economic and social changes. Knowing both the cultural beliefs about change in health and well-being, as well as the measured physical health, are both important for assessing well-being. The Canadian Cree (Adelson 2009) and the Australian Aborigines of Murrin Bridge (Heil 2009) also face these kinds of threats posed by the wider state and urban life. In all these cases, well-being includes stable and positive relationships with one’s local social community – a common theme in many cultural accounts of well-being around the world, in smaller and larger societies alike. Derne (2009) also describes the importance of a sociocentric cultural orientation to one’s natal family and community among young men in urban India. Raval and Martini (2011) similarly find that there are emotional regulation practices in urban Indian families in Gujarat not commonly included in current ways of measuring problemfocused parent behaviors in the USA. These involve giving the child an explanation of the situation, frequently phrased as “making the child understand.” Such an approach is in keeping with overarching relational socialization goals, which teach children to adjust their own goals and needs to fit their social environment and to accept the situation, thus facilitating their development as socially interdependent individuals. “. . .elders of the family assumed the role of making the younger members understand. Similarly, the socialization of children’s emotions in Gujarati families may be conceived in this broader context of ‘making the other understand’. Specifically, our qualitative data suggested that mothers wanted their children to understand that they should accept and adjust to the situation, because internalization of this important cultural value is a critical step toward the larger goal of becoming a socially interrelated person (Raval and Martini 2011: 854).

Such locally meaningful ways of parenting are best understood through conversations and qualitative observations in natural settings that then lead to an understanding of the morally appropriate pathway for learning and emotion regulation that matter to families. Expecting, adjusting, and understanding the social situation by the child is important because that is what a child in an interdependent, socially mediated, and constrained world needs to do to become a growing cultural person. It is likely that more of this kind of parental training is going on in some US and European groups than is currently appreciated. Questionnaire scales of parenting or goals are unlikely to fully capture this. Well-being is intertwined with these practices. “Training” is a more appropriate conceptual frame for another focus found in other cultural groups: well-being as exemplified by persistence in doing and

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completing a task and by both family and personal respect shown through effortful accomplishment (Chao 1994; Li 2012). This pattern is not limited only to Asian families of course, as already noted for the Matsigenka and the Samoans, but it is marked as a cultural pattern much more clearly in a number of those cultures. Praise in the North Indian context is seen as leading to over-boasting and egocentrism and also means that the child is not focusing on how their own actions might be affecting others or how others might perceive pride (pride being a dangerous display in India, Africa, and elsewhere). Hence, lots of praise (“good job!” many middle class Americans might say) is uncommon-not because parents are not “proud” of their child and do not want them to do well and feel good about this, but because other emotions and social behaviors are as or more important, or the ways of accomplishing these goals are culturally different.

3.8

Distinguishing Cultural Diversity in Pathways to Well-Being From True Threats to Well-Being

A benefit of a comparative, cultural consideration of well-being is that it can alert us to the risk of confusing circumstances in other cultural communities that might seem harmful to children and to well-being from the Euro-American cultural perspective, yet which are neither viewed that way elsewhere, nor produce deleterious consequences for children and their families. There is always a risk of falsely claiming that circumstances in other cultural communities that might seem harmful to children and to well-being from the Euro-American cultural perspective are in fact deleterious. Many contexts that might seem to be troubling do not produce deleterious consequences for children and their families (Weisner 2009). There is very strong evidence from the ethnographic record and from contemporary studies of children and families that there is a wide range of ways to raise children (LeVine 2007) and that most parenting is “good enough” and is in the service of cultural goals and beliefs that we need to assess in context, rather than imposing a Western framework on them. Many of these ways of parenting and family circumstances may appear chaotic and unacceptable by Eurocentric standards, yet they are nonetheless morally and developmentally appropriate in other places. Perhaps they are not optimal in various ways, yet nonetheless they are good enough, and they produce children and adults who are socially competent and contribute to their communities no more or less so than in the USA. The cultural goals and moral directions for development are met, at least in part, and there is no great gap in well-being outcomes. For example, socially distributed, multiple caretaking of children is widespread around the world (Evans 2013, ▶ Chap. 65, “Children as Caregivers” in this Handbook; Meehan 2013, ▶ Chap. 61, “Allomothers and Child Well-Being” in this Handbook). Most children are frequent caregivers for their siblings and for their cousins. Nannies, grandparents, and aunts commonly complement or sometimes replace mothers and fathers. Does this lead to relational insecurity, emotional loss, confusion, and anxiety? Or can such caregiving patterns provide a strong sense of

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empathy, nurturance, social responsibility, social intelligence, and social competence in children who are caregivers? There is evidence that such care, when not associated with family breakdowns or other chaotic circumstances – when this pattern of caregiving is an expectable, normative, taken-for-granted cultural pathway for children – can promote well-being, and at the least should not be confused with suboptimal care (Weisner 1996; Seymour 1999; Gottlieb 2004; Keller 2007). Attachment security can be achieved through pluralistic models of care and close relationships as well. There is not a single mother-child dyadic style, but rather varied ways to socialize for sufficient security and trust (Harwood et al. 1995; LeVine and Norman 2001). As mentioned earlier, parenting practices that emphasize structure, respect, control, and training are not necessarily deleterious or unduly harsh, but rather they can provide effective care and positive experiences for children (Lareau 2003; Darling and Steinberg 1993). Co-sleeping or growing up in “crowded” spaces by some Western standards may not lead to dependency or stress and can be associated with interdependence, and symbiotic relationships as a goal for well-being (McKenna 1993; McKenna and McDade 2005; Shweder et al. 1995). Adults do not play with children in most of the world today and did not in the past, though children engage in play everywhere. It is not a sign of insensitive or nonoptimal parenting to observe this (Lancy 1996, 2007). Even where there are difficult conditions for children and families, we need better understanding of the cultural differences that could moderate or mediate environmental stress and chaos and move such situations in a more positive direction (Wachs and Corapci 2003). This is not to suggest that there are not circumstances that are not going to be good for children most anywhere. These certainly include facing war, becoming refugees, being in mortal danger, and experiencing severe deprivation. Chronically inadequate nutrition, little or no physical protection from threat or violence inside or outside the home, or unresponsive or not even minimal social stimulation are nowhere promoting well-being and basic health for children or adults. Situations involving chronic violence, anger and conflict, persistent threats and danger, or relative status inequality absent supports are not good for children anywhere. Exposure to toxic substances, dangerous neighborhood, school or other settings, chaotic and unpredictable caregivers and social contexts, forced migration and unpredictable disruptions on a continuing basis are not associated with well-being. Nonetheless, Ruiz-Casares, Guzder, Rousseau, and Kirmayer (2013, ▶ Chap. 82, “Cultural Roots of Well-Being and Resilience in Child Mental Health” in this Handbook) in their chapter on the “Cultural Roots of Well-being and Resilience in Child Mental Health” emphasize resilience, seen both as an individual trait and as an adaptive cultural response by some communities and families, even in the face of clearly negative circumstances. A cultural or contextual understanding of well-being does not imply or require a relativist position with regard to the expectations of negative consequences for well-being of many situations facing children and families around the world. At the same time, it adds, I believe, a useful complement to other work, which offers positive policy and practice guides for interventions to benefit children around the world (Engle et al. 2007).

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Conclusion

The cultural learning environment provides what many believe is a useful conceptual framework for measuring cultural contexts and settings. CLEs include resources and ecology, behaviors, and beliefs. The settings that make up the everyday contexts that organize the lives of children and their caregivers and peers include norms and scripts for how to behave in them, resources making those activities possible, emotions and feelings occurring within them, people and relationships, goals and values, and some estimate of the degree of stability or predictability. The notion of more sustainable daily routines and activities for children and their families and communities points to a way to provide a comparative assessment of well-being quality that is not relativistic but rather provides a “contextual universal.” Local everyday activities for children and parents that provide a better fit to available resources, less conflict, more balance, more meaningfulness with respect to goals, and enough predictability are plausibly going to be associated with increased well-being for children. Such an approach ideally will be complementary to the suite of other ways to assess well-being that are now available in our field (Ben-Arieh and Goerge 2005; Bornstein et al. 2003). Culture matters, but it does not trump other ways of predicting, comparing, and describing well-being. It is usually used complementary to other ways of understanding well-being. Cultural comparative work on well-being can be used to demonstrate universals, features that children benefit from everywhere, as well as discovering the effects of the remarkable differences in the life circumstances of children today. We need to be sure that we include the enormous diversity in children’s worlds that exist today in our assessments. Culture is important for well-being since it brings the meanings and experiences of parents, children, and others into the description and analysis of well-being and ideally insures that their voices are part of our understanding of well-being.

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Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65(4), 1111–1119. Colby, B. N. (2009). Is a measure of cultural well-being possible or desirable? In G. Mathews & C. Izquerdo (Eds.), Pursuits of happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective (pp. 45–64). New York: Berghahn Books. Darling, N., & Steinberg, L. (1993). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. Psychological Bulletin, 113(3), 487–496. Derne, S. (2009). Well-being: Lessons from India. In G. Mathews & C. Izquerdo (Eds.), Pursuits of happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective (pp. 127–146). New York: Berghahn Books. Engle, P. L., Black, M. M., Behrman, J. R., Cabral de Mello, M., Gertler, P. J., Kapiriri, L., & Martorell, R. (2007). Strategies to avoid the loss of developmental potential in more than 200 million children in the developing world. Lancet, 369(9557), 229–242. Evans, R. (2013). Children as caregivers. In A. Ben-Arieh, F. Casas, I. Frones, & J. E. Korbin (Eds.), Handbook of child well-being, Chap. 65. Springer: Dordrecht. Gottlieb, A. (2004). The afterlife is where we come from: The culture of infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harwood, R., Miller, J., & Irizarry, N. L. (1995). Culture and attachment: Perceptions of the child in context. New York: Guilford Press. Heil, D. (2009). Embodied selves and social selves: Aboriginal well-being in rural New South Wales, Australia. In G. Mathews, & C. Izquerdo (Eds.), Pursuits of happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective (pp. 88–108). New York: Berghahn Books. Hollan, D. (2009). Selfscapes of well-being in a rural Indonesian village. In G. Mathews & C. Izquerdo (Eds.), Pursuits of happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective (pp. 211–227). New York: Berghahn Books. Izquerdo, C. (2009). Well-Being among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon: Health, missions, oil, and “progress”. In G. Mathews & C. Izquerdo (Eds.), Pursuits of happiness: Well-being in anthropological perspective (pp. 67–87). New York: Berghahn Books. Kagitcibasi, C. (2013). Family and child well-being. In A. Ben-Arieh, F. Casas, I. Frones, & and J. E. Korbin (Eds.), Handbook of child well-being, Chap. 42. Springer: Dordrecht. Keller, H. (2007). Cultures of infancy. Mahway, NJ: LEA Press. Konner, M. (2010). The evolution of childhood: Relationships, emotion, mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lancy, D. F. (1996). Playing on the mother-ground: Cultural routines for children’s development. New York: The Guilford Press. Lancy, D. (2007). Accounting for variability in mother-child play. American Anthropologist, 109(2), 273–284. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. LeVine, R. A. (2003). Childhood socialization: Comparative studies of parenting, learning, and educational change. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre. LeVine, R. A. (2007). Ethnographic studies of childhood: A historical overview. American Anthropologist, 109, 247–260. LeVine, R. A., Miller, P. M., & West, M. M. (Eds.). (1988). Parental behaviors in diverse societies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. LeVine, R. A., & Norman, K. (2001). The infant’s acquisition of culture: Early attachment reexamined in anthropological perspective. In C. C. Moore & H. F. Mathews (Eds.), The psychology of cultural experience (pp. 83–104). New York: Cambridge University Press. Li, J. (2012). Cultural foundations of learning. East and West. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mathews, G. (1996). What makes life worth living? How Japanese and Americans make sense of their worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Weisner, T. S., Matheson, C., Coots, J., & Bernheimer, L. P. (2005). Sustainability of daily routines as a family outcome. In A. E. Maynard & M. I. Martini (Eds.), Learning in cultural context: Family, peers and school (pp. 47–74). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Whiting, B., & Edwards, C. (1988). Children of different worlds: The formation of social behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Worthman, C. (2010). The ecology of human development: Evolving models for cultural psychology. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41, 546–562. Worthman, C. M., Plotsky, P. M., Schechter, D. S., & Cummings, C. A. (Eds.). (2010). Formative experiences: The interaction of caregiving, culture, and developmental psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Children, Gender, and Issues of Well-Being Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen and Barrie Thorne

4.1

Introduction

“It’s a girl!” “It’s a boy!” Around the world, one of these two pronouncements often marks the moment when a baby is born. In cultures where girl babies are less valued, the enthusiasm of the calling out varies depending on whether it is a boy or a girl, or whether a newborn is the second girl born to the parents. Everywhere, however, a choice of either-or is made on the basis of the appearance of the baby’s genitals which in 99 % of the cases are easy to classify. This chapter considers ways in which a gender dichotomy indeed may be basic to everyday ways of talking and to the structuring of social institutions and practices. But we will also highlight the many ways in which the gender arrangements and meanings that inflect the lives of children may challenge a dichotomous view. Gender tends to vary in salience when it comes to individual experiences of embodiment and identity, and the meanings of gender are complex and contextual, changing over time. Furthermore, gender has many facets. It is a dimension of bodies and physical reproduction, individual identities and personal experience, and social relations and everyday interaction. Gender is also central to divisions of labor and to the structuring of institutions such as families, schools, markets, and states. The experiential, embodied, symbolic, social relational, and structural dimensions of gender are deeply entangled with other lines of difference and inequality, such as age (a key concern of this chapter on children and gender), sexuality, social class, nationality, and racialized ethnicity (for an overview of this approach to

H.B. Nielsen (*) Centre for Gender Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] B. Thorne Departments of Sociology and of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 105 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_4, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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theorizing gender, see Connell 2009). These entanglements, or articulations, help shape the organization, salience, and meanings of gender, as we will show in considering children’s positioning and experiences in different spheres of life – family, work, schooling, relations with peers, and consumption. After specifying varied dimensions of gender, we will sketch the changing structure of age and gender relations in the history of children in the global North (industrialized, affluent countries in Europe and North America, also including Australia and New Zealand located in the global South). We will then discuss gendered and age-related trends in the amount and type of unpaid work done by contemporary schooled and domesticated children, with patterns centrally shaped by social class. In the global South (Africa, Latin America, Asia), full-time and continual school attendance is in many ways a class privilege; less affluent children do a great deal of paid and unpaid labor, with gendered patterns inflected by necessity, age, and cultural beliefs and practices. The next major section of this chapter focuses on children’s gendered experiences among peers and within schools – a flourishing area of research in Europe and in the USA. We examine girls’ and boys’ experiences of doing, being, and becoming gender in the contexts of schools and show how changing empirical approaches, theoretical models, and media discourses have helped shape knowledge about children and gender in different periods of time. We place special emphasis on the changes, and also the continuities, in children’s gendered behavior over the last 30–40 years. Our discussion of children’s gendered play and friendship relations is based primarily on qualitative studies of children of different ages in a range of contexts. In the last substantive section, we focus on the ways in which global capitalism, especially the circulation of commercialized culture and products designed for children, “tweens,” and teens, is altering the gendered contours of young people’s experiences in the global North as well as countries in the global South. In the search for markets, designers and corporations have amplified age and gender distinctions. At the same time, global economic restructuring is widening gaps between the rich and poor in global South as well as global North countries, in patterns articulated with age and gender. In this chapter, we devote far more attention to children in industrialized, or “global North,” countries than to those living in Africa, Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia – the “global South,” which, in terms of sheer numbers, is the majority world. This skew is due to the limited reach of our knowledge, although we have tried to open up ways of seeing and thinking about gender that would be useful for more fully global exploration of themes related to children and gender. The relation of gender to the patterning of children’s wellbeing, a contrapuntal theme in this chapter, moves through each section and is pulled together in the concluding summary.

4.2

What is Gender? Conceptual and Theoretical Issues

Gender is empirically present in bodily appearance and experiences, as well as in the patterning of social structures, interactions, and identities. Gender is also

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a forceful frame of interpretation in our minds. We not only assign gender to people but also to nonhuman things such as colors, nations, ships, bombs, and tornados (Scott 1988). The color pink now tends to be seen as feminine and the color blue as masculine, but this was not always the case. The idea of signaling a child’s gender by color arose in the Western world in the late nineteenth century along with the idea that boyhood and girlhood ought to be more clearly distinguished from each other. This was a product of an amplified dichotomous conception of gender that attended processes of modernization. Before the nineteenth century, gender worked primarily as an axis in divisions of labor along with the distribution of power, authority, and privilege. With an enhanced division between public and private life in the nineteenth century and with the rise of modern medical science, the difference between males and females came to be understood as fundamental, dictated by their different biology and inborn psychological capacities (Laqueur 1990; Fausto-Sterling 2000). This also influenced perceptions of children and ideas about how they should be brought up, as we know, for instance, from Rousseau’s (1762/1979) writings about E´mile and Sophie. This dichotomous gender scheme extended to assumed psychological differences between girls and boys, which parents reinforced by dressing them in different colors. The colors initially chosen to signal a child’s gender may, however, seem a bit surprising: in the nineteenth century, experts argued that a pale blue color was perfect for signaling the delicacy and flightiness of little girls, while a fierce red or pink color would suit the strong and determined little boy. As some point in the first decades of the following century, these colors underwent a sex change; pink then came to indicate feminine daintiness and affection, while blue conveyed masculine strength and straightforwardness (Paoletti 2012).

4.2.1

The Gender Scheme: Dichotomy and Hierarchy

What characterizes gender as a frame of interpretation – with many consequences for the lives of children – is the tendency to split and dichotomize phenomena into two distinct groups and the tendency to read this dichotomy as a hierarchy. Things defined as feminine also tend to be seen as secondary or even inferior to things defined as masculine. When pink and blue changed places, so did the evaluation of the colors and their relative value: it is more valuable to be strong than weak, wiser to be strongminded than flighty, and more honorable to be straightforward than dainty. As Simone de Beauvoir pointed out in her landmark book from 1949, women are seen as “the second sex” (de Beauvoir 1949/2009). According to de Beauvoir, men are seen as embodying the universal human, the unmarked category of mankind, whereas women make up a special gendered subcategory whose gender explains their deviation from the universal human. As we will later discuss, this way of thinking may continue even in situations where women gain positions of power or where girls exceed boys in educational achievements. Thus, there is no automatic connection between gender as it is present empirically in the world and gender as a frame of interpretation. However, interpretive models of gender interact with gender in the world: if pink is perceived as

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a girlish color, many little girls will want to wear that color, and boys to be careful to avoid it, since, due to the effects of hierarchical evaluation, it is more stigmatizing for a boy to wear pink than for a girl to wear blue. In affluent societies, pink and blue outfits and toys have been highly commodified along with dichotomous ways of marketing geared to girls and to boys. This sharp divide constrains possibilities for alternative images and choices. Through processes of this kind, the symbolic gender assigned to color enters into empirical experiences and practices related to gender. It has come to seem natural for little girls to love pink and for little boys to hate it, further reinforcing the mental model we use for interpreting the world. In this way, gender in our heads and gender in the world continually feed into one another.

4.2.2

Gender Attributions and Double Standards

Gender as frame of interpretation – variously referred to as symbolic gender, representations of gender, or discourses of gender – also influences the way we assign gender to people, starting, in the life course, with an initial gender attribution like “It’s a girl!” This process may involve double standards, with behaviors interpreted and valued differently according to the gender of the person. When a boy does well in school, it is often considered to be the result of intelligence, whereas if he does poorly, it might be thought that he is lazy or just bored. When a girl does well in school, it is more often seen as the result of her dutifulness and hard work, but if she does poorly, it may be attributed to lack of intelligence (Walkerdine 1990). A number of researchers have found that teachers tend to notice ¨ hrn 1991). In the if girls dominate in the classroom, but not if boys dominate (O USA, the SAT test, used to assess a student’s potential for learning and thus an important gateway to higher education, was readjusted to close the gender gap in areas where girls performed better, but not those where boys did better (Dwyer 1996). In Scandinavia, when the problems of girls in schools were debated in the 1980s, the proposed solutions focused on accomplishing changes in individuals, for example, finding ways to strengthen girls’ self-confidence. When the problems of boys in schools came in focus 20 years later, the analysis and solutions were framed in a structural way: the school system did not meet the needs of boys and ought, ¨ hrn 2000). therefore, to be changed (O Such double standards and attributions seldom work on a conscious level; they slide in as taken-for-granted dimensions of ways of thinking about and practicing gender. Unruly girls may get more on our nerves than unruly boys because we assume that boys will be boys, whereas a girl can behave herself if she really wants to (Gordon et al. 2000). Gender attributions also interact with and may be modified by other categories. Connolly (1998) and Ferguson (2000) found that Black boys are not given the same dispensation as White boys to just be “boys”; teachers more quickly interpreted Black boys’ behavior as threatening, consequential, and as a sign of their risk of failure. Gender attributions sometimes emerge in the perceptions and practices of parents who consciously want to raise sons and daughters in similar ways (often by mixing the “positive” sides of both gender repertoires such

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as instilling self-confidence, independence, friendliness, caring for others) and who think they manage to treat their children in an equal way. But since parents tend to interpret the same behavior in sons and daughters differently, they may end up treating them differently as well. Scandinavian parents, for instance, generally do not embrace negative gender stereotypical behavior, but they are more ready to accept it if it concurs rather than goes against expectations related to the child’s gender. Thus, parents may be more likely to worry about a quiet boy than a quiet girl and a physically aggressive girl more than a physically aggressive boy. Hanne Haavind’s study (1987) of Norwegian mothers with a boisterous 2-year-old and a shy 4-year-old demonstrates this very neatly: if the 2-year-old was a girl, the parents tried to teach her to leave her sensitive 4-year-old brother alone, but if the 2-year-old was a boy, the quiet 4-year-old sister had to learn to cope with him because that is how boys are. The parents saw their own actions as a response to the particular and unique personalities of their children and were not aware of the pattern of the gendered attributions that came into sight for the researcher when several families were compared.

4.2.3

Gender as Category and Gender as Distribution

One central source of such gender attributions and double standards is that gender as a concept is used to signify two quite different things: a categorical difference (either/or) and a distributional or statistical difference (more or less of something). Gender stereotyping involves interpreting a gendered pattern of distribution (e.g., in a statistical study finding that boys tend to take up more space on a playground) as a categorical distinction (generalizing that boys take up more space than girls, which obscures the statistical distribution). This ignores variation within each group and overlap between girls and boys. We tend to notice behavior that confirms gender stereotypes, to marginalize as exceptional behavior that deviates from the stereotypes, and to overlook more gender neutral behavior. There is a further complicating issue: gender is multidimensional, and different dimensions do not necessarily co-occur in the experiences and behavior of a single person. A boy or a girl may be “typical” in some respects and “atypical” in others. So what is gender if what we see as “masculine” and “feminine” traits can be found in both girls and boys? The only close-to-dichotomous observable gender trait – often named as the core of biological sex – is genital difference. However, even this assumed dichotomy doesn’t hold up, since a small number of babies are born with ambiguous genitals or intersex conditions (Hines 2004; Fausto-Sterling 2000). All other gender dimensions – whether they are biological (hormone levels, secondary sex attributes, brain structure, motor performance), psychological (differences in motivations or cognitive capacities), or behavioral (differences in preferences, and ways of being and behaving) – involve complex variation, not dichotomy. In most cases, the variation within each gender group is bigger than the average difference between the two groups. Even if, on average, boys grow to be taller than girls, some girls end up

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taller than some boys. If we understand those tall girls as “masculine” and the shorter boys as “feminine,” we are actually imposing cultural stereotypes on biological variation. Difference in height is one of the largest average gender differences, whereas measured psychological gender differences are all very small. Meta-analyses of the huge amount of research dedicated to measuring psychological gender differences confirm few clear results (Hines 2004). The reasons for this, as noted by Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) in the first comprehensive overview of research on psychological gender differences, may be that gender traits are highly situational, that they tend to increase from childhood to adulthood, and that they are very difficult to measure in unbiased ways. It is also largely unknown to what degree measures of psychological gender differences are actually related to the gender differences found in brain structure or whether the measures depend on learning and experience or some mixture of both. Some behavioral differences have been connected to prenatal exposure to androgen, especially play patterns (choice of play mates, rough-and-tumble play), but new research has also made this less conclusive than what was believed to be the case just a few years ago (Hines 2004). Even the biggest gender difference in cognitive skills – that boys perform somewhat better in visualspatial tasks – seems to have disappeared in Swedish children after the 1980s (Emanuelsson and Svensson 1990). The whole idea of a one-way causal route from biology to behavior has been questioned by research documenting the remarkable flexibility of the human brain, the contextual contingency of bodily processes, and the ability even of genes to adjust their effects to individual life circumstances. Thus, almost all gender differences are distributional rather than dichotomous or categorical. Most gender traits seem to be socially influenced and changeable over time, and they do not come in neat and one-dimensional packages in the person. This has led gender researchers to conclude that divisions and hierarchies of gender do not follow from the difference between women and men. It is rather the opposite: social and discursive practices that maintain a gender split and gender hierarchy create the idea of fundamental dichotomous and categorical gender difference and thus also contribute to producing differences socially and psychologically. These assumed fundamental differences then legitimize differential treatment of men and women and help shape subjective experience of different gender identities. Gender is thus constructed as a difference, and empirical variation in its many dimensions becomes reduced to a simple dichotomy (Magnusson and Marecek 2012: 41). This does not mean that gendered patterns of behavior are a mirage or that the patterns that do exist have no sort of biological basis (even if we do not know exactly what that basis is). The point is that there is no clear or straightforward connection between near-dichotomous dimensions of biological sex and the complex, multidimensional, and context-dependent nature of gender differences. Gendered patterns – with or without a biological basis – inform cultural norms and expectations about what is seen as typically feminine and typically masculine. Statistical gender distributions do not apply at the individual level, and this

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means that if a child exhibits behavior typical of his or her gender, it is not possible to decide whether this is connected to a genetic disposition or to the child having learned to tune in to what he or she understands as the right way to mark himself as a boy, or herself as a girl, in this particular context.

4.2.4

Being, Becoming, Doing Gender?

The focus on gender difference – whether categorical or distributional – tends to limit the analysis of gender to being a characteristic of individuals. But gender is also a dimension of social relations created between people and shaped through processes of interaction. We do not necessarily understand more of the dynamics of a classroom or a peer group by knowing about small average differences in cognitive skills and other behaviors. While the individual perspective frames gender as something we “are,” the interactional perspective emphasizes gender as something we “do” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Like adults, children use gender, as well as age, as they go about organizing and making sense of shared worlds. Children as young as four have been found to engage in “borderwork,” marking boundaries between boys and girls in their interactions with one another (Lloyd and Duveen 1992). Instead of asking how boys and girls are different and how they came to be that way, it has proven fruitful to ask “how do they come together to help create – and sometimes challenge – gender structures and meanings?” (Thorne 1993: 4) This perspective also calls attention to the dynamics of power in social constructions of meaning. Who, in a group of children, decides what is the right way to “do boy” or “do girl” in specific settings? This approach opens toward understanding multiple forms of femininity and masculinity (some inflected by dimensions such as social class, age, or racialized-ethnic status) and the hegemonic position a particular type of femininity or masculinity may attain in a given context (Connell 2000). Gender as doing and gender as difference are not mutually exclusive perspectives; when children learn to “do” gender in their families, in schools, and with peers, they also “become” gender in certain ways, and this will again form their responses to new social situations (Nielsen and Rudberg 1989; Layton 1998). The gendered identities and behaviors that girls and boys bring with them into new settings will have an impact on how they participate in these situations. But their contributions will also be met and evaluated, implicitly or explicitly, by others, and thus never left unchanged. Studies of “being” gendered and “doing” gender could thus be seen as functionally related, revealing different aspects of social processes involved in constructing gendered identity. Studies of individuals cannot give any full account of the collective process of doing gender since something new is accomplished/created in this process. But the reverse is also true: the analysis of collective praxis does not tell us anything about the different motives of the individuals who engage in processes of meaning making, what positions they choose or get pushed into assuming, and what consequences this has for their sense of self over time.

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Different theories have emphasized varied aspects of the process of learning gender in age-related ways throughout life: gender as ways of being and relating; gender as a dimension of interaction, play, and negotiation; or gender as norm and process of normalizing. From the 1950s onward, social scientists have variously framed gender as a learned role, gender as power relation, gender as an outcome of socialization, gender as attained cultural or psychological identity/subjectivity, gender as created in interaction, and/or gender as a negotiated position in discourse. One axis of disagreement lies in the tension between socialization versus agency: is gender imposed on the child from the surroundings or do children actively create gender with their peers? Another axis of disagreement concerns identity versus relation: does gendered interaction have formative consequences for identity and behavior of the person over time or is it something that mostly exists in moments and immediate contexts of interaction? A third axis of disagreement moves between the practical versus the symbolic: is gender linked to patterns of practice and material structures, to lived life, or should it be understood mainly as negotiated positions in cultural discourses? We believe that these tensions should not be framed as either/or; we take an eclectic view and seek to combine them. Gender works in a complex matrix of bodies, structures, materialities, symbols, discourse, interaction, practices, identity, desire, and power.

4.3

Children, Family, and Work Around the World

4.3.1

Historical Changes in Gendered Childhoods in the Global North

In Europe and the USA, contemporary childhoods (which, in many ways, now extend through adolescence) are organized around two main institutions: privatized families, which are largely separated from sites of paid work, and schools. This was not always the case. In the eighteenth century – to sketch with a very broad brush – most children grew up in rural, agricultural contexts, contributing to householdbased economies according to configurations of custom, necessity, and ability. Boys and girls as young as four or five often began to contribute and to learn how to work by doing relatively simple tasks like collecting firewood and feeding chickens. Girls (and women) typically did more of the tasks related to food processing, cooking, washing, sewing, and infant care; and men and boys did more of the work related to agriculture, mills, and quarries, although every ablebodied person (including young children) might be mobilized to work in the fields at harvest time. Thus, both girls and boys contributed to family labor systems, although in somewhat different ways. With the transition to industrial production in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, children were recruited to work in textile mills, in part because they could be paid very low wages. In Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1820s, around 35 % of the workforce in mills were under 14, and 48 % were under 16. Statistics

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gathered in England and Wales in 1851 showed more boys aged 5–9 were concentrated in agricultural work than in cotton mills; some girls, aged 10–14, worked in cotton mills, but many more were employed as domestic servants (Cunningham 1995). Between 1910 and 1914, Lewis Hine, an American photographer and social reformer, took over 5,000 photographs of children working in factories, meatpacking houses, sweatshops, coalmines, canneries, and cotton fields and mills (Zelizer 1985). In many of the photos of children working at textile machines and in canneries, girls and boys are doing similar jobs; only boys are shown in photos taken in mines. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, across Europe and the USA, the efforts of social reformers and the expansion of states into the regulation of families and childhoods resulted in laws to end child labor and to require children to attend at least a few years of school. Compulsory and publicly funded schools for both girls and boys were introduced during the nineteenth century in most European countries and in some states in the USA (it was not until 1918 that public schooling was provided in all US states and even then with wide disparities in quality related to social class and race (Zelizer 1985)). The removal of lower-income and workingclass children – both boys and girls – from onerous forms of paid labor and the spread of compulsory schooling had the effect of muting class divisions in the organization of childhoods. The emphasis on childhood as a time of schooling and play, and a belief that it is inappropriate for children to do paid work, accompanied ideas about “the developing child.” This imagery tends to obscure the degree to which the lives of children continued to vary by social class, racialized ethnicity, and gender. This variation has been documented not only by research on child poverty but also on children’s continued participation in labor, both in and outside of families.

4.3.2

Children and Work in the Contemporary Global North

Contemporary children in more industrialized countries tend to be depicted as a drain on family resources – economically useless, but emotionally priceless (Zelizer 1985; Miller 2005). This imagery, and children’s legal exclusion from paid work (an exclusion that loosens in the teen years, although schooling continues to be compulsory), has made it difficult to notice their varied forms of productive activity, not only in school – which, arguably, is a form of work – but also within families. Patterns of gender differentiation in types and amount of labor are highlighted in research on adults; women, cross-nationally, tend to do much more housework than men, even in families where both are employed full time. But gender differentiation has been a subsidiary theme in surveys of children’s contributions to household labor. Research in Europe and the USA shows that, on average, children of both genders do relatively little housework, especially when compared with the amount of mess they create. In a 1999 US national survey of children’s use of time, Hofferth (2009) found that 6–12-year-olds spent an average of 24 minutes a day doing

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household chores. Bonke (2010) reports from a 1998 survey that Danish children also did very small amounts of housework, but once they reached school age, girls did more housework than boys, a pattern also found in other studies (Miller 2005). Thus, a gendered “second shift” – with girls, on average, doing more housework than boys, even when both attend school full time – is not limited to adults. In a US study, Goldscheider and White (1991) found that, on average, in white, two-parent families, teenage boys did almost no housework, but teenage girls did a fair amount. In mother-headed, Hispanic and Black households, both daughters and sons contributed more than in white families. Goldscheider and White (1991) also found that in single-mother families, regardless of race, both boys and girls did twice as much housework as those living in two-parent families. Two themes in our earlier conceptual discussion help make sense of gendered patterns in children’s unpaid and paid work: at most, gender differences are statistical, not categorical, and gender intersects with other lines of difference and inequality. The extent and type of work done by girls and by boys may vary depending on the type of economic arrangement (e.g., small, family-owned shops vs. heavy factory labor), parental income, household configurations, birth order, and cultural ideas about gender, age, and patterns of obligation. Research in the USA shows significant social class and gender variation in the contributions of children, especially teenagers, to family labor systems. At the privileged end of the class spectrum, both girls and boys tend to do far less around the home and expect prolonged support from parents. But in low-income families, minimal earnings and the absence of parents due to long hours of employment tend to push responsibilities for the care of younger children and housework onto older children, especially girls. Dodson and Dickert (2004) document a pattern in which low-income single mothers from racial ethnically diverse backgrounds, with no money to pay for child care and no adult kin available to help out, rely on teenage daughters to care for younger children. Child-outcome studies of families where mothers were forced by state policies to leave welfare and take on low-wage jobs show negative effects for adolescent girls with younger siblings (Dodson and Dickert 2004). Research on immigrant families living in the USA illustrates cultural variation and the effects of special circumstances, in this case, migration, on gendered patterns of children’s work. Families immigrating from global South countries often assume that children will be contributing members of the household; as a Guatemalan mother in Los Angeles told her children, “You have a family, and if we’re a family, we work together” (Orellana 2001). Orellana (2001) describes the many domestic chores undertaken by a 7-year-old girl in this family; her brother, a year younger, did far less domestic work. A similar pattern characterized the daily life of a 12-year-old girl in a Yemeni family living in Oakland; after school and on weekends, she did a great deal of child care and housework (nonimmigrant, middleclass girls who were her classmates did little work at home). The Yemeni-American girl’s brother, close in age, did little work at home, but after school and during weekends, he helped his father and uncles at the family-owned mini-mart (Thorne et al. 2003).

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Gendered Patterns in Children’s Labor and Schooling in the Global South

Over the last three decades, processes of globalization have accelerated the movement across national borders not only of people (workers at every level of skill; immigrants, transmigrants, refugees), commodities (including a rapidly expanding array of products geared to children and young people), media, and images. The assumption that boys and girls should be attending school has spread globally, but the reality is sharply divided by social class and, to some degree, by gender. Over a decade ago, Tobias Hecht (1998) documented a spatial and social divide between two starkly different kinds of urban childhood in Brazil. The poor (the vast majority in a country with deep economic inequality) live, at best, at a subsistence level, with pressure on all household members, including both girls and boys, starting at a young age, to contribute. Hecht highlights children’s economic contributions and the sense of obligation that frames their work by referring to this pattern as “nurturing childhood,” in contrast with the “nurtured childhoods” of the affluent, who live in privatized families and attend school. As in the USA, in big cities in Brazil, neither boys nor girls in highly affluent families are expected to do much work apart from going to school. The division between an elite stratum of girls and boys who have full access to schooling and the majority of far less affluent and often impoverished children who engage in various configurations of paid and/or unpaid work, increasingly along with attending at least some school, characterizes children’s lives in much of the global South or “majority world.” In 2008, the International Labour Organization estimated that worldwide, 215 million children were involved in child labor, a decline of 3 % from 2004. Child labor among girls (an ILO category that does not include many forms of unpaid household work) declined by 15 %, but boys’ labor increased by 7 % (ILO 2008). The work children do ranges from very lowpaid work in mines, factories, quarries, and agriculture, to working in restaurants or shops, to prostitution (where girls predominate, especially in trafficked sex). Most child work takes place in informal economies; millions of children, the majority of them girls, work as domestic helpers for their own or other families. Loretta Bass’ (2004) research in Africa shows how gender may thread through patterns of children’s work and schooling. More than two-thirds of the estimated 28 % of children in Ghana who work for pay also attend school (around 90 % of children in Ghana help with household chores). There is a gender gap in schooling – two-thirds of girls and three-fourths of boys attend school – and in work – with girls working longer hours on average than boys. Because of cultural conventions, boys tend to work in wage labor and girls in unpaid domestic work. The time requirements of girls’ domestic labor more often compete with their ability to attend school, which helps account for their lower rates of school attendance. In the USA and some European countries, girls, on average, are now outperforming boys in overall educational achievement. But in much of the world, girls’ disadvantage in education continues, especially in Africa and the Middle East. Globally, it is estimated that 72 million children of primary school

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age are not attending school; of these, 54 % are girls (United Nations 2010). For youth worldwide, however, the literacy gap between boys and girls has narrowed to 5 % (among adults, worldwide, nearly 64 % of illiterate adults are women) (United Nations 2010).

4.4

Gender and the Daily Lives of Children in the Global North

Researchers working in global North contexts have found that children develop an emotional commitment to their gender as early as 2 years of age. When they arrive in preschool, many of them already act, speak, and behave according to conventional images of gender – although the content of these images may vary considerably. Images of gender may also shift over the life course and as a person moves from one context to another.

4.4.1

Gender-Separated Friendships, Groups, and Social Relations

Separation in the social relations and activities of girls and boys in middle childhood appears to be a relatively dispersed as well as a highly contextualized phenomenon. Cross-cultural research indicates that gender separation is the strongest and least flexible in the age span from 5 to 11 years, with boys defending the gender border more fiercely than girls (Whiting and Whiting 1988). New research from Scandinavia, where gender relations in general have become more equal during recent decades, does not indicate any radical change in this pattern (Gordon et al. 2000; Nielsen 2009). However, this research also indicates that gender separation among children interacts with specific social conditions; for example, while, overall, Scandinavian children experience less gender-differentiated life experience than in the past, this pattern is in tension with the amplified gendering of children’s experiences of commercial culture. Gender segregation may be institutionalized, for instance, in schools, classes, subjects, work groups, seating arrangements, and out-of-school activities, although less so today than previously in Scandinavia and in the USA. Nonetheless, some teachers still tend to reinforce the split, especially in situations of disciplining (Thorne 1993; Nielsen 2009). However, gender separation is also a child-driven project, and adult intervention to promote the relaxed mixing of girls and boys may not be very successful even though girls and boys separate more often on playgrounds than in classrooms. Children’s promotion of separation between boys and girls varies with the situation. It tends to be stronger in crowded and institutionalized settings where children watch each other, and it often dissolves in more private and personalized contexts (Thorne 1993). Boys and girls who are friends outside school may belittle or even hide this fact when they meet each other in school or are together with larger groups of friends. Children’s separation into same-gender groups may help them develop and maintain collective identity, since gender is relatively simple to enact as

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a dichotomy and carries important cultural meaning that children try to grasp. Bronwyn Davies (1989/2003) calls the phenomenon “category maintenance”; Barrie Thorne (1993) uses the anthropological concept of “borderwork” to describe children’s active efforts to demarcate themselves from the other gender. Such borderwork can take many forms, ranging from discrete avoidance to teasing and fighting charged with feelings of thrill and excitement. In some contexts, for instance, when a group of children oppose the authority of a teacher or children from another classroom, the gender border may be provisionally suspended. Gender borders tend to soften up toward the end of primary school, but the excitement of chasing games at this age also may coexist with despair if one is at risk of personally being identified with the other gender or with something that is related to love or sexuality. Studies of gender separation and a contrastive emphasis on the dynamics of girls’ and boys’ worlds have been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes instead of deconstructing them and for universalizing gender traits that may be highly tied to Western cultures and also to certain social class and ethnic groups. While it is true that a “difference” perspective may tend to overlook variation and the social interaction between girls and boys within which such differences are articulated, it is also problematic to neglect that fact that gendered patterns exist and have salience for children. Thus, gender patterns should neither be exaggerated nor overlooked. Such patterns often apply more to the “most popular half” than to others in a social class or school (Thorne 1993) – but this half is also often those who shape desirable ways of being a girl or a boy in particular settings. Thus, the patterns tend to become normative, and this means that children who do not conform are pressed to negotiate their relation to this norm in some way. Research on children’s friendships and social relations in Europe and the USA finds that girls’ preoccupation with intimacy and social relations and boys’ tendency to stir up each other through performance and competition are relatively stable patterns (Frosh et al. 2002; Nielsen 2009). The pattern may be expressed in the ways children allocate attention, their choice of strategies of communication, and how they establish friendships. Girls’ interpersonal interest is often expressed in dyadic friendships where they use relational competence both as a means of establishing contact and of fighting and betraying each other. When girls form friendships, they often seek points of similarity, creating strings of attachments between them. But girls’ groups may also be characterized by struggles for freedom and fights for alliances. The social life of girls seems to waver between these poles of care and attention and (often indirect) aggression to mark boundaries and make alliances. In interviews, girls often articulate details about their complicated relational world, whereas boys tend to talk less about relations and the social processes of which they are a part. Boys’ more assertive and often more openly aggressive behavior can be connected to their more hierarchical and competitive social life, where getting public attention and admiration from a group of boys counts more than intimate relations and where demonstrating their superiority over girls may sometimes be a way of establishing a collective male identity (on boys’ and girls’ play and social relations, see, for instance, Paley 1984; Nielsen and Rudberg 1989; Hey 1997; Reay 2001; Jordan and Cowan 2004; Pascoe 2007). However, new

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research from Scandinavia indicates that the values of boys’ groups have become less macho. Even if boys still tend to stick to a hierarchical structure in their groups, there is more room for care and comforting each other and even for talking about feelings (Nordberg 2008; Nielsen 2009). Girls tend to be showing more individualistic behavior in combination with relational interests. One way of trying to grasp persistent gendered patterns in children’s play and friendship is to ask how these patterns interact with changing contexts and new social conditions and in what ways they may also gain new meaning.

4.4.2

Gender in the Classroom

Until the mid-twentieth century, gender differentiation – whether through separate schools, separate classes, or different curricula – was often a goal in global North countries in order to prepare girls and boys for their future roles and tasks in society. This began to shift in Scandinavia and the USA after World War II, when an emphasis on equal rights and an educational ideology emphasizing child-centered development and learning gained dominance. “Boys” and “girls” became “children” or “students,” and mixed-gender schools became the norm. However, even though these shifts in language and institutional arrangements had the effect of muting gender as a central defining feature of students, many of the earlier assumptions and practices constitutive of gender difference remained remarkably intact. The ideal “ungendered” child of ideologies of child development was implicitly a generic male (Walkerdine 1990) – and in many classroom studies, those observed and referred to as “students” were actually boys. Before 1970, the few studies focusing on gender influences in classroom interaction criticized the treatment of boys in primary school, claiming that teachers, being mostly women, were unable to meet the boys’ learning needs effectively (Brophy 1985). During the 1970s, feminist researchers began to make girls visible in classroom research and to reveal problematic patterns hidden by the cloak of egalitarian educational discourses (Spender and Sarah 1980). Gender had remained a major organizing principle of classrooms under the claim and intention of gender neutrality. In a meta-analysis of 81 quantitative studies of primary and secondary schools, Kelly (1988) showed that in all countries studied, across all ages, school levels, subjects, and socioeconomic and ethnic groupings, girls received fewer instructional contacts, fewer high-level questions and academic criticism, less behavioral criticism, and slightly less praise than boys. One of the earliest Scandinavian studies of gender in the classroom concluded: “The overall picture of teachers’ relationship to students of both sexes indicates that the girls do get some praise for their obedience and willingness to please the teacher, but that they pay a price for this by being forgotten and taken for granted, they do not exist as individuals in their teachers’ minds” (Wernersson 1977: 254, translated from Swedish). This pattern may also be inflected by racialized ethnicity, as shown by a US study finding that Black girls in primary school more than other groups of students were encouraged to assume roles that developed their social more than

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their academic skills (Grant 1994). Even though girls were often praised as good pupils in primary school, performed better, and were reported to be more satisfied with school, several studies indicated a serious decrease in girls’ self-esteem as they moved through secondary school (Brown and Gilligan 1992). Although girls continued to get better marks than boys, teachers often perceived girls’ classroom participation to change dramatically and for the worse in adolescence, becoming less compliant, less self-confident, and participating less in classroom discussions (Hjort 1984; Davies 1984). In the 1980s, the focus shifted from analyses of inequality produced through differential treatment and double standards in the classroom to a focus on the active role children themselves play in constructing gendered worlds and taking up gendered discourse (Davies 1989/2003; Thorne 1993). This was an important interpretive shift in which girls’ cooperative style was no longer seen as an expression of inherent obedience and passivity, but as an active taking up of gendered identity. The subtle interplay between the priorities and social orientations of girls and boys, the structure and content of classroom discourse, and the responses they received from teachers were seen as almost inevitably maintaining and reinforcing the traditional gender order. The different social orientations of girls and boys were also seen as gender specific platforms for strategies of resistance toward power asymmetries in the classroom, especially in secondary school. Studies of youth cultures analyzed different gendered, ethnic, and class identities as positions for gaining power and control both in relation to teachers and in peer groups. Some working-class boys, for instance, seemed to oppose the middle-class culture of school through macho behavior, strengthening both their working-class male identity and the likelihood of dropping out of school (see, for instance, Willis 1977; Kryger 1988). Similarly girls could sometimes use docility to gain facilities or advantages, and they could use their interactive skills in order to gain influence. Adolescent working-class girls appeared to have their own patterns of resistance, using more personal weapons against teachers and school routines (e.g., see Davies 1984; Lees 1986). In post-structuralist informed studies from the 1990s, the focus changed to the discursive practices through which culturally available meanings are taken up and lived out. These studies asked what positions are open for students to identify with in the gendered discourses of learning, and how do students position themselves in relation to such gendered discourses (for instance, Walkerdine 1990; Davies 1989/2003; Staunæs 2004). To do gender in the classroom is to continuously negotiate, maintain, or oppose the positionings offered in classroom talk. At the same time, because gendered images, metaphors and narratives are part of the everyday, unexamined discursive practices of the classroom, they mostly pass unnoticed by both teachers and students. Recent studies have taken a broader social constructionist approach and put more emphasis on the open and ongoing processes through which students construct themselves as gendered subjects within specific contexts and organizational framings (see, for instance, Gordon et al. 2000; Reay 2001; Ambj€ornsson 2004; McLeod and Yates 2006). School ethnographies combining observations,

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interviews, and visual material from everyday life at school with an analysis of the wider material and political structures outside the specific school have become more prevalent. New emphasis has been put on relations between constructions of gender and of sexualities (for instance, Mac an Ghaill 1994; Pascoe 2007). The complexity, ambivalence, and multiplicity of masculinities and femininities among and within individuals has been emphasized and also the intersecting character of different social categories: gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality are not seen as additive identities, but rather as mutually constituting at every moment in the school setting, resulting in an array of different and fluid, but also hierarchically ordered forms of masculinities and femininities which come into existence by being “done” in interaction (e.g., see Connolly 1998; Ferguson 2000).

4.4.3

“New Girls” and “Failing Boys?”

The unfolding of different research perspectives throughout the last decades makes it difficult to say what changes in gendered classroom talk have taken place during that period. Different groups of students have been viewed from different perspec¨ hrn 2002). Studies of classroom tives in varied studies and at different times (O interaction and gendered identities from the 1990s indicate a situation of both continuity and change. Several studies (including more recent school ethnographies) have found discourse patterns in classrooms similar to those in the 1970s. At the same time, they convey a more nuanced picture of variation related to social class, race, ethnicity, and educational context. It is not easy, however, to say whether this variation is due to changes in the ways gender may be expressed in schools today or to greater awareness on the part of the researchers relying both on the 1990s critique of the gender binary and on efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to make gender visible. Since the early 1990s, a new figure has become visible, especially in research in Scandinavian classrooms: an active girl who keeps intact her relational interests and competencies but does not lose her self-confidence at adolescence. She does better than boys, not only in regard to marks but also in regard to coping with new ¨ hrn 2002; Nielsen qualification demands in school and society (see, for instance, O 2004). When at the same time there are fewer manual jobs for boys with school fatigue, the net effect may be an advance for girls, especially from the middle class. New organizational models of group and project work seem even more than traditional classroom teaching to privilege high achieving students, and these students are more often found among girls and middle-class students, than among boys and working-class students. Studies from other countries show that workingclass girls underachieve compared to middle-class girls, but the latter group of wellperforming girls also report more stress and anxiety due to their own and their parents’ expectations of academic success (Walkerdine et al. 2001). Surveys from the USA report continued lack of confidence among adolescent girls, a pattern inflected by racialized ethnicity: reduced self-esteem in adolescence is highest among Latino girls and lowest among African-American girls (Ohrenstein 1994).

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As a mirror to the focus on the “new girl,” the discourse of “failing boys” has become prevalent in public and educational debate (see, for instance, Epstein et al. 1998; Martino and Meyenn 2001). More boys have trouble with dyslexia, reading, and behavior and oppositional defiant disorder, and in recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of boys diagnosed and medicated for ADHD. Some of these differences may have a biological foundation (Hines 2004), and this may explain why girls always, in fact, have done better in primary school and why more ¨ hrn 2002). What is boys than girls have been defined as needing special education (O new is that girls today tend to also keep up the lead in subjects like math and science where boys earlier surpassed them in secondary school. On average, in Scandinavia, the UK, and the USA, girls do better in practically all subjects, and they tend to keep their lead throughout school and thus are also becoming a majority in higher education. However, girls’ success in school does not automatically translate into an advantage in the labor market (Arnot et al. 1999). It is also important to be aware that the difference in students’ achievements related to gender and ethnicity is small compared to the difference related to social class (Ball et al. 2000). A difficulty in connecting this to what goes on in the classroom is, however, that girls’ and boys’ situations in school are often analyzed from different perspectives – the “new” girls in term of agency and “failing” boys in terms of an assumed ¨ hrn 2002). During the 1970s and 1980s, there was feminized school context (O a tendency to analyze boys in terms of social class, and girls in terms of gender, but the opposite is the case today where the “new” girl is often explicitly individualized, white and middle class, and the “failing” boys are grouped together as the losing gender. A range of political agendas and research perspectives inform current research on boys. The “what about the boys?” studies continue with the approach of the 1970s in which female teachers are blamed for boys’ failure and unhappiness. The “multiple masculinities” agenda focuses on varieties of masculinity and blames the dominant boys for not accepting difference. The more poststructurally oriented studies question the automatic assumption of masculinities of one kind or another as being inextricably linked to the male-sexed body. Does the degree to which girls lead in school – in combination with a general crisis of traditional masculinities in global North countries – increase anti-school attitudes among boys? Some boys see reading books and doing well in school as feminizing, and thus to be opposed, and the concept of “laddishness” has been used to describe the culture of boys who do not do well in school (see, for instance, Mac an Ghaill 1994; Connell 2000; Jackson 2006; Lyng 2009). Connell argues that many boys respond to the degradation of masculinity by investing in other arenas like sport, physical aggression, and sexual conquest. Others point to an element of defense against the fear of not succeeding in school; it is easier to say that one has not tried than that one has failed. Hegemonic masculinities, fear of feminization, and fear of failing may all be involved. Another complexity is that even if schools today are to some degree characterized by new ways of constructing gender identities among girls and boys, teachers’ interpretation of the students may not have changed to the same extent. Teachers tend to see oppositional girls as a bigger nuisance than oppositional boys, and they

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often discipline girls for disruptive behavior they would tolerate in boys (Connolly ¨ hrn (1991) found in a study of Swedish 1998; Reay 2001; Nielsen 2009). O classrooms that being outspoken and active do not necessarily give girls individuality in the classroom. Even when girls were outspoken, teachers continued to frame boys as individuals and girls by groups (with labels for active groups of girls, such as the “girl mafia”). The 1990s discourse of failing boys has aroused much more immediate attention than the discourse of silent and insecure girls in the 1970s and 1980s. The old gender order may also be seen in the research itself where the attention of even aware researchers has been easily drawn toward boys, while girls remain marginalized (Gordon et al. 2000).

4.4.4

Gender and Body Projects in Adolescence

In the transition from primary to secondary school, girls and boys often use different strategies to mark themselves as older (see, for instance, Frosh et al. 2002; Haavind 2003). These strategies could be seen in relation to differing social orientations in childhood. Boys tend to use strategies such as forming close and loyal all-male groups or even gangs, engaging with sports, and/or being tough and engaging in rule-breaking behavior. In contrast, girls more often stage themselves in a female heterosexual position, which in Western culture is often connected to exposing the body in tight clothing and investigating possible romantic relations (see, for instance, Lees 1986; Frost 2001; Hauge 2003). Performing well in school may become antagonistic to popularity, but not necessarily so. This may depend, in part, on configurations of social class and ethnicity among the students. In secondary school, gender difference often becomes more exaggerated and eroticized. Much of the student talk and teasing documented in British, Scandinavian, and US secondary schools circle around style, appearances, and parts of the body, with public assessment related to gender and sexuality. This focus may split up previous groups of friends, leading to cliques and hierarchies of the more and less popular (see, for instance, Lees 1986; Eder et al. 1995; Frosh et al. 2002). Strong pressure toward heteronormativity at this age is also seen in sexualized harassment and use of words like “slut” and “gay” as insults. In a recent ethnographic study of constructions of masculinity in a US high school, C. J. Pascoe (2007) documents both hegemonic patterns of heterosexualized and aggressive masculinity enacted by boys who are socially dominant in the school and the experiences of boys who have come out as gay. Over the last few decades, the teasing and harassment of gay and lesbian youth in schools have become a focus of research, media reports, and intervention. Students who do not feel attracted or ready for heterosexualized talk and relations often become marginalized. Girls from cultural backgrounds where other markers of adulthood are used – like Muslim girls in Scandinavia who begin to wear head scarves – may also be excluded from the dominant culture and be seen as overly dependent on their families (Hauge 2003; Pichler 2009). A focus on gender and sexuality among secondary school students may not be new, but the increased significance of the body as identity project is a more

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contemporary development, with body shape and appearance more deeply connected to self-esteem and identity (see, for instance, Bordo 1993/1989; Frost 2001; Oinas 2001). The body has become a project (Brumberg 1997). Adolescent girls today (and at increasing younger ages) are vulnerable to the prevalent use and exploitation of the body in marketing and popular culture and also to real and imagined gazes from the boys at school. Eating disorders and dissatisfaction with their own bodies have become an epidemic among girls in various parts of Europe and the USA, and these problems are also emerging among boys. However, recent observations in Scandinavia and the USA suggest that the traditional opposition between being a clever girl and being feminine and sexy has been eroded. Some girls seem to feel free not to have to choose between being smart or sexy, although this amplifies demands, especially among young middle-class women, to be perfect in everything – slender, good looking, clever, ambitious, sexy, lots of friends – causing stress and burnout (Bordo 1993/1989; Ambj€ornsson 2004). The focus on the body brings new dilemmas. There is a more public focus on girls’ bodies than boys’ bodies in secondary school, and the popular boys often have the upper hand since they can draw on the widespread derogating images of women’s bodies and sexuality as well as operate in groups whose members defend each other. In contrast, girls do not have recourse to a similar discourse about men nor, in most cases, can they match this form of organization. Girls also display ambivalence since getting attention for one’s looks is a parameter of being popular. Girls in secondary school may waver between exposing their bodies to mark themselves as attractive young women and hiding them to prevent sexist comments from boys. The ambivalent position of girls’ bodies may unsettle the power balance between girls and boys in secondary school. Even though girls, on average, may sustain an academic lead, some of them also lose some of their power and self-confidence over the course of secondary school. The relation to boys seems to take more energy for girls in school at this point than do boys’ relations to girls (see, for instance, Holland et al. 1998; Frost 2001; Nielsen 2009).

4.5

Globalization and Children’s Gendered Consumption

Images of highly gendered and sexualized female bodies and muscular and aggressive male bodies pervade the commercialized forms of popular culture that, by the late twentieth century, had come to infuse the daily lives of children not only in the global North but also in many parts of the global south. Global corporations design and advertise products geared to market niches that amplify and institutionalize distinctions of gender and age. For example, in the 1990s, US marketers coined the word “tween” to refer to girls, roughly between the ages of 7 and 13, who aspire to embody the sexualized styles associated with “teens” (Cook and Kaiser 2004). Distinctive styles of tight clothing, platform shoes, and rock music began to be designed for and helped constitute this emergent age/gender segment of consumers. In recent years, corporations have begun to promote special deodorants and hair

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products designed for “tween” boys. Niche creation continues, heightening agemarked gender distinctions in order to maximize profit. Barbie dolls – the first “fashion adult doll” with pointed breasts, typically bought for and by girls younger than tweens – are marketed by Mattel, a US-based corporation, but the dolls are assembled, often by young women factory workers, in China, Malaysia, and Indonesia with plastic from Taiwan and hair from Japan (Tempest 1996). Mattel advertises and distributes Barbie dolls around the world, with varying degrees of design adaptation (changes of skin, hair color, and dress) and market success. Grewal (1999) studied the marketing of and responses to various versions of Barbie in India; the “regular” white, blonde Barbie dressed in a sari did not sell well; another version with black hair, a bindi, and bangles did better; later versions continued to segment a market geared to middle- and upperclass girls in India and in the South Asian diaspora. But marketers have found that, compared with children in Japan and in global North countries, children in India are not as individuated as separate consumers (Grewal 1999). Chin (1999) observed low-income black girls playing with white Barbies, braiding their blonde hair into corn rows and other hair styles central to African-American culture. In short, while children are influenced by the gendered, sexualized, racialized, and (as in violent video games) aggressively masculine messages of commercial culture, they also exert agency and even resistance in the ways they use these objects. Commercialized images of gender, age, sexuality, and other interrelated differences pervade not only the world of objects, but also the media (e.g., video games, television, movies, and comic books) that are consumed by children and global in reach. For example, violent and aggressive forms of masculinity are pervasive in the world of video games (Alloway and Gilbert 1998). The conventionally masculine skew of many games may help account for differences in the time boys and girls spend using video games. A 2007–2008 survey of a nationally representative sample of 12–17-year-olds and their parents in the USA found that almost all of those surveyed played video games, but boys were more likely than girls to be intensive gamers, playing on a daily basis for a relatively long duration (Lenhart et al. 2008). Boys were also more likely than girls to play a wider variety of genres, including action, shooting, fighting, and survival games. Girls and boys were equally likely to play games that involved racing, rhythm, simulation, or virtual worlds. Girls more often reported playing puzzle games. There is considerable debate (and inconclusive evidence) about the effects of media on children, including effects on gendered experiences and relations (Drotner et al. 2009). Access to consumer goods depends on having monetary resources to buy them, but researchers have found that low-income parents in the USA will often stretch to buy their children a much desired pair of Nike shoes if that will help a child be socially accepted (Pugh 2009). Pugh found that in three California elementary schools, Nintendo Game Boys (a video-gaming system) were highly valued, discussed, and owned by boys from across the class and racial-ethnic spectrum; far fewer girls owned or played with Game Boys. However, there was a deep social

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class divide in children’s access to far more expensive – and, in the long-term highly consequential – market-based contexts such as private schools, afterschool and tutoring programs, and summer camps. Anthropologists have theorized empirical relations between children, youth, and globalization, with gendered twists in some of their arguments and examples. The widening gaps between rich and poor that have accompanied neoliberal global economic restructuring are especially pronounced among children (of both genders), especially with the decline of class-leveling public schools and provisioning for children, as in the UK and the USA. Cindi Katz (2004) has traced the differentiated ways in which global capitalism, including processes of commodification, are interrupting traditional processes of social reproduction in a rural village in the Sudan and in Harlem in New York City. At the same time, the rapid movements of people, images, and commodities that accompany globalizing processes nurture global imaginations (Cole and Durham 2008). For example, Cole (2008) describes young women in Madagascar who use various fashion practices to attract European men, hoping, in a period when futures opened by schooling seem uncertain, that this may be a route to social and economic mobility.

4.6

Summary

In this chapter, we have employed two different, but interacting perspectives on children and gender: gender as empirical patterns and gender as a frame of interpretation. Conventional ways of framing gender tend to turn variation into a dichotomy of male/female, with more value placed on the male side. This way of seeing ignores complex variation within each gender group and leads to stereotyped gender attributions, double standards, and unequal treatment of girls and boys. As empirical pattern, gender is deeply entangled with other lines of difference and inequality, such as age, sexuality, social class, nationality, and racialized ethnicity. These entanglements shape the organization, salience, and meanings of gender in particular contexts. Gender is multifaceted, a dimension of bodies and physical reproduction; individual identities and personal experience; social relations and everyday interaction; and divisions of labor and the structuring of institutions such as families, schools, markets, and states. Children’s lives, including the gendered dimensions, differ in significant ways, depending on whether they live in industrialized and affluent countries, or in the more impoverished countries of the “global South.” This chapter has directed more attention to children in the “global North” since most research on children and gender stems from this context. Contemporary childhoods in the global North are organized around two main institutions: privatized families and schools. In general, children do relatively little housework; however, school-age girls do considerably more than boys, but this pattern also intersects with other dimensions of difference and inequality. In the global South, the assumption that boys and girls should be attending school has spread, but the reality is sharply divided by social class and, to some degree, by gender. In many of these countries, both girls and boys make work contributions to

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their families starting at an early age. Millions of children, the majority of them girls, work as domestic helpers for their own or other families. Gendered patterns in play and schooling have been researched in the global North. Separation in the social relations and activities of girls and boys in middle childhood appears to be a relatively dispersed as well as a highly contextualized phenomenon. In crowded and institutionalized settings, children are often engaged in borderwork to uphold the segregation, and this seems to be relatively unaffected by changing gender relations in the society at large. Research on gendered patterns in children’s friendships and social relations shows a complex pattern of stable and changing features; girls’ preoccupation with intimacy may be combined with more individualistic behavior, and boys’ tendency to stir each other up through performance and competition may be combined with values of care. Change has also taken place in the classroom – from a situation 30–40 years ago with quiet girls and domineering boys to the present situation where many girls take an active position in classroom talk and on average perform better than boys. This change seems to be related both to less gender stereotypical expectations and to changed demands of qualifications in school and society. Gender stereotypical differential treatment by teachers may still prevail, however. So may gender stereotypical conceptions of body and appearances, especially during adolescence. Strong pressure toward heteronormativity at this age is also seen in sexualized harassment and use of words like “slut” and “gay” as insults. The increased significance of the body as identity project has made boys more occupied with their appearances but also made young women more vulnerable to the prevalent use and exploitation of the body in marketing and popular culture. Eating disorders and dissatisfaction with their own bodies have become epidemic among the new active and highly performing girls. Increased commodification and commercialized images of gender, age, and sexuality in popular culture in the times of neoliberal global economic restructuring help fuel this trend, even as these processes contribute to widening the gaps between rich and poor children. How does this multifaceted framework for thinking about children and gender bear on issues of well-being? Children’s present and future capabilities to flourish, to participate fully in life, and to experience satisfaction are severely diminished by conditions of coercion, violence, exploitation, harsh labor situations, and deprivation of opportunities for education and healthy growth. As we have discussed, gender (in conjunction with age, social class, racialized ethnicity, and other distinctions) enters into the distribution of these conditions. For example, girls are more often sexually trafficked than are boys, while recent global data indicates that more boys are engaged in onerous forms of paid labor. Rates of ADHD and “oppositional defiant disorder” are higher among boys, while girls have higher rates of depression and eating disorders. But, to reiterate one of our key points, none of these patterns is dichotomous; social conditions and gendered practices and meanings vary and change over time. Gender, as we have shown, involves the imposition of dichotomy and hierarchy upon empirical variation. Dichotomous framings of the normal and desirable render some children vulnerable to bullying

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and harassment; feeling at home in one’s body and able to express gender in ways that feel comfortable is surely one facet of well-being. Amartya Sen’s (2005) discussion of the distinction between – and the interrelatedness of – well-being and agency is highly relevant to questions about children, gender, and well-being. Growing up under conditions of gender inequality and differential treatment shapes patterns of agency, not only during childhood but also in the kind of adult the child will have a chance of becoming. As Sen points out, on a global scale, women’s access to agency is vital not only for their own well-being but also for the well-being of men and children. Women’s access to agency starts in childhood, and in this way well-being in relation to gender and children also extends to the creation of a better future for everyone.

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Childhood and Intergenerationality: Toward an Intergenerational Perspective on Child Well-Being Leena Alanen

5.1

Introduction

Research on well-being (alternatively welfare) has in recent years grown with the well-being of children emerging in tandem as a key topic. This handbook in itself is a clear indication of the recognition of a focus on children in well-being research as being both justifiable and timely. However, research communities have by no means been the first to raise this topic on the agenda. Instead, those child advocacy agencies worldwide (such as UNICEF) and children’s rights initiatives, which have increasingly based their activities on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, have been the leaders in producing and distributing information on the state of childhood in the world and in individual countries. Over the years, initiatives have also been taken to establish both national and cross-national systems of statistical indicators for measuring children’s wellbeing. However, this has been mostly for the purpose of informing and guiding policy-making, of testing the performance of policies and, more recently, of providing reliable data for social reporting on children’s societal status and the conditions of their lives. In each of these projects, the meaning of “child well-being” is given an answer in one form or another, however implicit that answer may be, and in many cases rests on publicly accepted and assumed “truths” on the subject. In the world of policymaking, this is perhaps only to be expected, as the rationalities of policy-making and of science tend not to coincide (cf. Hudson and Lowe 2004), and the theoretical foundation of the assumed understandings of well-being takes a second place to the more immediate aims of developing common protocols and consistent, shared measures and summary indices of children’s well-being (cf. Hauser et al. 1997; Gasper 2004; Manderson 2005). In academic research, and in order to gain valid

L. Alanen Department of Education, University of Jyv€askyl€a, Jyv€askyl€a, Finland e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 131 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_5, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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knowledge on child well-being, the question of how researchers conceptualize the object of their work is naturally paramount. A broad agreement among scholars of well-being continues to be that definitions of well-being are both variable and often conceptually confused; the field is in need of conceptual clarification. A useful distinction for rethinking concepts of wellbeing is made by Ruth Lister (2004) in her critical reading of poverty research and the way its central notion of poverty (which often figures as one of the “dimensions” of children’s well-being) tends to be handled. Lister contends that across the relevant research literature, the same term used in different ways which in turn transfers to policy-making. She underlines that to understand the phenomenon of poverty, it is important to differentiate between concepts, definitions, and measures (Lister 2004, pp. 3–8). Concepts operate at a fairly general level, and they provide the framework within which definitions (of concepts) and measurements (operationalizations of definitions) are then developed. Definitions (and therefore also measures) mediate concepts in the sense that explanations of poverty and its distribution are in fact implicit in definitions of poverty. For this reason, it is first important that definitions are not divorced from their wider conceptualizations and, second, that their relationships to wider conceptual frameworks (which may be envisioned as networks of interrelated concepts) are clarified. Only then, Lister surmises, definitions can function as an adequate basis for developing measures. The problem in much poverty research, she notes (2004, pp. 6–7), is that researchers typically begin their work with definitions – instead of concepts – and then continue to develop measures, but while doing this, they tend to mistake their definition for a concept or simply conflate definitions and concepts. The result is that the conceptual frameworks on which different understandings of poverty are actually founded are lost from sight, not to mention from analysis; in addition, the historical and political constructedness of the adopted notion of poverty is left unconsidered. Naturally, this can have crucial implications for the politics of poverty as concepts never stand outside history and culture; they are always contested and also have practical effects. It is hardly an overstatement to note that a similar situation prevails as regards the notion of well-being and even more so as regards children’s well-being (see, e.g., Clark and Gough 2005; Nussbaum 2005; McGillivray 2007; Morrow and Mayall 2009; Camfield et al. 2010). While it might be in one sense true that “there has been a marked growth in studies on childhood well-being in recent years” (Fegter et al. 2010, p. 7), the volume of publishing in the field indicates that the largest growth is taking place in the development of measurements and indicators. In fact, a journal (Child Indicators Research) has been established, beginning from 2008, to publish work in this field: The journal aims to focus on “measurements and indicators of children’s well-being, and their usage within multiple domains and in diverse cultures. The Journal will present measures and data resources, analysis of the data, exploration of theoretical issues, and information about the status of children, as well as the implementation of this information in

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policy and practice. It explores how child indicators can be used to improve the development and well-being of children.” Generally, ideas and discourses of child well-being are being constructed in widely different fields, including politics, professional communities, and media – and also academia. A proximity to policy-making (often the result of availability of funding) may well also limit possibilities for the research needed to complement the work done on the measurement end of well-being studies, that is, research that aims to systematically build up and consolidate theoretical frameworks within which particular notions of children’s well-being would attain their conceptual power. The study of well-being is bound to be a multidisciplinary research field, and therefore, it is increasingly recognized that an adequate understanding of (child) well-being will need to be interdisciplinary. This chapter aims to work toward such a goal. It is specifically concerned with delineating the nature of child well-being as a research object in the social sciences. Until recently, any understanding of children and their well-being has often been based on psychological perspectives that work with developmental notions of the individual child. The work presented in this chapter challenges this hegemony of (mainly) psychological notions of children and their well-being, by introducing some of the theoretical resources that have been developed within the sociology of childhood or, more broadly, multidisciplinary childhood studies (see also Jens Qvortrup’s chapter in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 22, “Sociology: Societal Structure, Development of Childhood, and the Well-Being of Children”). The guiding vision is an understanding of children as social beings which, once fully developed, would need to be integrated with compatible notions originating in other disciplines (psychology, economics, biology, neuroscience, etc.) to form an overarching framework that also works well in the study of child well-being. To ensure such theoretical compatibility, the set of contributions from particular disciplines would need to share some basic (philosophical, ontological, epistemological) assumptions. Therefore, the starting point in this chapter is a particular social ontology that helps to conceptualize childhood as a fundamentally relational phenomenon. This relationality, moreover, implies intergenerationality, in that children are constituted specifically as children primarily (although not exclusively) within intergenerational relations, that is, as a generational category of beings that is internally related to other existing generational categories, especially adults (see below). Such an approach was adopted early in the foundation phase of the sociology of childhood in the 1980s. While a relational sociology of childhood can be developed in more than one direction, the specific ontology adopted in the present case gives a definite direction in the exercise of constructing a coherent intergenerational framework for researching childhood and children’s well-being. Arguably then, the framework for an adequate study of children and childhood (and thus, by way of derivation, children’s well-being) is necessarily intergenerational. In the next section, a brief description is given on the forms of undertaking childhood sociology as they have developed so far.

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Sociologies of Childhood

One of the strongly underlined assumptions in childhood studies is that children are “social actors” and active participants that contribute to the everyday life of the societies in which they live. Children’s long-lived invisibility in most social science research is seen to be linked to various forms of developmental and socialization thinking which have placed children within the processes of first becoming (and not being) full social actors, adulthood being the assumed end point of childhood development. The contrasting, foundational starting point given in the assumption of children’s (social) agency implies for research that children are to be addressed as the (sociological) equals to adults or any other social segments of individuals. In sociology, this has been taken to imply that childhood is a structural concept at the same analytical level as concepts such as class, gender, and “race”/ethnicity (see Jens Qvortrup’s chapter in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 22, “Sociology: Societal Structure, Development of Childhood, and the Well-Being of Children”). Thus, sociologists approach childhood as a socially established and instituted formation in its own right; it is a culturally, politically, and historically “constructed” figuration of social relations which has been institutionalized for the younger members of societies to inhabit. The relative permanence of such a societal childhood, once it has been formed and established in a particular society, justifies the idiom of a common, shared childhood, whereas “childhoods” (in the plural) would refer to the social and cultural life worlds and experiences of individual children within that particular social space of childhood – the phenomenology of childhood. Therefore, to assume that there exists one true, universal, essential childhood is to succumb to a modernist fiction. The observation that at some point of time and place a particular form of childhood is generally considered “normal,” and tends to prescribe how children are expected to behave and treated, merely confirms the degree of institutionalization and the socially gained cultural autonomy of a particular childhood construct. What has been constructed may also be transformed, and childhood certainly has been transformed, as evidenced by historians of childhood (e.g., Hendrick 1997; Cox 1996). While this understanding of childhood is broadly shared within the multidisciplinary childhood studies, different disciplines and research fields, such as sociology, anthropology, history, economics, and cultural studies, vary in the way they characteristically emphasize and elaborate components of the shared view. In the early stage of the emerging sociology of childhood, three distinct approaches could be seen developing, in other words, three different ways of carrying out childhood sociology within a broadly shared frame. In each of them, particular discourses and ways of conceptualizing children and childhood have been in use; moreover, the knowledge that is sought in the research also varies between them. (1) A (micro-)sociology of children approach grew out of an early critique of children’s invisibility in social science knowledge and the subsequent correction of the then-existing research approach to include children. In the new studies, children were placed in the center of sociological attention and studied “in their own right,”

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and not as appendices or attachments to parents, families, schools, or other institutions (e.g., Qvortrup 1987; Alanen 1988; James and Prout 1990). The discrimination of children in scientific knowledge would end by researchers including children’s views, experiences, activities, relationships, and knowledges in their data, directly and firsthand. Children were to be seen as units of research and as social actors and participants in the everyday social world. It is thus now understood that through their co-participation, they also contribute to events in their worlds (including research!) and, in the end, to the reproduction and transformation of the same social world. Research of this strand has mostly been conducted in small-scale studies, with a focus on children’s everyday life and their “negotiations” with other actors in their immediate social and cultural worlds. The conceptual frameworks that are used in the micro-sociology of children tend to originate in versions of interactionist or ethnomethodological theories, and their philosophies of science in versions of phenomenology or pragmatism. In terms of research methods, qualitative methods – in particular various modifications of ethnography and observational methods – have been preferred. (The guidelines given to the chapter authors of this handbook fully recognize this form of sociological childhood knowledge: Authors are reminded that the way to best understand children’s well-being includes recognizing and respecting children’s own points of view; their opinions, perspectives, and perceptions; and their evaluations and aspirations. The handbook editors also wish to see child well-being being promoted as a “people-centered” concept that makes reference to their lives both in the present as well as to their (social, developmental) future. In accordance with this view, a comprehensive concept of child well-being would cover both children’s “well-being” and their “well-becoming”). The second approach, (2) a deconstructive sociology of children and childhoods, which originated in the discussions and debates of the 1970s–1980s social sciences, brought new insights into how the social world is to be understood and studied. The deconstructive approach considers notions such as “child,” “children” and “childhood,” and their many derivations (including child well-being) to be historically formed cultural constructs. Therefore, the approach underlines the political nature of childhood constructs – that the collective (including scientific) images of children and childhood prevailing at any time and place and beliefs of and attitudes toward children are, in the end, politically formed. As such, they have consequences for children’s everyday reality, as images, beliefs, and attitudes have been incorporated in a range of models of action, cultural practices, and, for example, welfare policies, thereby providing cultural scripts and rationales for people to understand and to act in relation to, and on, children and childhood. Because of the political significance of cultural constructs, the task of the deconstructive researcher is to “unpack” such constructions. This is done by exposing their creators and the social circumstances of their formation, as well as the political processes of their (re-) production, interpretation, communication, and practical implementation. The aim is to disclose the discursive power of cultural constructs in social life, in this case in children’s everyday life and experiences. Foucault, Deleuze, and Donzelot are important sources of theoretical inspiration for followers of this approach.

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Useful methods for deconstruction include discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and various other text analytical methods. The third main form of sociological approaches to childhood is (3) the structural approach. Here, childhood is taken as the unit of analysis and may be understood as a social structure in itself. “Structure,” however, is a multi-meaning concept, and there are a variety of ways to undertake structural analysis in sociology; what these approaches share is a consideration given to entities and processes residing on the “macro” level. The two main forms of structural thinking may be identified: The structural-categorical approach is the first of them; it takes the view of children as a socially formed aggregate, perhaps a “generation” (Mannheim; see below). Far less attention is paid to the actual living children, each with their different and individually experienced childhoods, which are the primary focus in the microsociology of children (see above). Instead, children are assembled under the socially established category of children, and the aim of a structurally operating analysis is to arrive at a description of the childhood that is shared by all children in that society (or any time/space) in question. Among sociologists of childhood, Jens Qvortrup has strongly fostered this approach (see, e.g., Qvortrup 1993; Qvortrup et al. 1994; and Qvortrup’s chapter in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 22, “Sociology: Societal Structure, Development of Childhood, and the Well-Being of Children”). Empirical observations (measurements) of focal conditions of children’s lives – such as the patterns of their activities, experience of poverty or social exclusion, use of time, or well-being – are linked with macro-level influential entities and processes (macro-“variables”). These may be understood to “cause” or impact the social category of children as a whole, by powerfully forming a common, shared, typical childhood through large-scale processes, in interplay with other macro-variables and linked processes. The structural-categorical approach is especially useful in studies that aim to contribute to social reporting and monitoring, for example, a country’s child population, and provide possible explanations for the condition of children. While the structural-categorical approach is well suited to large and often comparative studies of child populations using statistical methods, this is not a limitation. Qualitative methods or “mixed methods” are additionally useful and may contribute to the “big picture” by providing vivid and child-level information. In contrast to the first structural-categorical approach, the second mode of working structurally in the sociology of childhood is one that is grounded in a relational social ontology. Due to its employment of relational insights in conceptualizing childhood, this approach is usefully called a structural-relational approach. It is structural in that childhood is conceptualized as a position (or social space) within an existing (socially generated) generational structure. Children are “made” into “children” (and members of a generational category) inasmuch as they come to occupy that social space and practically engage themselves with the reproduction of the (generational) relations that recurrently define them as “children.” This, then, is where relationality comes in and a different, relational conceptualization of childhood begins to take shape. The primary focus in research with a relational approach is on the generational practices, specifically the (relational) practices within which

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children co-construct themselves as “children” as occupiers of a particular generational position, in relation to a non-child category (or categories) of agents (see, e.g., Alanen 2001, 2009). The advantage in studying children’s issues relationally is that it helps to produce a more dynamic analysis than the categorical approach. A second advantage is that not only can the outcomes of the enacted “generationing” processes be studied for features that children display – representing the childhood of the time-space or individual childhoods – but also the actual processes and relations within which those outcomes are produced. Therefore, the agency aspect in children’s activity comes into view more prominently than in the categorical version of structural analysis, as children are understood to be the co-constructors of their own objective and subjective, structured, and structuring conditions. The concept of generation as a relational social structure is an analytical construct, and childhood (children’s positionality) is in this approach one of the (relational) components, or parts, of a generational structure. The concept of “generational structure” refers to a macro-entity which, in interplay with other similar relationally constructed social structures – gender, ethnicity, class, (dis)ability, and so on – produce the events that can be observed and understood as facets of actual childhood(s).

5.3

A Relational Ontology

By introducing relational thinking in the case of children and childhood, this chapter advocates a social ontology and a research program for the sociology of childhood that is consistently relational. The terms “relational” and “relationality” are not unambiguous; their meaning and function vary across theoretical contexts. Furthermore, relational thinking is not new to social science, and there are several relational approaches that are actively used within social science research. (It can be traced back to some parts of Durkheim and to Marx. Marx wrote in Die Grundrisse (in 1857–1861): “Society does not consist of individuals; it expresses the sum of connections and relationships in which individuals find themselves” (Marx 1993, p. 77)). For example, M€utzel and Fuhse (2010) give an account of one specific sort of relational approach – the “New York School” – and claim that this school (together with its “transatlantic bridge building”) now presents the most important and innovative theoretical approach in today’s sociology. This particular branch of relational analysis has been developed out of former modes of network analysis through an engagement with the “linguistic turn” (Mische 2011, pp. 2–8); social networks are conceptualized and analyzed as “sociocultural formations”. Mustafa Emirbayer, working close to the “New York school,” published in 1997 a Manifesto for a Relational Sociology which is one of the most quoted articles in relational theory circles and has been an inspiration in debates on relational social theory, especially in the USA: Sociologists today are faced with a fundamental dilemma: whether to conceive of the social world as consisting primarily in substances or in processes, in static “things” or in dynamic, unfolding relations. Large segments of the sociological community continue implicitly or explicitly to prefer the former point of view. Rational-actor and norm-based

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analyses – diverse holisms and structuralisms, and statistical “variable” analyses – all of them beholden to the idea that it is entities that come first and relations among them only subsequently. (Emirbayer 1997, p. 281)

Alongside network analysis, relational approaches have been promoted in science and technology studies (e.g., Actor Network Theory), in systemic sociology (e.g., Niklas Luhmann), and in the figurational sociology of Norbert Elias. Relational sociology has also been thriving beyond the borders of Anglophone social science: In Italy, Pierpaolo Donati has since the 1980s labored on his sociologia relazionale. (An introduction to his sociology is his book that has been newly published in English (Donati 2011). See also Margaret Archer’s introduction to Donati’s sociology: Archer (2010)). Germany (Fuhse and M€utzel 2010) and France (Vautier 2008) can also boast research groups developing their brands of relational sociology. The Canadian-based journal Nouvelles perspectives en sciences sociales: revue international de syste´mique complexe et d’e´tudes relationelles published a special issue on French-Canadian relational sociology in 2009. Relational thinking has been developing in other human and social sciences as well. Stetsenko (2008), for instance, writes that such classics of psychology (and pedagogy) as Piaget, Dewey, and Vygotsky embodied strong relational thinking. Currently, a relational ontology has been adopted and has also become quite prominent in developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, social psychology, and education. (For a representative of one contemporary relational psychology, see Gergen (2009)). Within sociology, undoubtedly the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu is the most prominent and most developed example of relational sociology; below, the Bourdieusian framework is introduced as an insightful platform for relational, intergenerational childhood studies. For Bourdieu, thinking in terms of relations instead of “substances” is paramount. It is central to his vision of sociology as a science, and essentially all the concepts he has developed are relational (Wacquant 1992, p. 19). Bourdieu incessantly criticizes what he calls substantialism, or the “spontaneous” theory of knowledge that he sees as a key obstacle to developing genuine scientific knowledge of the social world (Swartz 1997, p. 61). Substantialism designates an epistemology that focuses on the realities of ordinary sense experience and “treats the properties attached to agents – occupation, age, sex, qualifications - as forces independent of the relationship within which they “act”” (Bourdieu 1984, p. 22). Moreover, substantialism is “inclined to treat the activities and preferences specific to certain individuals or groups in a society at a certain moment as if they were substantial properties, inscribed once and for all in a sort of biological or cultural essence” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 4). Thus, substantialist thinking reflects a commonsensical perception of social reality, a perception which is also embedded in the very language we use, as it “expresses things more easily than relations, states more readily than processes” (Bourdieu 1994, p. 189, 1998, pp. 3–4). Therefore, it is easier to treat social facts as things or as persons than it is to treat them as relations (Bourdieu 1994, pp. 189–190).

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The methodological alternative that Bourdieu advocates and which he identifies as fundamental to all scientific thinking is relationalism (or relationism). This is a mode of thinking that identifies the “real,” not with substances, but with relationships, for “the stuff of social reality lies in relations” (Wacquant 1992, pp. 15–19). It is argued here that the conceptual “tool kit” that Bourdieu developed in his lifework is useful for re-crafting the practices of sociological childhood research on a structural-relational basis. His relational ontology is, furthermore, consistent with some important trends and recent developments across natural, human, and social sciences where a systemic (i.e., structural) and at the same time emergentist understanding of reality – both natural and social – has gained new ground. (For the development of systemic theory in sociology and of emergentism as the most important element of the theory’s third wave, see Sawyer (2005) and Wan (2011)). Owing to this, by adopting a consistently relational orientation and putting it into work in researching childhood, the field will profit from being open toward the possibilities of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaboration with a range of other disciplines and research fields, such as (relational) psychology, economics, philosophy of mind, and others. The intergenerationality of childhood will also be exposed as a methodological perspective, instead of merely a substantive research object (which, moreover, tends toward substantialism).

5.4

Childhood as a Generational Phenomenon

The structural sociologies of childhood that began to develop in the work of the international project Childhood as a Social Phenomenon (1987–1992) were already based on (intuitive) forms of relational thinking (see Qvortrup et al. 1994). The concept of generation particularly was seen as the key to a new, relational understanding of childhood (Alanen 1994; 2009). In the 1980s, joined by a concern for studying childhood, a loose network, and then later, an international community of sociologists, gave rise to the term “generation,” identifying it as a key concept for establishing this new manner of thinking in the social sciences. Jens Qvortrup (1985, 1987) was one of the first to argue the case: In 1987, for instance, he wrote that “in industrial society the concept of generation has acquired a broader meaning than in earlier societal formations as ‘children’ and ‘adults’ have now assumed structural attributes relative to each other.” It was therefore useful, he wrote, “to treat ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’ as structural elements in an interactive relation and childhood as a particular social status” (Qvortrup 1987, p. 19). In everyday discourse as well as in social science, generational relations tend to refer to relationships between individuals who are located in different stages within their life courses – such as adults and children – or between individuals currently living through the same life stage “Intergenerational” in this parlance refers to the relationships or connectedness between individuals belonging to different

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generations. In addition, other uses of “generation” exist as a range of sociological discourses and modes of generational analysis. However, the idea of childhood proposed by Qvortrup, as an element of social structure, called for sociological tools that were not readily available in this literature. What was particularly missing from the literature was a new focus on the acknowledgement and elaboration of the fundamentally relational nature of the socially recognized categories of children and adults. Isolated calls had been issued for the need for relational understandings of childhood as well as of the other generational categories with which childhood was connected; for example, in 1982, the British scholars, John Fitz and John HoodWilliams (1982), wrote that If we wish to understand ‘youth’ and childhood we have to proceed not by studies of discrete phenomena but by studies of relationships, since youth [or childhood/LA] is not a function of age but a social category constituted in relation to, and indeed in opposition to, the category adult (as is feminine to masculine). (Fitz and Hood-Williams 1982, p. 65)

Later in the 1980s, a structural generational perspective was adopted in the research of the international Childhood as a Social Phenomenon project (1987–1992), assembled and organized to study the characteristic social features of childhood across a number of Western societies. The core idea in the project’s approach was the dynamic social relations between generations which now were understood as the elements (or units) of a social, generational structure. As remarked upon above, generation is common currency in everyday speech, used in many senses and for a variety of purposes. Children, for instance, are frequently spoken of as being the “next generation” (of adults), or reference is made to “the contemporary generation of children.” We also identify ourselves and other people as members of different generations (“the ‘68 generation,’ ‘my grandparents’ generation”) and thereby point to and make sense of both the differences that we observe between people of different age and their interrelationships, in terms of exchange, solidarity, conflict, or “gaps” in mutual understanding. Moreover, by identifying people as members of particular generations, we locate them in historical time, such as when speaking of the “war generation” (those adults who lived and suffered through the war years) or the “war children.” (This refers to the tens of thousands of Finnish children who were sent from Finland during the Second World War to a safer life in neighboring Sweden or Denmark). As the Greek and Latin etymologies of the word imply genealogies and succession, generations are frequently defined according to relational lines of descent (Jaeger 1977, p. 430; Corsten 1999, p. 250). The original meaning is linked to kinship: descent along family lineage, but the sense has been generalized to also cover “social” descent so that people speak of, for instance, “second generation sociologists” (Corsten 1999, p. 251). This sense of kinship relations is the one that particularly demographers wish to reserve for generation (e.g., Kertzer 1983). This is also the sense in which generation is used in historical research: to describe succession in “collective history” (Jaeger 1977).

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Generational Analysis: Mannheim and Beyond

Such usages of “generation” similarly circulate in sociological texts. However, in scientific reviews of the field, Karl Mannheim is unanimously credited as the scholar who brought “generation” into sociology in his famous essay on the “problem of generations” (Mannheim 1952/1928). (See for example, Jaeger 1977; Matthes 1985; Attias-Donfut 1988; Pilcher 1994; Becker 1997; Corsten 1999; Turner 1999). Mannheim worked out his notion of generations within a sociology of culture frame (Matthes 1985; Corsten 1999). In this view, generations needed to be understood and investigated as cultural phenomena that were formed in specific social and historical contexts. More specifically, Mannheim argued that generations are formed when members of a particular age-group (or cohort) live through the same historical and social events during their youthful years and experience them as significant to themselves. Through this shared experience, they come to develop a common consciousness, or identity, which can be observed particularly in the world view and the social and political attitudes of the age-group in question. In addition, world views and attitudes tend to persist over the life course of cohort members, making membership in the same generation easily identifiable to the members themselves and to others later on. In Mannheim’s cultural sociology, generations grow out of age-groups (cohorts), but they become identifiable generations only under specific circumstances. His conceptualization of the formation of generations proceeds in three stages. Firstly, people born (or “located”) in the same period of social and historical time within a society are exposed to a specific range of social events and ideas. At this stage, they can be identified as sharing a “generational location”; here they are only a “potential generation,” which exists merely in the mind of the researcher, not for the group members, who are not linked through actual relationships. Mannheim reflects on the analogy between class and generation, noting that the class position of an individual is a “different sort of social category, materially quite unlike the generation but bearing a certain structural resemblance to it.” The bases of the two positions – class and generation – naturally differ, and generation, as well as all the further historical and social formations growing out of shared generational positions, is ultimately seen to be based on the “biological rhythm of birth and death” (Mannheim 1952/1928, p. 290). He then extends the analogy to class and generational positions and sees both as “an objective fact, whether the individual in question knows his class [generational] position or not, and whether he acknowledges it or not” (Mannheim 1952/1928, p. 289). The second stage in the formation of generations involves the development of a shared interpretation of experiences and definition of situations among those who share a generational location: When this takes place, the “potential generation” becomes an “actual generation” – analogous to the development of a class “in itself” to a class “for itself.” Thirdly, in some cases, the differentiation within “actual generations” may lead to the formation of “generational units,” characterized by face-to-face interaction among its members and similar ways of reacting to the issues they meet as a generation (Mannheim 1952/1928, pp. 290, 302–312; Corsten 1999, pp. 253–255).

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In summary, Mannheim conceptualizes generations as being first socially and historically formed and then, once formed, as possibly exerting an influence on the course of events. Thus, his aim was to propose his theory of generations as a theory of social change, or of “intellectual evolution” (Mannheim 1952/1928, p. 281), in which particular culturally formed groups act as collective agents and cultural bearers of social transformation, based on the socialization of cohort members during their formative years of youth (Becker 1997, pp. 9–10; cf. Mannheim 1952/1928, pp. 292–308). (For criticisms directed at Mannheim’s theory, among them the assumptions on youth and socialization on which he relies, see Pilcher (1995, pp. 23–25)). For decades after the publication of his seminal essay (in 1928), there was not much treatment of the subject in sociology. Later, Mannheim’s thinking did evoke some response but mainly from a few small subdisciplines, such as the study of youth groups and youth cultures. Since the 1960s, developments in a few specific areas of social research, such as social demography, life course analysis, and gerontology, have taken a closer look at Mannheim’s theory of generations and utilized it in their research. In this activity, scholars clarified some of the confusion found in earlier usages (including Mannheim’s) of “generation” and developed precise distinctions and conceptualizations useful for the empirical aims of research. These include particularly the conceptual and terminological distinctions between generation, cohort, and (individual) age (e.g., Ryder 1965; Kertzer 1983; Becker 1992; Becker and Hermkens 1993). Specific new research programs have evolved out of this activity, and space has been made for the field of “generations research” or, more accurately, for “cohorts and generations research” to emerge (Becker 1997). In her book on age and generation in Britain, Pilcher (1995, pp. 22–25) presents the similar “cohorts and social generation theory” as “one of the ways in which sociologists have tried to explain the social significance of age”. The other four in her book are the following: the life course perspective, functionalist perspectives, political economy perspectives, and interpretive perspectives (Pilcher 1995, pp. 16–30). An abundant discussion on the concept of generation and generational issues has in recent years also been going on in German-language social science research (and public debate); see, for example, Liebau and Wulf (1996), Ecarius (1998), and Honig (1999). For some of the causes for this “renaissance,” see Corsten (1999, pp. 249–250)). Concerning the current situation, research on generations in the Mannheimian tradition has forged for itself a secure place within (empirical) social research. In this research, Mannheim’s original emphasis on youth as the key period for making fresh contacts with social life and forming generational experiences has remained strong. Sociologists of childhood may, for good reasons, question this continued stress on youth by asking the following: Why first young people? Are not children the obvious fresh cohort entering social life and, therefore, also capable of sharing experiences in historical time and place, that is, of becoming a generation in a true Mannheimian sense? While there has been some criticism directed at generations research for its tendency to overlook cohorts that are living through their later years, and their potential for generating specific generational experiences (e.g., Pilcher 1995), a similar criticism has not been directed at the treatment of children in generations

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research. One plausible explanation for this curious omission lurks in Ryder’s article (1965, pp. 851–852) where he writes of the model of socialization and development dominating the literature of his time. He argues that as long as life is conventionally seen as a “movement from amorphous plasticity through mature competence towards terminal rigidity,” young children are seen as being merely in a preparatory phase, whereas youth (and adults) are considered participants in social life. The more recent sociological work on childhood would object to this view and bring forward evidence to the effect that children, too, are participants in social life, and therefore, the Mannheimian frame is fully applicable in childhood research as well. A rare case of this is the German research on “children war, of consumption and of crisis” (Preuss-Lausitz et al. 1983), by a group of altogether thirteen researchers who explore the shared experiences of three different cohorts of children in post-World War II Germany. The research was done before the emergence of the sociology of childhood, and the authors identified their project as being one in “socialization history.” (This book can in fact be seen to be pioneering the sociology of childhood in the German-language area). If the applicability of the Mannheimian frame also in the study of childhood, then the further Mannheimian question of “do children also form active generational groups (or units)?” can likewise be opened to further investigation. In summary, very little attention has been given to generational issues outside this generations and cohorts research niche within the social science field. Nor have issues of “age” been attended to until recently and in a few cases. In the British context, Janet Finch (1986) describes the use of age in ways that are theoretically informed and empirically rigorous as “relatively uncharted territory,” and Jane Pilcher (1994) notes that “the neglect of the sociology of generations parallels the lack of attention paid to the social significance of age.” In the 1990s, there has been a burgeoning of theorizing and research on age, Pilcher (1994) writes, lamenting that in this new activity there still is a lack of theorizing and research in terms of generations – meaning theorizing and research in the Mannheimian tradition. Harriet Bradley, too, in her book subtitled “Changing Patterns of Inequality” (Bradley 1996), sees age as the more important “dimension of stratification” than generation and accordingly devotes one full chapter to “Age: The Neglected Dimension of Stratification.” Within that chapter, generation is given two pages, mainly introducing Mannheim’s work. There is however more to discover – and rediscover – in “generation,” by going beyond the line of analysis that has stemmed from Mannheim’s important work. In recent decades, many social conditions to which childhood has also been compared – gender, class, ethnicity, and (dis)ability – have been submitted to a critical, deconstructive gaze, by first interpreting them as social constructions and then reconceptualizing and researching them from a number of theoretical (post-positivist) perspectives. In feminist/gender studies, gender continues to be discussed and analyzed and is variously theorized as a material, social, and/or discursive structure, while naturally through the history of sociology as a scientific discipline, (social) class provides a central concept for analyzing and explaining social divisions and structural inequalities. Both ethnic studies and

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disability studies are more recent fields of research; they bring into focus and redefine both “race”/ethnicity and disability as socially constructed phenomena and seek to generate theoretical perspectives for research on these particular social constructions of inequality and exclusion. (On discussions on this in, for example, disability studies, see the collection edited by Corker and French (1999)). There are good reasons to believe that in a similar manner, sociologists will learn more about childhood as a social and specifically generational (structural) condition by working on the notion as an analogue to class, gender, ethnicity, or disability. The suggestion is that “generation” needs to be brought into childhood studies and childhood needs to be brought into generational studies. Such an approach, moreover, needs to be one that also holds to the basic premise of the new childhood studies: children’s agency.

5.6

Childhood Relationally: Generational Order(ing)

In the final product of the Childhood as a Social Phenomenon project (Qvortrup et al. 1994), a number of analyses were presented on the relations between children and childhood and between childhood and adulthood. Furthermore, new concepts were suggested to develop further the project’s idea of macro-level generational structuring that impacts the everyday conditions, actions, and experiences of children. The notion of a generational order was one of them (Alanen 1994; also Alanen 1992, pp. 64–71); it was proposed as a useful analytic tool to work on and to refine, as well as to develop into a comprehensive sociological framework. The central idea in the notion of a generational order is that a system of social ordering exists in modern societies that specifically pertains to children as a social category and circumscribes for them particular social locations from which they act, and thereby participate in ongoing social life. As children are seen to be involved in the daily “construction” of their own and other people’s everyday relationships and life trajectories, the notion would also capture the idea of children as “social actors” – the idea that would become the central idea in the sociology of children (cf. Prout and James 1990), with its preference for ethnographic research with children, and sensitivity to children’s subjective constructions. Thereby, the notion of a generational order could also hold the promise of helping to transcend the theoretical and methodological divide between structure and agency – a divide that continues to keep apart, theoretically and methodologically, the different sociologies of children and childhood that have emerged in the subfield. This disconnection remains even today a challenge to the sociology of childhood. In addition, the notion of generational order, once fully elaborated both theoretically and methodologically, and put into empirical use, promises to help sociologists to understand and account for the interconnections between childhood’s many structurations: Generational ordering can be included as one of the organizing principles of social relations in social life, in this case – the social relations in which children are a significant partner, in addition to and alongside the more

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recognized such as social class, gender, ethnicity, and (dis)ability. Each of these latter categories was long understood as pre-given conditions within the natural order of things, and each of them has been submitted to critical analysis and deconstruction. As their “socially constructed” nature has been revealed and their long-lived “misrecognition” (Bourdieu) as natural facts undermined, new questions on their construction, operation, and effects could be raised for study, driving forward their reconceptualization to the point that now each of these structural categories has a place within social theory and research, even if they also have remained contested concepts. Furthermore, as they all operate in the same social space, that is, “society,” their interconnections have emerged as a topic (“intersectionality”) for social science research. The major significance of the notion of a generational order then is that it gives a name and sociological content to the processes through which the social world is organized in terms of generational distinction: The social world is a gendered, classed, and “raced” world, and it is also “generationed.” In the case of children, their lives, experiences, and knowledges are not only gendered, classed, and “raced” (and so on) but also – and most importantly for the sociological study of childhood – generationed. To begin to do so, “conceptual autonomy” (cf. Thorne 1987) is to be granted to the generational segment of the social world. “Generational order” provides one conceptual starting point and an analytical tool for framing the study of childhood in ways that will capture the structured nature of childhood as well as children’s active presence in generational (structuring) structures while endorsing the internal, necessary connectedness – the relationality – of generational structures. During the work of the Childhood as a Social Phenomenon project, the fundamentally relational nature of generational categories – of which childhood and adulthood were the project’s primary focus – was assumed but did not receive special analytical attention. What the project did achieve was an argument for and demonstration of the usefulness of collecting statistical information, using children as units of counting and of quantitative analysis. Compiling childhood statistics – on children’s families, their living conditions, poverty, and other aspects – and comparing the information with data on the other generational categories (adults), is a case of categorical generational analysis (cf. Connell 1987). The interrelations within and between the categories are external, or contingent, in the sense that the category is defined in terms of a number of shared attributes, such as income, education, attitudes, and life chances, the generational category of children being typically categorized in terms of age. The relations between the categories may also be internal, or necessary, in the sense that what one category is dependent on its relation to the other, and the existence of one necessarily presupposes the other (Sayer 1992, pp. 89–90; Ollman 2003). It is this feature of internal relationality that characterizes the generational order as it has been introduced earlier. The idea of a modern “nuclear family” exemplifies the case of a generational structure in which the relations are also internal: It is a system of relations, linking to each other the husband/father, the wife/mother, and their children, all of which can be conceived as positions within

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the structured network of relations (cf. Porpora 1998, p. 343; Porpora 2002). Internality implies that the relations of any holder of one position (such as that of a parent) cannot exist without the other (child) position. What parenting is or becomes – that is, action in the position of a parent in its defining relations – is dependent on the reciprocal action taken by the holder of the position of child. Similarly, a change of action in one position will probably effect change in the other position. The interdependency – of positional performance as well as identity – does not work only one way, unidirectionally, from parental position to child position. Interestingly, the term that in the family example corresponds to the positional performance of the holder of the child position is missing from both everyday and sociological discourse, presumably because the culturally normative basis for understanding the child-parent relationship tends to be one way only. Logically, as Berry Mayall has suggested (1996, p. 49), “childing” would be the appropriate counter term to “parenting.” A parallel example is given by the structured system of teacher-student positions. The case can be expanded from “micro-” to “meso-” level interrelations, by bringing in the complexities in which the holder of a teacher position also defines a position within a broader schooling system. The complex structure of schooling (including even the family system) can further be seen to exist in an equally internal relation to a particular welfare state structure, or a labor market structure, and this in turn will be internally related to wider economic and cultural structures that potentially extend to global (economic, cultural) structures. (It is commonly assumed that social structures include only “big” objects, such as the international division of labor, or the labor market, while they of course include also small ones at the interpersonal and intrapersonal levels (Sayer 1992, p. 92)). Thus, the generational structures that we may find to exist as truly relational structures can be expected to be embedded in chains or networks of further relational structures, be they generational or otherwise (e.g., class or gender structures); the implication is that the determinations of generational structures and positions within them (as within any social structure) are always dynamic and complex. The distinguishing feature, by which we may find relational social structures in existence and the way by which to “determine” the possibilities of actual performance of the holders of its structured positions, is interdependency. However, as Sayer (1992, pp. 89–91) notes, the relationship need not be, and often is not, symmetrical in both directions. The familial generational structure, for instance, is (usually) one of asymmetry, as are the generational structure of teacher-student, and many other structures of relations embedded in the organization of the welfare state and the organizations of global governance. To further expand on the notion of internal versus external relations, toward categorical versus relational theorizing, it is instructive to think also of gender (or gender structures) as being composed of internal relations and then relate this idea to a concept of gender based on external relations. R. W. Connell (1987) does this in an examination of some of the most current frameworks of gender theory. Among them are theories that Connell called categorical (1987, pp. 54–61).

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In an analysis based on categorical theorizing, the gender categories as they exist for us – mostly men and women, or some subcategories of each – are taken as the starting point, and the study aims at finding how the categories relate to each other in terms of a chosen aspect, for example, life chances or resources. The problematic point in categorical theorizing, Connell concludes, is that an analysis that begins by setting a simple line of demarcation between gender positions is not able to pay attention to the process of how the gender categories and the relations between the categories are constituted in the first place and are subsequently reproduced or, as it may be, transformed. The consequence is that categorical theories of gender are forced to treat both genders in terms of internally undifferentiated, homogeneous, and general categories, thereby inviting criticism of false universalism and sometimes even of falling back on biological thinking. To resolve this “categoricalism,” Connell advocates what he calls “practice-based” theorizing that focuses on “what people do by way of constituting the relations they live in” (Connell 1987, pp. 61–64). The risk of undifferentiated treatment of category members is also evident in the structural approach to childhood that starts from the social category of children as their unit and demarcates this unit (mostly) on the basis of chronological age (cf. Qvortrup 2000). Children, as well as their counterparts in the analysis (i.e., adults), are in fact brought into the analysis as demographical age categories or sets of birth cohorts. The translation of the “generational” into the social construct of age moves the analysis close to cohort-based (statistical) generational analysis. In the kind of structural approach to generational analysis that Jens Qvortrup has advocated, the (contingent) relations between the categories of children and adults are given an economic interpretation, and (macro-)economical processes are brought into the analysis to “explain” the economic situation of the age-defined category of children. Therefore, Qvortrup’s approach could be seen as a modification of Weberian class analysis or, closer to the study of childhood, a modification of Karl Mannheim’s generational analysis; only children are now shown to form not a cultural but an economic generation in that they are shown to share a set of economic risks and opportunities. In this view, the definition of their generational nature – their “childness” – is based on an observable similarity or shared attribute, or sets of them, among individual children, therefore, on more external than internal relations. There is also another interesting feature in category-based analyses in which the focus is on the economic aspects of generational relations. An example is David Oldman’s thought-provoking framing of children’s activities in the Children as a Social Phenomenon book Childhood Matters (Oldman 1994). Oldman aims to show how in capitalist societies the relations between the (generational) classes of children and adults have become organized as economic relations. The suggestion is that adults and children are social categories which exist principally by their economic opposition to each other and in the ability of the dominant class (adults) to exploit economically the activities of the subordinate class (children). Children, through their various everyday activities, in fact produce value to adults who perform “child work,” that is, work in which children are the objects of the adults’

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labor (Oldman 1994, pp. 43–47). As family is only one of many sites where this class opposition and exploitation takes place (school being another), Oldman concludes that there exists a distinctive generational mode of production that articulates with two other existing modes of production: the capitalist mode that dominates in the industrial sphere and the patriarchal mode that dominates in the domestic sphere (Oldman 1994, pp. 55–58). In his bold interpretation of child-adult relations, Oldman clearly confines the generational ordering of social relations under the logic of production. Many of the analyses that have focused on structural relations between childhood and adulthood have followed the same idea when outlining the evolving structures of economic relations between the two generational categories of children and adults (e.g., Qvortrup 1995; Wintersberger 1998, 2005; Hengst 2000; Olk and Wintersberger 2007). In contrast, the notion of a generational order advocated above intends to provide a frame for analysis by leaving it to empirical study to discover what actually is the constitutive principle in the social ordering, and organizing, of child-adult relations in each (i.e., national or institutional) case and in different social fields. In some cases, it may be primarily economic; in the case of other structures, the cultural may dominate. In any case, this approach enables a more dynamic conceptualization of generational structures than seems possible if the starting point is based on generational categories. To conclude on the basic features of an analysis of generational structures, the aim is to be able to identify the internal relations that link children to the social world, the (relational) positions that define “childness” in each historical timespace, and the social (relational) practices (cf. Connell 1987) in which the positions constitutive of “childness” are concurrently produced and maintained and – occasionally – transformed. To summarize the generational order, the basic principles of the social order – that is, the ways in which members of a society relate to each other and to the whole of their society – also include the arrangement of relations between generational groups. In this sense, the social order is also always a generational order (e.g., B€uhler-Niederberger 2005, p. 9; cf. Honig 1996; 1999, p. 190). The ideas of a generational order and processes of generational ordering already embrace some of the basic ideas of relational thinking. In order to further develop a relational conceptualization of childhood, a second analytical round will be taken; we will return to the conceptual “tools” that Pierre Bourdieu developed in his lifework based on a relational ontology.

5.7

Toward a Relational Sociology of Childhood

One of Bourdieu’s central goals in developing his theoretical approach was to assist in overcoming sociology’s customary antinomies, such as individual versus society, micro- versus macroanalysis, phenomenological versus structural approaches, and subjectivism versus objectivism – antinomies that are also clearly visible in the

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existing polarity between (1) micro-sociologies of children that focus their analysis directly on children as (inter)actors in their everyday social worlds and (2) macro-sociologies of childhood that take childhood to be an element of the social structures or a structure in its own right. Bourdieu’s route for transcending such polarities is to move social analysis from its more customary substantialist mode of thinking to a relational mode. This is why Bourdieu’s work can be used as a thinking model for bridging the gap that currently complicates theoretical and methodological advancement in the social study of childhood. As argued above, “generation” has been identified as a particularly useful notion for sociologists of childhood to work with; the proposal is to approach generation relationally and not as a property or “substance” attached to agents. The invitation is to envision distinct socially and historically constructed sets, or “systems,” of relations between groups or categories of people – relations that we may recognize as specifically generational relations. As earlier remarked, relations between the generational categories of “children” and “adults,” or “parents” and “children,” or “teachers” and “students” present lucid examples of such relations that are internally related, in the sense that one category (such as “children”) cannot exist without the other, and the socially constructed meaning of one category is dependent on the meaning of the other category. The following section expands on Bourdieu’s relational approach by describing the main contours of his theory of social fields; the suggestion is to utilize it by applying it to the study of the intergenerational encounters (family being the case), now conceptualized as “social fields.”

5.7.1

A Sociology of Fields

Instead of affirming that the ontological priority lies with structure or with actors, the collective or the individual, Bourdieu’s sociology affirms the primacy of social relations (Wacquant 1992, p. 15). To think relationally means, as presented above, to move away from “substantialist” thinking that begins from socially pre-given categorical entities; relational thinking, in contrast, centers on the relations and the systems of relations that generate and naturalize the observable (and often conventional) social categories (i.e., “children”). In sociology there is a tradition of relationalism – it was by no means Bourdieu’s invention. Bourdieu, however, labored particularly relentlessly in order to establish a thoroughly relational sociology, well evidenced by the fact that his key concepts (such as field and habitus) designate “bundles of relations” (Wacquant 1992, p. 16). Field, according to Bourdieu, should also be the primary focus of social analysis: The notion of field reminds us that the true object of social science is not the individual, even though one cannot construct a field if not through individuals, [. . .]. It is the field that is primary and must be the focus of the research operations. This does not imply that individuals are mere “illusions”, that they do not exist: they exist as agents – and not as biological individuals, actors, or subjects – who are socially constituted as active and acting in the field under consideration by the fact that they possess the necessary properties to be

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effective, to produce effects, in this field. And it is knowledge of the field itself in which they evolve that allows us best to grasp the roots of their singularity, their point of view or position (in a field) from which their particular vision of the world (and of the field itself) is constructed. (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 107)

What then is a field? In analytical terms, a field may be defined as a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions. [. . .] In highly differentiated societies, the social cosmos is made up of a number of such relatively autonomous social microcosms, i.e., spaces of objective relations that are the site of a logic and a necessity that are specific and irreducible to those that regulate other fields. For instance, the artistic field, or the religious field, or the economic field all follow specific logics: while the artistic field has constituted itself by rejecting or reversing the law of material profit [. . .], the economic field has emerged, historically, through the creation of a universe within which, as we commonly say, “business is business”, where the enchanted relations of friendship and love are in principle excluded. (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, pp. 97–98)

In his early empirical work in which he also developed his theory of practice, Bourdieu gave field a minor place. It is in his later works that field comes increasingly to replace the polysemantic concept of structure that he used in earlier texts (Reed-Danahay 2004, p. 133). Subsequently, field gains an increasingly central place in Bourdieu’s theoretical system. He continued to refine his conceptual tools throughout his career in empirical studies, with the analytical weight of field increasing as Bourdieu moved toward analyzing contemporary French society and its structuredness into fields and as fields (Swartz 1997, p. 117). In the 1970s and 1980s, the main focus of Bourdieu’s work was on class, culture, and education. In these studies, “field” was made to refer to the social space in which Bourdieu (with the help of the method of correspondence analysis) located the actors of the social domain in question according to the volume of the economic and cultural capital that the actors possessed. In an essay on the intellectual field (1966), he had already developed some of the main ideas of his forthcoming theory of fields (Lane 2000, pp. 72–73), giving the concept the analytical meaning that the concept retained in his later, distinctly relational theory. Bourdieu’s theory of fields may be considered to be his theory of society. While in “archaic” societies (such as the Kabyle he studied in Algeria, in the 1960s) there is only one field, in modern differentiated societies the number of fields grows: They exist parallel to each other, they intersect, and there may be subfields within larger fields. In Bourdieu’s conceptualization, modern societies are composed of multiple domains of action – fields – that are distinct from each other. A field is a relational historical formation: “a network, or configuration, of objective relations between positions” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 125), a system of positions, and a social “space” structured by positions. Accordingly, action (practice) taking place in a field is understood and explained only by identifying the agents – individuals and institutions – currently active in the field, the structure of relations that differentiate (and connect) them, and the “game” that is taking place among the actors, the “game” being struggles about control of the resources (capitals) that are valued and held legitimate in the field. Each field has its own rules, or logic, and

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therefore, the game and rules of one field are different from the games and rules of other fields. What fields do share is their (homologous) structure: All fields are structured by relations of dominance. This applies also to the family which can be described in field-analytical terms. As fields are dynamic formations, they have their birth (genesis) and developmental history, and the “game” played in a field may remain even after the field disappears. In addition, the relations of influence between fields vary; therefore, fields might subsequently vary in their degree of autonomy. Bourdieu’s probably best-known analysis of fields concerns the field of cultural production (the production of arts and literature) in France. Bourdieu (1993) explained how this area first struggled into an autonomous position in relation to the “heteronomous” forces of economy, politics, and the state. The analysis was focused particularly on the struggles of nineteenth-century painters and writers (Manet, Flaubert, Baudelaire) for freedom from the structural dominance of, first, the court and the church, then of the salons, and, finally, of the Academy of France. Once autonomy was successfully fought for and gained for the field of cultural production, space was assured for the artists’ own game. The development of this field took place in three stages: First, it was born by way of separating itself from dominance by other fields already in existence. The move from a state of heteronomy to that of autonomy marked the arrival of the second stage in which the avant-garde guaranteed the field autonomy. However, the accomplishment of autonomy was simultaneously the beginning of internal differentiation, as the struggles within the field were reorganized by actors that in the new state of autonomy developed new logics (strategies) of action. The third stage in the development of a field is thus marked by diminishing autonomy. In Bourdieu’s example of cultural production in nineteenth-century France, the field of economy was expanding its influence on cultural production. The market for art objects was born, relying on a new logic, and the field moved back to a state of heteronomy, albeit of a qualitatively different kind from the earlier stage of heteronomy. Many of the fields that Bourdieu himself studied are cultural spaces, such as art, literature, religion, justice, education, university, and journalism, all of which are well-institutionalized social domains, with a fairly large degree of autonomy – although they also constantly need to struggle to keep this autonomy. Most of the research on fields by other scholars has also focused on well-established, institutionalized, and “public” arenas, such as the media, higher education, economic policy, the world of academic research, or public welfare services. Much less attention has been focused on “private” domains, such as the household or family, or on informally organized or voluntary relations (peer relations, friendship). Can these also be understood as fields? A second question concerns who or what qualifies as an agent in a specific field. Agents exist “not as a biological individuals, actors, or subjects, but as agents who are socially constituted as active and acting in the field under consideration by the fact that they possess the necessary properties to be effective, to produce effects, in this field” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 107). This qualification will not exhaust the whole range of “actors” that sociologists (including sociologists of childhood) commonly think of and treat as social actors.

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Bernard Lahire (2001, pp. 32–37) follows Bourdieu in his contention that the existence of a field presupposes illusion, that is, that there exist a sufficient number of participants that actually invest in the struggles (“games”) of the field and keep up the game – these are “agents” in the Bourdieusian sense: In empirical work, it is one and the same thing to determine what the field is, where its limits lie, etc., and to determine what species of capital are active in it, within what limits, and so on. (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, pp. 98–99)

The systemic nature of Bourdieu’s theory implies that all of the concepts of his relational theoretical universe have a role to play in recognizing/reconstructing a field. (See Lahire (2001, pp. 24–26) for a meticulously compiled list of altogether 13 characteristics by which to recognize and analytically construct a Bourdieusian field). But how and where to start the study of a field? Where to start especially when the object of concern is the everyday world of ordinary people – children and adults – instead of such wide institutionalized worlds of action as government, university, church, or media world? The institutional aspects in the action of individuals and groups are significant issues to focus on in a field analysis, but a field is not identical to an institution (Swartz 1997, pp. 120–121). A field may be in fact located within an institution or it may reach across two (or more) institutions; the institution may also be one of the positions in a field. Moreover, a field may be emerging in which the practices are not yet strongly institutionalized. The most distinctive differentiating feature of a field from an institution is that the concept a field underlines is by nature conflictual (Swartz 1997). This is a clear distinction from the (functionalist, consensus-based) understanding of an institution. Bourdieu himself identifies three internally connected moments in a field analysis (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 104). First, one must analyze the position of the field in relation to the field of power and, next, the objective structure of the positions held by actors or institutions that compete for the legitimate form of capital specific to the field. The field of power “is not situated on the same level as other fields (the literary, economic, scientific, state bureaucratic, etc.) since it encompasses them in part. It should be thought of more as a kind of ‘meta-field’ with a number of emergent and specific properties” (Wacquant 1992, p. 18). Finally, the habitus of the actors need to be studied. Habitus together with the concepts of field and capital form Bourdieu’s principal conceptual triad. Habitus is a durable and transposable system of schemata of perception, appreciation, and action; habitus “focuses on our ways of acting, feeling, thinking and being, it captures how we carry within us history, how we bring this history into our present circumstances, and how we then make choices to act in certain ways and not with others” (Maton 2008, p. 52). It is the construct of habitus with which Bourdieu intends to transcend the series of deep-seated dichotomies such as subjectivismobjectivism and structure-agency, among others. However, as the concept of field does not offer any ready-made answers, fields need to be constructed case by case (Maton 2008, p. 139). (For a detailed account of the three analytical stages for constructing a field as an object of study, see Alanen (2007)).

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A Case of Generational Ordering: Family as a Social Field

The significance of family in Bourdieu’s theorizing and in his studies (especially Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; Bourdieu 1984) stems from his interest in understanding the social mechanisms by which social inequalities are reproduced. In modern societies, family, alongside education, is a central reproductive mechanism. Family, therefore, appears in Bourdieu’s theorizing in several contexts: Family appears as a field; it may also be a component of habitus; family may also provide the members of a family group with resources – social capital – that they can convert into other forms of capital in their exchanges in other fields, thereby helping them to function effectively in the games of other fields. Lastly, the family can be understood as a form of practice. Next, only an outline of family as a field is presented. A sociologist will without difficulty recognize and analyze any family, or a large group of kin, as a “field” of interactions taking place between family members. Bourdieu, however, is adamant in asserting that family should not be identified as a domain of everyday domestic interactions. Within his relational theorizing, it is important to notice that the family tends to function as a field, with its physical, economic and above all symbolic power relations (linked, for example, to the volume and structure of the capital possessed by each member), and its struggles to hold on to and transform these power relations. (Bourdieu 1998, pp. 68–69; also 1996, p. 22; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977, p. 18)

To perceive family as a social body within which members struggle or compete with each other goes utterly against contemporary and conventional thinking. B€ uchner and Brake (2006, pp. 25–26), in their study on the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital, are among the few researchers that make this point. Following Bourdieu, they note that we tend to be attached to an (idealized) picture of family in which emotional closeness and relations of trust and confidence take a central place, and the intrinsic purpose of family is to create an emotional counterbalance to the harsh competition and obligations to perform outside family. This idea as well as the idea of society being divided into a “public” and a “private” sphere and of family as the center of the latter has been asserted by numerous sociologists (since at least Talcott Parsons). This vision of the family as a domain separates from the public domain of the economy and the state and, following a specific logic of its own, is reinforced by the division of society into families (Bourdieu 1998, p. 66). Both the vision and the division are, of course, historical constructs, although commonly experienced as being “natural” (see below). In contrast, it is Bourdieu’s claim that in its modern representation the family should be approached as “only a word, a mere verbal construct,” or “paper family” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 65). Nevertheless, it is also a “well-founded fiction” and an “active word” in that it is a collective principle of construction, perception, and categorization of collective reality (Bourdieu 1998, p. 66; Lenoir 1992, 2008) “Family,” then, is an instrument of construction of reality that exists “both in the objectivity of the world, in the form of elementary social bodies that we call

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families, and in people’s minds, in the form of principles of classification that are implemented both by ordinary agents and by the licensed operators of official classifications, such as state statisticians” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 71). The state, then, is the main agent of the construction of the official categories through which both populations and minds are structured (Bourdieu 1998, 1996, pp. 24–25; Lenoir 2008, pp. 39–40). Therefore, in a society that is divided into family groups (such as contemporary Western industrialized societies), the family is not just a subjective idea, a mental and cognitive category, it is also an objective social category. Thus, as such it is in fact the basis of the family as a subjective social category – the mental category which is “the matrix of countless representations and actions (such as marriages) which help to reproduce the objective social category. The circle is that of reproduction of the social order” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 67), and [t]he near-perfect match that is then set up between the subjective and objective categories provides the foundation for an experience of the world as self-evident, taken for granted. And nothing seems more natural than the family; this arbitrary social construct seems to belong on the side of nature, the natural and the universal. (Bourdieu 1998)

The circle of reproduction of the social order leads us to regard the family as (falsely) natural, by presenting itself with the self-evidence of what “has always been that way,” although – as historical family research has amply shown – it is a fairly recent social invention (Bourdieu 1998, p. 64). The immediate congruence between the subjective, mental structures and the objective structures of the family is historically constructed, and the family is thus the product of countless acts of institutionalization (Bourdieu 1998, pp. 67–69). Remi Lenoir (1991, 1992, 2003) has extensively analyzed this historical process of the birth and development – the long dure´e – of the family field in France, as it has appeared in the growth of family thinking (“familialism”) in state policy, and the resulting institutionalization of the family in and through, for example, civil law and family policy. According to his analysis, “the family” has been (re)constructed at the intersection of several social fields (such as politics, law, religion, and medicine) within the struggles between concerned agents in these fields, each striving to establish from their positions in the respective field, as well as in the emerging family field, the “functions” that were to be left to “the family” to take care of. In Western Europe, according to Lenoir’s analysis, the genesis of the family field started at some point in the twelfth century and followed much of the same general pattern as various other social fields analyzed by Bourdieu and his colleagues: by fighting for its autonomy from the church and the state, most clearly by the dominant economic classes of the time. The field of religion (in which the church of course was the most powerful agent) and the field of the state (with its growth of an apparatus of governance) continue even today to be the most powerful fields that presently affect the development of the family field. Dandurand and Ouellette (1995) present a similar analysis of the emergence and structuration of the family field in Canada. Whether the family field has, and to which degree, achieved in Western societies a state of autonomy is an open question. Scientific work to

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construct “a social history of the process of state institutionalization of the family” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 72) will be needed to provide answers which undoubtedly are conditional on the developments of nation-states. However, as was presented earlier, the perpetuation of the family as both an objective and subjective category does not only depend on the constant work of institutionalization by a range of agents active in the emerging family (macro-)field. Indeed, the practical and symbolic work of creating (and recreating) “the family” is also required on the mundane everyday level within the family groups (actual families) themselves as well as between them. It is this practical and symbolic work that transforms the obligation to love into a loving disposition and tends to endow each member of the family with a ‘family feeling’ that generates devotion, generosity, and solidarity. (Bourdieu 1998, p. 68)

This “family feeling” – which is “a cognitive principle of vision and division that is at the same time an affective principle of cohesion” (Bourdieu 1998, p. 68) – needs to be continuously created to function as the basis for the adhesion that is vital to the existence of the family group in the broader family field. The “obliged affections and affective obligations of family feeling (conjugal love, paternal and maternal love, filial love, brotherly and sisterly love, etc.)” enter, for their part, into the construction of (“real”) families. The implication is that a society divided into families tends to constitute in its members a specific mental structure, or family habitus (Bourdieu 1998, pp. 66–67; Lenoir 2008, p. 34). The daily work that goes into creating and recreating “the family” – the subjective and mental category – and the division of society into family groups can be studied as sets of relational practices of familialization (family making). The fact that “everyone believes to know what the family is” confirms the success of the social work (Durkheim) (consisting of both the “private” work of families and the “public” work of state and other agents) that has been implemented in constructing the institution of the family, which is also manifest on the level of public discourses mobilized to support the vision of a thoroughly familialized world (Lenoir 1991, pp. 781–782). Thus, when considered as a social field, the family is a space structured by positions that are defined in and by the struggles and the specific interests mobilized in these struggles by a broad ensemble of agents, groups, and institutions, often following divergent logics (Dandurand and Ouellette 1995, p. 104; Lenoir 2003; 2008). It is worth pointing out that family as a social field does not only refer to the broad societal (macro-)space studied by, for example, Lenoir and Dandurand and Ouellette; on the contrary, Bourdieu (1998, pp. 68–69) reminds us that any family group (which may be understood as a subfield of the broader family field) also “tends to function as a field, with their physical, economic and, above all, symbolic power relations” (linked, e.g., to the volume and structure of the capital possessed by each member), “and its struggles to hold on to and transform these power relations.” The key struggles (or the “game”) in the broad family field concern what defines “the family” or, in Bourdieu’s terms, the species of capital specific to the family and who are well positioned to define it and have their definition accepted

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as legitimate. Yet, this structure is always at stake in the struggles within the family field; therefore, there is never any guarantee of there being unanimity at any time on what the legitimate representation of “the family” is or should be. Bourdieu points clearly to what the family’s specific capital may consist of when he writes on the socially arbitrary but naturalized “family,” in contemporary societies: In order for this reality called “family” to be possible, certain social conditions that are in no way universal have to be fulfilled. They are, in any case, by no means uniformly distributed. In short, the family in its legitimate definition is a privilege instituted into a universal norm: de facto privilege that implies a symbolic privilege – the privilege of comme il faut, conforming to the norm, and therefore enjoying a symbolic profit of normality [emphasis by LA]. Those who have the privilege of having a “normal” family are able to demand the same of everyone without having to raise the question of the conditions (a certain income, living space, etc.) of universal access to what they demand universally. . . . This privilege is, in reality, one of the major conditions of the accumulation and transmission of economic, cultural and symbolic privileges. (Bourdieu 1998, p. 69)

The so-called “nuclear” family is the prototypical normal family at the core of family practices in the contemporary world (Uhlmann 2006, p. 9); it acts as a realized category by being both a model of reality (in the sense that it reflects the general practice) and a model for reality, meaning that it becomes a prescription that members of society follow. As a realized category, the nuclear family forms “a ‘gestalt’ which incorporates many specific cognitive models, such as the division of labour within the family group, the convergence of social and biological parenthood, and the dependency of children on parents” (Uhlmann 2006, pp. 46–47). These are some of the doxic aspects of the family which are taken for granted and commonly experienced as universal. The concept of doxa broadly refers to the misrecognition of forms of social arbitrariness that engenders the unformulated, nondiscursive, but internalized and practical recognition of that same social arbitrariness. It contributes to its reproduction in social institutions, structures, and relations as well as in minds and bodies, expectations, and behavior (Deer 2008, p. 119). Moreover, the transparency of normalcy, that is, the fact that the family passes unnoticed and remains uninterrogated by public opinion, is – as Bourdieu (see above) has pointed out – part of the privileged position it has acquired: “the right to question and not to be questioned, the authority to contemplate others but not to be contemplated” (Uhlmann 2006, p. 47). Therefore, “having a normal family” has the potentiality of being a privilege that has the status of being for their possessors valuable cultural capital and, moreover, symbolic capital. This chapter has sought to clear some conceptual ground for developing a relational sociology of childhood. The discussion arose from the idea that childhood is a fundamentally relational phenomenon and that, therefore, the study of children and childhood, and the circumstances of children’s lives, necessitates a social ontology that is consistently relational. The movement within childhood studies toward a relational conceptualization of children and childhood has been described, as well as the advance of relational sociologies elsewhere, exemplified by Pierre

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Bourdieu’s field theory. These developments additionally provide conceptual and methodological tools for developing a reasoned conception of intergenerationality as well as an ontologically and epistemologically secured foundation for intergenerational studies.

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Section II Multiple Approaches to Child Well-Being

Child Well-Being: A Philosophical Perspective Alexander Bagattini

6.1

Introduction

The concept of children’s well-being is frequently used both in the public debate and in discussions in a wide variety of legal, political, medical, educational, and familial contexts. There is broad consensus that the well-being of children matters greatly and that it deserves special promotion and protection. Yet, the concept of child well-being is highly contested. Theorists and practitioners often disagree about what child well-being consists of, about how it is promoted, and about its importance in relation to other goods and moral claims. Disputes about the nature of children’s well-being arise in part because there are many different disciplinary perspectives from which to approach the concept. In medicine, for example, we sometimes find a narrow, health-related concept of the well-being of children. Medicine as an empirical science tends to emphasize the biological dimensions of the physical and psychological well-being of children. In relation to proper biological functioning, well-being is rather considered the absence of disease or impairments of normal capacities. By contrast, when it comes to an analysis of children’s well-being, the social sciences and psychology often focus on objective economic (e.g., levels of poverty), educational (e.g., test scores), and social factors (e.g., family structure and divorce rates). Others worry that a focus on the material dimensions of well-being comes at the expense of proper recognition of the spiritual well-being of children. These diverse perspectives are not necessarily inconsistent. But a narrow focus on one perspective can generate controversies. For example, if the well-being of children is treated just as a physical and psychological phenomenon, social factors that influence well-being, such as family structures or peer pressure, are easily overlooked. This can result in a rash medicalization of problems as it is illustrated by the alarming propensity of treating hyperactivity

A. Bagattini Philosophisches Institut, Universit€at D€ usseldorf, D€ usseldorf, Germany e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 163 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_8, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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with children mainly by prescribing powerful drugs such as Ritalin. Thus, one general challenge is to determine how different facets of well-being should be integrated in a balanced, comprehensive, and practical account of well-being that can help guide decisions concerning children. Philosophy can contribute to this task by posing some relevant questions and analyzing several basic concepts. As philosophy is a very diverse discipline, the following presentation will focus on ethical aspects only (rather than, e.g., issues from the philosophy of mind). This chapter will have three principal sections, each of which addresses different clusters of issues. The progression is roughly from an analysis of fundamental general problems to an examination of problems in various specific practical settings. Section 6.2 considers the nature of childhood as a normatively distinct period of human development and how features of childhood affect the moral status and claims of children. Section 6.3 considers substantive accounts of the well-being of children and how different facets of well-being can be interpreted, integrated, or balanced. Section 6.4 takes up problems that involve the application of ideas about the well-being of children in concrete situations in medicine, education, and family law.

6.2

The Nature of Childhood

In order to properly address questions concerning the nature and application of child well-being, it is helpful to consider the nature of childhood itself. A number of issues arise here. I will put them into four broad categories: • Childhood and the normative status of children • Children and paternalism • What distinguishes children from adults? – the threshold problem • Children’s rights The normative status of the child, as we know it today, is a quite recent invention. Today children are seen as persons and not, as a few centuries or maybe even decades ago, as the property of their parents. However, if children are persons, then (at least from a philosophical point of view) paternalism toward children has to be justified. This leads, in turn, to the threshold problem (concerning how to properly distinguish children from adults) and to tricky questions concerning children’s rights. Clarifying the normative status of children is an important prerequisite for posing sensible questions concerning the well-being of children. This is the task of this section.

6.2.1

Childhood and the Normative Status of Children

In his higly influential book Centuries of Childhood (1962), the historian Philippe Arie`s claims that the idea of childhood did not exist until the Renaissance. Arie`s asserts that

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[in] medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist [. . .]. The idea of childhood is not to be confused with affection for children: it corresponds to an awareness of the particular nature of childhood, that particular nature which distinguishes the child from the adult, even the young adult. In medieval society, this awareness was lacking. (Arie´s 1962, p. 125, cit. in Archard 2004, p. 19f.)

It is important to note that Arie`s speaks of the idea of childhood and not of childhood per se. Of course people in medieval society recognized the fragility of their children, and of course they cared (or at least tried to care) for them. What medieval society lacked was rather the idea, the concept of childhood by which adults and children are properly distinguished. Arie`s justifies his thesis by giving different reasons: In medieval society, children played the same games as adults, they were not protected from the sexually explicit language of adults, they were dressed like adults, they had to do (at least partly) the same work as adults, etc. From this, he infers that medieval society lacked the ability to distinguish children from adults. This thesis of Arie`s has been contested in many ways, and this is not the proper place to deal with this critique (Hendrick 1992). Instead, we should take account for the merits of Arie`s’ work and assume a weaker version of his thesis that seems to be more defensible: Today, we distinguish children and adults in a specific sense that was unknown to medieval society. This means in the first place that these days we recognize what David Archard calls the separatedness of children (Archard 2004). In medieval society, people might have recognized that children are more vulnerable, smaller, less reliable, etc., than adults. That is, they had an awareness of certain facts about children that made them different from adults. What medieval society lacked was rather a specific normative perspective on childhood. When Arie`s is talking about a lacking awareness of the nature of childhood, he is pointing at this lacking normative perspective on childhood. In our days, we think of children as inhabitants of their own world that is in many ways different from the world of adults. We think that children must not do the work of adults, that they have the right to develop in certain ways, and that they have to be protected against the sexually explicit and violent aspects of the adult world, etc. This is what can be called the modern conception of childhood (Archard 2004). The modern conception of childhood was theoretically founded by Rousseau in his Emile (Rousseau 1979) and has found one of its most rigid formulations in Ellen Key’s groundbreaking work The Century of the Child (Key 1909). The basic claim of the modern conception of childhood is twofold. It says, firstly, that children are persons. This means that children have rights and that adults have obligations toward them. It says, secondly, that children are persons that have a specific normative status. Being a person means having a normative status. What is specific about the normative status of children correlates with their alleged separatedness. Children are not only seen as “inhabitants” of their own world. Rather, this world is seen as substantially in need of development whose ends have to be given by the alleged “expert knowledge” of adults. This assumption gets further support by the work of developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget or Lawrence Kohlberg who

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claimed that childhood is an early stage in the life of a person that should lead to autonomy and full cognitive abilities as an adult person. (The relevance of developmental psychology for questions concerning children’s well-being will be addressed in more detail in Sect. 6.3.) In the light of this, the alleged separatedness of children has two aspects: First, children are under the special protection of adult persons, and second, children are not (fully) responsible for their well-being. Yet, the separatedness thesis is far from being clear. First, it can be interpreted in a more or less demanding sense. Is there room, for example, for treating childhood as a period in the life of a person with its own intrinsic values? Or is childhood rather in a stark sense defined as the absence of adulthood? Second, which normative implications can be inferred from the alleged separatedness of children? No one denies that children need special protection. It is, however, a very different thing to claim that children have a different normative status than adults, for example, that children have other rights than adults. In the light of these difficulties, it makes sense to have a closer look at criteria by which paternalism toward children could be justified, at what distinguishes adults and children and at in which sense there can be specific children’s rights.

6.2.2

Children and Paternalism

Imagine the following situation: It is winter and deadly cold outside. Your child, however, is not willing to put his/her cap on. Would you make your child wear the cap? Or would you rather say: Well, if he/she gets ill, it is his/her own fault? Most of us would intuitively prefer the first option. That is, most of us believe paternalism toward children to be legitimate. From a philosophical perspective, however, paternalism is always in need of justification. No one would, of course, seriously doubt that children need special protection. But this claim is categorically different from the normative claim that parents have the right or authority to make decisions for their children. The problem here is, simply put, that children are persons, which in turn means that they have moral and legal rights. If we take this aspect seriously, we cannot assume by default that paternalism toward children is morally justified. In other words, paternalism toward children is in need of justification. Let us first have a closer look at the very concept of paternalism. Paternalism is the view that the state or a person A interferes with another person B against B’s will, whereby the state or A have to be motivated by the aim that B will be better off than without the paternalistic action (Dworkin 1972, 2005). The background assumption here is that the person acting paternalistically is more competent concerning the well-being of the paternalized person than him/herself and acts in his/her best interest. Nonetheless, there is a problem here. Even if others intend to act in our best interest, sometimes we do not want them to. Think about Mill’s example of a person trying to cross a damaged bridge (Mill 1859). Should we forcibly prevent the person from doing so? In some cases, the answer is clearly: yes. For example, if the person is blind and cannot read the warning sign. Other cases, however, might be not so clear. What if the person intends to commit suicide?

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Or maybe he/she is an adrenaline junky and very experienced with dangerous objects like damaged bridges. Mill’s example helps us to see the heterogeneous intuitions concerning the concept of paternalism. However, even if there are cases where we might see no moral problem with paternalizing people, in the default case, paternalism is ruled out. That means, it is always in need of justification. Good reasons in this respect would be that the judgment of the paternalized person might be blurred by drugs or his/her mental condition or that some external factors, like brainwashing or threats, make him/her commit a dangerous action. Bad reasons are that the paternalized person belongs to a certain ethnic or religious group or that he/she belongs to a certain sex. (In this context, Peter Singer uses the metaphor of an increasing circle of equality (Singer 1981). After race, religion, and sex, even humanity itself is (for animal liberationists) at stake as a criterion for excluding a group from having equal rights.) This is the heritage of the liberal tradition of Locke, Kant, and Rousseau to which Mill belongs as well. Contrary to ancient and medieval philosophers, those later writers see freedom as an intrinsic value of the good life that has to be granted to every member of society. What reasons can there be to exclude children from this group of equal persons? According to Francis Schrag, there are no such reasons (Schrag 1977). He begins his argument with a fictional piece of early ethnographic history: When the seventeenth century explorer Sicnarf Garhcs discovered the society of the Namuh, he made a remarkable discovery. The Namuh where separated into two groups, the Tluda and the Dlihc (It makes sense to spell all words the other way around.) While the former where strong and knowledgeable about the world, the latter where weak and ignorant. Furthermore, the Tluda offered protection to the Dlihcs, while the latter had to follow the rules of the former. The social system of the Namuh reflected a strong paternalistic hierarchy that, according to Schrag, can be compared to the situation of children today. Schrag’s point is straightforward: While we would intuitively see the social hierarchy of the Namuh as unjust, we do not think the same about our discrimination of children. And this seems to be inconsistent (presupposing that the strong structural analogy assumed by Schrag actually holds). In the light of this reflection, Schrag asks for reasons for paternalizing children. He firstly claims that those reasons have to be qualitative and not just quantitative reasons (ruling out the possibility that children can be legitimately paternalized just because they are less rational or less knowledgeable than adults). He then examines different qualitative reasons for distinguishing children and adults in a normatively relevant way: cognitive abilities, sexual maturity, rationality, and self-sufficiency. According to Schrag, however, none of these can justify paternalism toward children. Cognitive abilities come, for example, by degree; some children, however, are provided with them more than some much older adults. Why should we assume that a teenager is less competent of caring for his/her well-being than, for example, a 30-year-old person? Such reasons will be examined in more detail in the next section. Especially the concept of self-sufficiency has been explored in much depth and raises the question if Schrag’s conclusion actually holds. In a direct response to Schrag, Geoffrey Scarre argues from a utilitarian perspective that happiness but not freedom is an intrinsic value of the good life (Scarre 1980).

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This can help to justify paternalism toward children insofar as we then could claim that children often do not know what is constitutive for their happiness and (more important for the utilitarian) for overall happiness in society. Scarre’s argument is, however, only convincing for utilitarians. Furthermore, Schrag could bring in his worry even in a utilitarian framework. He would have to claim that assuming that children are not able to care for their happiness or for the happiness of the greatest number (at least in a similar way than most adults do) is just arbitrary. It seems that an answer to the question of the legitimacy of paternalism toward children requires us to first develop a proper definition of the concept of child. That is, we have to ask by which criteria children and adults can be properly distinguished. This is often called the threshold problem.

6.2.3

What Distinguishes Children from Adults?: The Threshold Problem

The modern conception of childhood classifies children as normatively different from adult human beings. This point is usually expressed by referring to the principle of autonomy. Adults are treated as persons with (full) autonomy rights. That is, adults are treated as legitimately caring for their own well-being. Contrary to that, children are not treated as autonomous persons. That is, they are treated as persons that can legitimately be patronized by adults. By which criteria can we, however, properly distinguish children and adults? Two common criteria are age and competence. Age-based accounts treat the age of a person as the decisive criterion for determining the threshold between child- and adulthood. Age gives us a very clear and practicable criterion even if the respective age for granting autonomy to a person might be controversial (. . ., 16, 18, . . .). However, age seems to be an arbitrary criterion if we compare the competence of different individuals. Why should we assume that a 30-year-old person is better at caring for his/her interests than, say, a 16-year-old person? In the light of this, competence-based accounts hold that autonomy comes with actual competences (cognitive capacities, emotional stability, future-oriented planning, etc.) that have to be tested in each individual case. There are, however, two convincing objections to the competence-based account: First, it does not look practicable. As Feinberg (1986) remarks, the law would not work without dividing standard persons. (Another way to put this is saying that justice consists of a system of norms that may conflict with the interests of individual persons.) Second, does not using age as a criterion undermine the very idea of the liberal state? If we want to avoid arbitrary paternalism toward adults, a clear threshold for granting autonomy rights must be fixed. Competence alone cannot provide such a clear threshold. Choosing between the age-based and the competence-based account seems to be a very unpalatable situation. In the light of this, some authors speak of a tragic choice between age and competence as a criterion for distinguishing adults and children (Schrag 1977) or of a demarcation dilemma (Anderson and Claassen 2012). The dilemma is that we have to somehow decide between the pragmatic

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problems rising from a competence-based theory and the moral inacceptability of discrimination against children that a pure age-based view leads to (Anderson and Claassen 2012). One possible way out of the dilemma would be to claim that there is a categorical difference between adults and children (that is rejecting – as the competence-based account does – that it is a difference in degree) without claiming that age alone makes up for this difference (as the age-based account does). Tamar Schapiro argues that children are like what Kant calls “passive citizens” (Schapiro 1999). The basic idea is that children are incapacitated because they lack what can be called self-constitution. In other words, children have no autonomy or authority over their lives because they lack a necessary condition for that. “[T]he condition of childhood is one in which the agent is not yet in a position to speak in her own voice because there is no voice which counts as hers” (Schapiro 1999, p. 729). However, children have thoughts and make their own decisions. Schapiro tries to explain this fact by introducing the concept of play. According to Schapiro, children try to be individuals in the world of plays. This allows them to “try out” different roles to find their place within this world. This, however, does not solve the threshold problem. This is because we do not treat teenagers and toddlers alike just because both are playing. To overcome this, Schapiro distinguishes proficiency and attributability, the former meaning that children have the ability to make good choices, while the latter means that the choices of a person are his/her own (Schapiro 1999, 2003). The threshold for the categorical distinction between children and adults is, according to Schapiro, expressed in terms of attributability. Attributability makes implicit assumptions about proficiency. Children are, for example, not allowed to drive a car, because we do not believe them to be able to do so. But this is part of our “practice” of not attributing the freedom of driving cars to children. That some children might be able to drive a car does not question this practice. The alleged lack of attributability justifies, in Schapiro’s eyes, the strong categorical threshold between adults and children and, by the same token, paternalism toward children. Schapiro’s account is very influential. It has, however, been criticized in many ways. First, it is not clear that Schapiro’s concept of attributability effectively circumvents the dilemma between age and competence. This is because one can ask for the justification of the criteria by which we attribute certain freedoms to children – that is, one may ask if age or competence enters through the back door (Anderson and Claassen 2012). Second, Schapiro’s account does not allow for a distinction between teenagers and smaller children. Especially, in the case of teenagers, we may ask if a strong threshold between them and adults really holds (Archard 2004).

6.2.4

Children’s Rights

The question of children’s rights is highly dependent on the underlying conception of childhood. If we claim that children are categorically different from adults, we implicitly endorse that children have specific rights. On the other hand, if we claim that the difference between children and adults is just a difference in degree, we not

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necessarily have to believe in specific children’s rights. There are, in fact, authors, so-called child liberationists, who argue for the latter option. Before addressing their arguments, let us first ask from a more general perspective what children’s rights can look like. In the first place, we have to distinguish between moral and legal rights. Legal rights are protected by the state’s legal system, whereas having a moral right does not necessarily mean that one has a correlating legal right. On the other hand, not every legal right has to be morally justified. Yet, the distinction between moral and legal rights is not a clinical one. Consider, for example, the UN Convention on the Right of the Child (www.unicef.org/crc). In order to safeguard children’s rights on a global scale, the UN have provided a list of children’s rights. Those rights have been ratified by the UN General Assembly. That means that they are implemented as legal rights. The legal content of the UN declaration of children’s rights is a very difficult matter. There is, for example, no executive power on the national level. This does not mean, however, that there is no pressure on the states of the UN. Children’s rights are not just legal rights but just as well an expression of the moral ideal of the UN. In this sense, children’s rights could properly be described as a hybrid between moral and legal rights. The relation of moral and legal rights is overwhelmingly complex and cannot be sufficiently addressed in this chapter. It makes sense, therefore, to put our focus on moral rights only. Do children have specific moral rights, and if yes, which rights would that be? Joel Feinberg famously distinguishes between A-rights (rights that only adults have), C-rights (rights that only children have), and A–C-rights (rights that both children and adults have) (Feinberg 1980). Good examples of the first are liberty rights, whereas welfare rights are good examples of the third type of rights. But what about C-rights? According to Feinberg, we have to distinguish between rights of the child here and now and the rights of the person that the child is becoming to be. In the latter case, Feinberg speaks of “rights-in-trust.” The general form of the rights-in-trust is, according to Feinberg, a right to an open future. The right to an open future can be understood as an application of Kant’s principle of non-instrumentalization. (According to Kant, persons are (conceptually) not just means to an end but ends in themselves. That means that persons have to be provided with certain goods like status, respect, welfare, etc. (This point is sometimes made by using the somewhat blurry notion of dignity).) Only pedagogic measures respecting the future autonomy of the child are morally justified. According to this, religious minorities, for example, would have no moral right to prevent their children from attending public schools because that would hurt their right to an open future. However, Feinberg’s notion of openness is notoriously vague in several aspects (Mills 2003). If our understanding of “openness,” on the one hand, is too wide, education will be impossible because every interference with the development of the child is ruled out. If we, on the other hand, our understanding of “openness” is too narrow, it will not fulfill its alleged function because it would be compatible with the instrumentalization of narrow educational ideals of a child’s parents. Several suggestions have been made to overcome this weakness in Feinberg’s account. John Eekelaar introduced the idea of understanding openness in

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terms of development (Eekelaar 1986). On way to make this explicit is addressing recent psychological research. Another way is suggested by Robert Noggle. According to Noggle, children have a right to be provided with primary goods where the latter are understood in a Rawlsian sense. (Noggle’s account will be introduced in more detail in Sect. 6.3 of this chapter.) Not all authors believe in specific rights for children. During the 1970s of the past century, some writers on children rights claimed that children should indeed have the same rights as adults. They are called child liberationists and claim that the modern separation of children is an unwarranted discrimination and that children should have the same rights as they are possessed by adults (Farson 1974; Holt 1974 and more recently Cohen 1980). No child liberationist thinks that children do not have a right to special protection. What they claim is rather that children should have the same liberal rights as adults: the right to work, to travel, to vote, to choose their relations, etc. Several arguments have been provided in support of this claim. As mentioned before, the first one is that age is an arbitrary criterion for distinguishing children and adults, and the second is that competence is a problematic criterion because adults sometimes are more incompetent than some children (especially if we talk about teenagers). If there is no proper criterion for justifying the threshold between adults and children, granting rights to the former but not to the latter seems to be at least morally unjustified. It is no surprise that child liberationism is confronted with several severe objections. To start with: The basic claim of the child liberationists is a very radical one insofar as it questions what most human parents see as normal or right. However, opposing conventional wisdom in a radical way is always very difficult to sustain. This is not simply referring to conservative intuitions. It is at least questionable that the child liberationists offer good enough reasons for justifying their thesis. Second, what a child chooses is not always in his or her best interest. Consider again the just mentioned scenario where a child is not willing to put his/her cap on in winter. True enough, also adults often do not act in their own best interest from a rather objective point of view. The case of children is, however, different in this matter. Third, granting liberty rights to children might put too much pressure on children. It is not difficult to imagine that being responsible for one’s own decisions is an excessive demand for children. In the light of this critique, the position of the child-liberationist seems to be a lost cause. Nonetheless, we can understand child liberationism as a challenge to rethink how we treat children and especially how we should evaluate paternalism toward children. We could at least ask if the alleged strict paternalism toward children we are used to is justified. A helpful conceptual point would be to differentiate between different degrees of paternalism. In a sense, this idea is already implemented in our practice. For example, we grant youngsters some freedoms we do not grant to toddlers. We encounter the threshold problem again. As we have seen, however, lots of conceptual work has to be done in order to clarify this problem. Last but not least, an influential argument by Onora O’Neill should be mentioned (O’Neill 1988). O’Neill argues that what we owe to children is not properly expressed in terms of rights. She differentiates between perfect and imperfect obligations: While

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the former are always specified, the latter are indeterminate in their scope. Each of us has, for example, a perfect duty to provide a certain level of care for our own children, while we just have an imperfect duty to provide such a level to other children. Perfect obligations are expressed in terms of legal rights that have the function to protect the respective persons. O’Neill argues that this is not true for imperfect obligations. These are rather moral obligations directed to our ideals and moral norms. O’Neill’s argument has received some attention; however, it is seen as highly controversial that imperfect obligations cannot be expressed in legal terms also (Archard 2004).

6.3

The Concept of Child Well-Being

In order to analyze the concept of child well-being, several interrelated aspects will have to be considered. The following four topics will be addressed in this section: • Well-being and child well-being • The intrinsic goods of childhood • Ethics and science • Children, family, and the state The concept of well-being has been explored in some depth by several philosophers during the past decades. The first question is how the concept of child well-being is related to the concept of well-being in general. Directly applying the concept of well-being to children proves, however, to be difficult. That is why some philosophers use the concept of intrinsic goods of childhood. If the well-being of children is constituted by intrinsic goods, those goods must be open for empirical investigation. (This is not to claim that the intrinsic goods of childhood are a purely empirical matter. This would be counterintuitive. It is most plausible that we have to consider descriptive and prescriptive aspects here.) That is why ethics, at this point, have to leave the philosophical armchair, starting to learn what empirical sciences – foremost psychology – have to say about the proper development and the emotional and cognitive life of children. Last but not least, questions concerning the well-being of children have to be considered in the difficult terrain of the different interests of the parents, the state, and the children themselves.

6.3.1

Well-Being and Child Well-Being

Before addressing questions concerning the nature of child well-being, we should first get a clearer idea of the very concept of well-being itself. The concept of wellbeing is a philosophical term of art. It is mainly directed to phenomena of moral life that correlate with justice or with just allocation of goods in society. Taken as a philosophical term of art, the following taxonomy for theories of well-being comes to mind: 1. Utilitarian theories 2. Deontological theories 3. Eudaimonistic theories

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Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that justifies moral claims by reference to a nonmoral good: fostering the well-being of as many people as possible. (More basically, utilitarians claim that maximum utility is the highest moral good. As utilitarianism identifies “being utile” with the well-being of persons, it makes sense to speak of the well-being of the greatest number of persons.) What is the nature of this good that is supposed to be maximized? Classical utilitarians like Bentham and Mill favored a hedonist account of well-being. Hedonism comes from the Greek word ἡdonή (he´done´) which means pleasure. While antiquity philosophers like Epicurus considered pleasure and happiness to be objective aspects of the good life (subjects can err about their pleasure), modern philosophers like Bentham and Mill or more recently Sumner (1996) think differently about this: Happiness is supposed to be subjective (subjects are the authorities for judging about it). Hedonist accounts of well-being claim that the concept of well-being can be analyzed in terms of pleasure. As pleasure is defined by its mental state (without referring to intentional objects), hedonism is compatible with the well-being of persons living a virtual life. In other words, hedonism is confronted with experience-machine-type worries. (The idea goes back to Nozick (1977).) Imagine that an experience machine can give you the pleasure of believing that you are a great artist. Would that be enough for you to think that your life goes well? Most of us would not, because we do not just want to have the feeling to be X (a great artist, for example). What we want, furthermore, is the thing itself: We want to be X (a great artist). For this reason, most contemporary writers favor a desire account of well-being (Brandt 1979; Singer 1993). Desire accounts avoid the problems of pure mentalstate accounts, because the notion of a desire is intentional. Desires are necessarily related to objects of the world. In the case of a desire, I do not just want to have the mental state; rather, I want to have the desired object. This makes desire theories immune against experience-machine-type thought experiments. The appeal of desire theories of well-being comes from their liberal commitment to the well-being of individual persons. Yet, such a simple desire account needs at least some restrictions. Even from a liberal viewpoint, not every desire can be constitutive for the well-being of a person. Most philosophers prefer an informed desire account, in which only informed – rational or reflected – desires count for the well-being of persons (Griffin 1986). At this point, when it comes to child well-being, it seems quite natural to be a utilitarian. Children seem to be a paradigmatic case of (mostly) uninformed individuals, because they lack the conceptual and emotional capabilities for weighing their desires against each other and against the desires of others. Children typically do not ask about the well-being of other persons. On the other hand, this is true for many (if not most) adults as well. However, adults are supposed to be able to decide for their well-being. Another weakness of utilitarian accounts of child well-being is their implicit endorsement of paternalism. As we have seen, paternalism toward children is (at least in the case of teenagers) in need of justification. What the defender of a utilitarian account of child well-being has to show is either that paternalism toward children is justified or (if this is not the case) how children’s interests can be embedded in a utilitarian account of child well-being.

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Deontological theories take autonomy and not well-being as an intrinsic moral value. This does not mean that deontologians do not care about the well-being of persons. A good example in this context is John Rawls’ cornerstone work on political liberalism The Theory of Justice (1971). According to Rawls, a just society allocates what he calls “primary goods” in the light of egalitarian principles. Primary goods are very general goods like liberty rights, status, opportunities, and welfare. Rawls makes two important premises in order to argue for primary goods: (1) Society is a cooperation of free and equal persons. (2) Humans have an intuitive sense for justice and the capacity for a conception of the good. Primary goods are the most general goods that have to be allocated equally to every person so that he/she can live according to his/her conception of a good life. The flip side is that every person is him/herself responsible for his/her wellbeing. In this sense, Rawls’ account may be called a deontological account of well-being. Several authors deal with the question of how to adapt Rawls’ idea of primary goods to the concept of child well-being (Macleod 2010; Noggle 2002; Brighouse and Unterhalter 2010). Robert Noggle, for example, argues that children are special agents that are yet not (fully) capable of administering primary goods. That is why children need the helping hands of adults. For Noggle, those adults, mostly the parents, are the trustees of the child. Their job is, basically, to look after the person the child is supposed to become. In other words, parents and society have the obligation to help children to become persons that can live according to their own vision of a good life (insofar as primary goods are concerned). Noggle’s account is intuitively very appealing. It allows to balance the interests of the child against the interests of the parents and of society in general. A first point of criticism is what some authors call the irrelevance problem (Macleod 2010). The value of primary goods can be appreciated by adults but not by children. “From the perspective of childhood primary goods have little direct value” (Macleod 2010, p. 180). As a consequence, the idea of trusteeship – as it is assumed by Noggle – has to be paternalistic in a straightforward sense. The problem with this account is that it runs the risk of overlooking the perspective of the child. A second point of criticism concerns the inherent egalitarian premise of the account: As several authors have pointed out, the same rights for every individual may hurt the interests and development of single individuals (Frankfurt 1997; Raz 1986). Another critical remark concerns the notion of a primary good itself. The problem with this notion is that Rawls’ list of goods does not represent the diversity within any human population (and even less if we regard cross-cultural dimensions) (Sen 2009). Eudaimonistic theories of well-being are naturalistic insofar as they take the notion of human nature as fundamental. Eudaimonism goes back to Aristotle’s idea that the ultimate goal (the tέloB) of human life is eὐdaimonı´a (eudaimonı´a), which means happiness. Happiness is thereby taken to be an objective state that could only be reached by living one’s life according to the principal virtues (braveness, temperance, justice, prudence, etc.). In a rather complicated line of

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argument, Aristotle argues that living a virtuous live is the function of human beings. As, for example, a good (functioning) knife has to be sharp, a good (functioning) human being has to live according to the virtues (Aristotle 2000). Modern eudaimonistic theories skip Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics while keeping his naturalistic assumption that there are certain aspects of human well-being that are objective parts of human nature. The most prominent account is the capability approach as it has been developed by several authors in recent years (Nussbaum 2011; Sen 2001). According to the capability approach, the well-being of persons is identified with a bundle of capabilities that are essential for human nature. (This is seen in analogy with other beings in nature, like plants that need photosynthesis or predators that need to be quick and silent when hunting.) In her recent book, Creating Capabilities, Martha Nussbaum gives a list of ten basic capabilities that are supposed to be constitutive for the well-being of human beings: life; bodily integrity; bodily health; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; concern for animals and plants; play; and control over one’s environment (Nussbaum 2011, p. 33f). Due to its objective account of well-being, the capability approach is very attractive for a conception of child well-being. Contrary to primary goods, capabilities can be measured. There is a close connection between Nussbaum’s approach and recent psychological research in the concept of happiness. (The relation of Nussbaum’s account to positive psychology will be addressed in this section in the paragraph concerning ethics and science.) Nonetheless, the alleged objectivity of the capability approach invites some serious critical arguments. Foremost, it has been pointed out that eudaimonism implies perfectionism: the view that there are ideally functioning humans (Hurka 1996). As a narrow understanding of “ideally functioning” leads to loathsome political consequences, only a wide understanding can be justified. This route is taken by Nussbaum herself. She takes her list of capabilities to be a rather formal catalogue that may change in content from culture to culture. Will this move, however, not lead to relativism? What is any objective list of capabilities good for if each capability is open for interpretation? A second point of criticism concerns another problematic implication of perfectionism, namely, that we talk about normally, ideally, or well-functioning adults. Can we reduce, however, child well-being to the process of becoming a normally or well-functioning adult? Is it not that we overlook the perspective of the child in a substantial way? And, how can we derive normative claims for children from a normative perspective on adults? Thirdly, how should we decide which capabilities are relevant and which are not? Nussbaum refers to the results of empirical happiness research at this point. This, however, cannot possibly suffice from a stark normative perspective (Macleod 2010). As we have seen, each account of child well-being is confronted with serious objections. That is why several authors prefer a mixed approach, combining different facets of each account (Brighouse and Unterhalter 2010). As we will shortly see, other authors argue that a clarification of the concept of child well-being presupposes that first we must know more about the intrinsic goods of childhood.

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The Intrinsic Goods of Childhood

The last part has brought some evidence that any naı¨ve application of the concept of well-being to children runs into several objections. None of the “big three” of ethical theories gives a convincing account of child well-being. Apart from the specific problems of each account, we have identified a basic problem: Children might be more than “wannabe adults.” In other words, there is no direct normative implication of the concept of well-being (for adults) for children. An essential question has yet been overlooked that concerns the specific perspective of the child. In this context, some authors argue that, before trying to develop an account of child well-being, we first have to have a look at the intrinsic goods of childhood (Macleod 2010). What are intrinsic goods of childhood? Intuitively, goods like the following ones come to our minds: curiosity, sense of open path, playfulness, and optimism. However, not all elements of a good childhood need to be pleasant. Plato remarks in one of his early dialogues: the good must not be confused with the pleasant. Without discipline (which is unlikely to be pleasant all the time), no complex activities can be learnt. Without any tolerance for physical pain, the whole world of sports will be barred for the child. It makes sense, therefore, to understand the intrinsic goods of childhood as those goods that are relevant for a proper flourishing of children. Despite its affinities to the capability approach, the intrinsic goods account is different in a specific sense. It seeks for the peculiar elements of the being of the child. This aspect has some affinities with the perspective of the child liberationists. The important difference is that the intrinsic goods account is not defined by denying the separatedness thesis. Quite on the contrary, it defends this thesis in a straightforward sense. Nonetheless, no catalogue of intrinsic goods of childhood exists. One of the main reasons for this is that questions concerning the well-being of children are very often posed from a stark normative perspective. Some religious parents may have very different things in mind when speaking about what is good for their child than, say, rather atheistic parents. Some parents prefer sports, while others believe music or intellectual skills to be most important for a good life. Is there any way out of this normative swamp? Some authors believe that ethics should get more empirically informed, using the results from empirical sciences like psychology or sociology.

6.3.3

Ethics and Science

Philosophy in general and ethics in particular have traditionally been rather skeptical or even hostile against the application of empirical theories in ethics. One source of this is Hume’s is/ought distinction (Hume 1978). Ethical claims are, on the one hand, prescriptive (ought statements), insofar as they aim at what persons should do. Scientific claims are, on the other hand, descriptive (is statements) about facts of the world. However, descriptive statements (alone) can never justify prescriptive claims because there is no valid inference from the former

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to the latter. (Neither deductive nor inductive inferences allow for concluding something that is not given in the premises (Moore 1903; for a critical perspective, see Frankena 1939).) However, not every argument that derives normative consequences from mere facts is a naturalistic fallacy (as philosophers call invalid inferences from is to ought). What is needed is a normative principle in the premises of an argument that allows for such a conclusion. A well-known candidate is “ought implies can.” If neuroscience showed, for example, that free will is just an illusion, this would challenge several normative claims in ethics. If humans were simply incapable of free decision-making, for example, they would not be (individually) responsible for their actions. As this example shows, the is/ought problematic does not mean that empirical science is not in principle relevant for normative ethics. It means that empirical concepts cannot be used in normative ethics in a naı¨ve way. Another source for philosophy’s hesitation to use empirical arguments goes back to Kant. In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues concerning the concept of happiness that the latter cannot be of any theoretical value for ethics because ethics is in need of a priori reasons, while the concept of happiness is a purely empirical concept (Kant 1997, p. }2). What Kant is expressing in his idiosyncratic style is that ethical arguments call for universally valid reasons, while happiness – as a feeling – is subjective by nature. Several replies have been made to this. Early utilitarians, like Mill, pointed out that the happiness of the many is of moral value (Mill 1998). Furthermore, it seems far from clear that happiness is just a subjective feeling, as Kant assumes. Empirical happiness research delivers strong evidence for the claim that we find cross-cultural similarities in what makes people happy. The general skepticism of philosophy concerning the value of the results of empirical science for normative questions seems to be overdrawn. During the past decades, several interesting crossovers between ethical and especially psychological and sociological questions have been explored. (Some representatives of this new branch in ethics, called “empirically informed ethics,” are John Doris (2002), Daniel Haybron (2011), and Jesse Prinz (2009).) How can the results of psychological and sociological research be made fruitful for the ethical enquiry of the concept of child well-being and questions concerning the intrinsic goods of childhood? This chapter can only sketch some aspects of the relevant theories. A good start is developmental psychology in the spirit of Jean Piaget (1932) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1981/1984). In order to classify different stages of moral development, the quality of the answers of several individuals to morally problematic cases are analyzed. Answers using egocentric and rather emotional language count as low level, while answers using universal moral concepts count as high level of moral development. Such insights can, for example, help with making progress at least with a partly solution for the threshold problem, insofar as developmental psychology examines the moral “potential” of (young) persons. This is, in turn, helpful for deciding when certain rights must be given to children. Other branches of developmental psychology deal with the attachment of babies and toddlers to their parents (Bowlby 1953, 1982) or with cognitive development (Demetriou et al. 2002; Commons et al. 1998). A very impressive study has been presented by sociologist Meredith Rowe and psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow.

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They found that the level of communication of mothers with their children has an impact on the later vocabulary of their children (Rowe and Goldin-Meadow 2009). Again, this is not the place for overhasty conclusions. Yet, those empirical results should be taken into account when we ask about children’s rights or about the general well-being of children. Another quite recent approach should be mentioned that could be of high relevance for questions concerning child well-being: positive psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). Contrary to classical psychology (that was rather interested in phenomena of psychic malfunctioning), positive psychology is about what makes people flourish. There is a close connection with Nussbaum’s capability approach, as positive psychology deals with mental phenomena that make up for good human functioning. Using means of modern psychology (like structured observation and self-reports), positive psychology explores phenomena such as happiness, character, positive thinking, and values. Consider, for example, positive thinking. In a long-term study, psychologists found out that young optimistic persons are much more likely to be well-off in their later lives (Peterson et al. 1988). It is again difficult to determine the exact normative implications of results like this one. If we, however, believe that early inequalities in the lives of children should be balanced, this would be a good reason to help children to develop a positive perspective on their lives. More interesting empirical input for ethical considerations concerning the well-being of children may come from empirical happiness research. There are cross-cultural similarities in what makes people happy or unhappy. Concerning children, it has been discovered that at least some aspects of well-being (like spending time with their friends and parents, time for playing, safety, etc.) affect all children (Layard 2005).

6.3.4

Children, Parents, and the State

Most modern states take the right to found a family as a natural right. Two important implications of this are, firstly, that the state can just endorse this right; every challenge to it has to be justified by good reasons. Secondly, the right to found a family implies a right to bear children. Yet this right is not unconditional, while its restrictions are sometimes more and sometimes less controversial. (One of the less controversial reasons is the future well-being of the child. Highly controversial are, on the other hand, restrictions for political reasons, like China’s “one-child policy,” or restrictions for single or homosexual women using technologies like IVF.) However, a right to bear does not necessarily imply a right to rear. As we will examine closer in the next section, all liberal states have legal restrictions for parenthood. If parents endanger the well-being of a child (by neglect, violence, abuse, etc.), specific legal instruments will be used. In the default case, however, the biological parents of a child will be allowed to rear their offspring. Furthermore, this right to rear is at the heart of the idea of the liberal state, insofar it displays a basic liberty right. This right might be negative by nature (there is no positive duty

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to support, for example, infertile persons). Nonetheless, according to political and conventional wisdom, it is a liberty right. It is, however, important to keep in mind that we are talking about children and not about property or pets. Children are persons and cannot, therefore, be seen as the property of their parents (Archard 1993). What rationale can be given to justify the right of the biological parents to rear their offspring? A very influential argument has been analyzed in much depth by David Archard (1995, 2004): the “blood ties” argument. The “blood ties” argument takes a psychological fact – namely, that parents and children feel strongly attached to each other – as its main premise. From this, it is inferred that parents have a right to rear their children. Obviously, the argument does not work in this form. Strong feelings do not establish rights. (This would indeed be a paradigmatic case of a naturalistic fallacy.) Otherwise, the dreams of many unhappy lovers in the world would become true. A further normative premise is needed that justifies the introduction of rights in the conclusion. One way of dealing with this is to claim that the love of and for the parents is a basic need of children. If we further assume that basic needs constitute rights, we can argue that this need of the children constitutes the right of parents to rear their offspring. If the proper development of children depends on their relation to their parents, this would strongly support the “blood ties” argument. There is some support for this assumption, as we have just seen, from psychological attachment theory. According to attachment theory, the attachment to their parents is essential for the proper development of many important character traits, like courage, inquisitiveness, or empathy. There is, however, also counterevidence to this claim. First, it is a sad but empirical truth that at least some parents are not or not sufficiently attached to their children. Otherwise, the neglect and abuse of children would not be that common. Second, it cannot be assumed by default that only the biological parents of a child can play the part that is required by attachment theory. Is the “blood ties” argument a good argument or not? Well, it depends on further assumptions. One thing is certain, that any inference from the mere attachment of the parents toward their children to a right to rear presupposes that the parents fulfill their parental duties. Yet, some authors still question that biological parents have a default right to rear. In a classical paper, Hugh LaFollette argues that parenthood should be licensed (LaFollette 1980). LaFollette begins his argument with a truism: Our society licenses activities (like driving or medical treatment) that are potentially harmful to others. He then claims that licensing procedures can be applied to parents as well. Because children sometimes get harmed by their parents, LaFollette asks about reasons that could possibly be weighed against licensing parents. Just claiming the (liberty) right to rear – like the right to free speech – is not enough because, firstly, children are persons with their own rights and, secondly, even liberty rights are not without any restrictions. LaFollette discovers five main reasons contra licensing: (i) We may not be able to find adequate criteria for good parenting. (ii) There is no reliable way to predict who will maltreat children. (iii and iv) There is possibility of abuse or misuse by administrators. (v) There is no adequate and just way of implementing a licensing program. LaFollette’s argument

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runs against each of the five reasons contra licensing. Against (i), he argues that it is enough to pick out the bad parents. Against (ii), he claims that 100 % reliability is not necessary and that psychology and the social sciences indeed provide enough material for reliable tests. (iii–v) are not specific problems of child-licensing programs but of every institutionalized setting. LaFollette’s main thesis can be summarized as follows: If there are no good reasons against licensing programs for parents, those programs should be implemented. Despite its force, LaFollette’s argument is unlikely to convince too many people. Why is that? Well, in the case of the many, often intuitions play a decisive role. Such intuitions, however, often do not sustain critical reflection. Yet, some critical points are certainly sufficient for philosophical reasoning: Administrative misuse and problems with a just implementation of any licensing program are indeed serious threats. Is it, for example, just to confine the good parents for the reason of “detecting” the bad ones? Two goods are at stake here: the liberty right to rear (precluding the thread of a surveillance society) and the rights of the children from rather problematic social contexts. The balancing of those goods is a delicate matter that any liberal society has to deal with. A universal answer seems to be, however, far off.

6.4

Children’s Well-Being in Practice

The practical contexts in which disagreement about children’s well-being generates important ethical issues are diverse, and not all of them can be explored in this chapter. This section will focus on two topics: • Child well-being and law • Child well-being and medicine

6.4.1

Child Well-Being and Law

According to Peter Singer, we can observe an increasing circle of equality (Singer 1981). By “equality,” Singer means the allocation of equal rights. While the ancient world granted most of all equal rights only to a limited class of citizens of a certain polis, modern national states started extending the number of persons with equal rights to most male persons. Women and certain ethnic groups remained, however, out of the circle. As it is known, this changed during the past 100 years. At least on paper, racism and discrimination of women are ruled out in most liberal states. Singer famously argues for the adjudication of equal rights to certain animals (Singer 1990). Singer’s thesis of animal liberation stays to be, however, highly controversial. Not so in the case of children. The well-being of children has become a major good in modern societies, whose protection has been implemented in the respective legal systems. While Anglophone legal systems in England or in the USA use the doctrine of the best interest of the child, the law in European countries,

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like Germany or the Netherlands, uses “child well-being” as a term. However, both notions refer to the same concept. All these countries share the belief that the well-being of children is a good that has to be protected. And, furthermore, the well-being of children is seen as something of value independently of the interests of the parents, the family, or the state. For this, a dramatic change was necessary, as it had happened since the mid-twentieth century. Before the two world wars, all matters in family life had been dominated by the principle of “pater familias.” Women as well as children counted legally as the property of the father of the family. The situation has not only changed for women but also for children. Children nowadays are seen as persons with their own rights, too. The doctrine of child well-being, respectively of the best interest of the child, has played a major part in this process (Mason 1996). As a consequence, nowadays, there holds the parental right to child custody. However, this right implies several obligations which in turn are justified by the concept of child well-being. In other words, the fact that the well-being of children counts as an important moral good has caused serious changes in the legal systems of liberal states. This means basically that the right to child custody brings about also certain parental obligations. This means, in turn, that the state has to supervise the proper fulfillment of the parents’ right to child custody. If the parents endanger the well-being of their children, the state has to act in the best interest of the child. However, the process of increasing the moral and political status of formerly oppressed persons leads always to political conflicts that are partly a purely pragmatic matter, for example, changes in the legal system as well as in institutional settings. Of significance for this chapter are the manifold ethical implications of the changed political and moral status of children. As has already been discussed in Sect. 6.2, the normative status of children is on the one hand clearly defined as the status of a person (and not of property). On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the details of this status are far from being clear. Should children have the same rights or different rights than adults? What is the content of children’s rights, anyway? How are those rights justified? By which criteria are children properly distinguished from adults? Those questions reflect a deep trench molded by conflicting goods. On the one hand, we have the privacy of the family, and on the other hand there, is the protection of the well-being of children. Any liberal society endorses a wide range of liberal rights for any individual. That means the state keeps silent concerning questions of how people should fulfill their life plans as long as others are not offended. This is true for families as well. It is part of the “inner policy” of each family if one prefers living in a house or in a flat, if one prefers car sharing or a private car, if one wants to have children, and if how many children one likes to have. Those questions are not in the scope of the authority of the state. Protecting the privacy of the family (against collective demands or against demands of the state) is at the heart of any liberal society (Feinberg 1990). As long as children are seen as part of the inner policy of the family, there is no trouble with the ethical implications of the concept of child well-being. If we begin to see children as persons, however, they are instantly subject to the principle of non-instrumentalization. (According to Kant, persons

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are (conceptually) not just means to an end but ends in themselves. That means that persons have to be provided with certain goods like status, respect, welfare, etc. (This point is sometimes made by using the somewhat blurry notion of dignity).) That is, there are limits for the way parents may deal with their children. An interesting case is public schooling. There are interesting trials in the USA, where Amish charged the state because they wanted to liberate their children from public schools. Their reason was basically that they feared for their cultural heritage because their children get in contact with liberal values (and consumer goods) at school. In most cases, however, the judges protected the alleged best interest of the child, namely, that a certain level of education is mandatory for being a citizen (Feinberg 1980). Yet, as intuitions are not so clear in many other cases, deep-reaching normative conflicts can occur. Preventing children from public schooling might be a clear case of endangerment of child well-being. But what about children in underprivileged families? Is there any obligation by the state to “equalize” the chances and opportunities of children? If yes, which institutional settings are adequate for this task? Especially questions concerning a just upbringing come more and more into the focus both of the public and of philosophical reflection (Adams 2009; Fennimore and Goodwin 2011; Richards 2010). Another debate concerns the status of children’s interests (Brennan 2002; Dwyer 2012; Brighouse 2003).

6.4.2

Child Well-Being and Medicine

Medical contexts result in many ethical problems. The range of topics reaches from autonomy conflicts to questions concerning the just allocation of scarce goods or to limits of medical treatment and euthanasia. In the case of children’s well-being, three issues in medical ethics are of utmost importance: 1. Professional discretion of pediatricians 2. Medical treatment for children 3. Clinical trials with children Before going in medias res, a primer in methodology is necessary. Most philosophers working in the field of medical ethics deal with a so-called mixed approach of ethical principles. The reason is simply that a purely utilitarian or deontological account does not seem to work in ethical contexts. According to Beauchamp and Childress, four ethical principles should be taken into account: (i) autonomy (free will), (ii) beneficence (to do good), (iii) non-maleficence (not to do harm), and (iv) justice (social fairness) (Beauchamp and Childress 2008). Let us now turn to the just mentioned problems 1–3. Professional discretion is one of the basic obligations of practical physicians. The physician’s knowledge is protected against the interests of third parties such as employers or administrations. This holds also in the case of children. However, the case of children is specific because (at least for young children) the principle of autonomy cannot be applied. This is problematic if pediatricians suspect the parents

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of the child to harm their child. In clear cases (like broken joints or signs of sexual abuse), the physician will report to the youth welfare office. There are many cases, however, that may be not so clear (like the level of hygiene, lingual abilities, or signs of emotional stress). In unclear cases, physicians are confronted with two contradictory obligations: one is their professional discretion and the other one is their duty to care for the health-related well-being of the child. It is not always clear for the physician which duty he/she should follow. On the one hand, the state protects (as we have seen in the last paragraph) the privacy of the family. Accordingly, the parents of the child can bring a physician to justice if he/she reports to the youth welfare office in any way. On the other hand, the duty to care for the health-related well-being of the child puts a pressure on the physician to do exactly this in some cases: to report to the youth welfare office. This situation is dilemmatic and can be seen as ethically problematic. In this context, several authors argue that we need a better understanding of the notion of child well-being, respectively of the best interest of the child (Buchanan and Brock 1990; Archard 2004; Macleod 2010). As we have seen in the last paragraph, however, this task is very difficult, as it has to weigh goods such as the privacy of the family against, for example, the well-being of the child. The next aspect considers general issues related to the medical treatment of children. Consider any medical treatment. Under normal conditions, physicians have to respect the principle of autonomy. If you do not want the treatment, the physician cannot force you to it. The case of children is, however, more difficult, as the principle of autonomy cannot be applied by default. Obviously, once more we are confronted with the threshold problem. How can it be right, however, to grant any adult person the freedom of choosing his/her own medical treatment while we do not ask him/her if he/she counts as a teenager? Consider the case of the British teenager Hannah Jones who refused a lifesaving heart transplant at the age of 13. The case of Hannah Jones became quite famous, because it displays a much broader topic: When should we grant children the right to decide for their well-being? Medical treatment is a specific aspect of this general problem. Another important ethical issue in this context concerns the reluctance of some parents toward specific medical treatment. The principle of beneficence obliges the physician to do his/her best in order to help a patient. What will you do, however, if your patient is the child of a Jehovah’s Witness where the parents decide against a necessary blood transfusion? Or should we allow physicians to provide plastic surgery with teenagers? Another debate concerns clinical trials with children. The problem is that children are sometimes in need of medicine. The principle of non-maleficence, however, forces physicians to prescribe only medicine that has been tested in appropriate clinical trials. Yet such trials presuppose the autonomous decision of the participants, which is ruled out in the case of children. We are forced to conclude then that there should be no clinical trials with children. As is it known, such trials take place in developmental countries where desperate parents often do not have the economic or intellectual resources for alternatives. It goes without

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saying, however, that this is ethically highly problematic. Is there any way out of this dilemma (without exploiting the situation of children in developmental countries)? The only just way seems to allow at least certain clinical trials with children. The question comes down to this: Is it morally justified to care for the beneficence of future children by putting the children of the actual generation to some risk? As the notion of risk is vague, an answer to this question needs further clarification of what “risk” means. This would be a proper starting point for dealing with this problem.

6.5

Conclusion

Philosophy is concerned with challenging common beliefs and with pointing at certain inconsistencies in our daily practice. Most people have strong beliefs concerning children’s well-being. This chapter has dealt with some of the recent philosophical work on the topic of child well-being. It started with some normative questions concerning the nature of childhood: What is the normative status of the child? By which criteria can children and adults be best distinguished? Is it (morally) right that children are paternalized by adults? Are there any specific children’s rights? If so, what is the form and content of those rights? Answers to those questions are of utmost importance for any progress with coming to grips with a concept of child well-being. Section 6.3 discussed the concept of wellbeing in general and how it might be related to the concept of child well-being in particular. Several philosophical conceptions of well-being were discussed, namely, utilitarian, deontological, and eudaimonistic conceptions of wellbeing. It turned out, however, that a naı¨ve application of those accounts to the concept of child well-being is not tenable. The fundamental point of criticism is that the specific perspective of the child is missing. That is why authors like Colin Macleod are inquiring into the intrinsic goods of childhood. If there are any intrinsic goods of childhood, they cannot be defined in a purely normative way. That is why ethics at this point should be informed by empirical sciences like psychology or sociology. Section 6.3 closed with issues concerning the wellbeing of children in the area of conflict between the interests of children, parents, and the state. Finally, Sect. 6.4 dealt with two important practical fields where the aforementioned ethical aspects are relevant: law and medicine. They are only two examples of many more possible fields of application. For instance, how should children’s well-being affect the design of the school curriculum? How should public institutions respond to requests to accommodate the religious or cultural practices or beliefs of children? What about teenage autonomy, for example, with respect to teenagers’ right to vote and their accountability for crimes. Once one raises the question of child well-being, many more questions come to mind that could not be covered in this contribution. This shows, however, that there are ardent discussions going on with respect to child wellbeing and its normative importance and that the field is still in need of much more future research.

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Child Well-Being: Children’s Rights Perspective Jaap E. Doek

7.1

A Brief History

Public involvement in child well-being has its origins in the protection of orphans. Churches and charities were largely responsible for the establishment of orphanages in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Additional efforts were focused on juvenile delinquents and street children (vagrants) at the end of the sixteenth century in the Netherlands (Sellin 1944). During the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century the promotion of the well-being of the child focused on the protection of the most vulnerable children, such as orphans, working children, and victims of abuse and neglect (Meuwese et al. 2007; ten Bensel et al. 1997). Protective actions were initially taken mainly by civil society organizations. Notorious cases, like the physical maltreatment of Mary Ellen in New York in 1874, led to the establishment of new nongovernmental organizations such as the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Lazoritz 1990; Zigler and Hall 1989). In the nineteenth century, industrialization brought about a drastic increase in the scale and intensity of exploitation of child labor in the US and Europe. Civil society groups, including charity organizations, trade unions, and individual reformers, raised awareness and campaigned for legislative and other measures to protect at least the youngest children from the worst forms of child labor. In many European countries and in the USA, laws were enacted to set minimum ages for labor and for prohibiting children from some forms of work such as mining (Hindman 2002; Tuttle 1999; Weissbach 1989). These protective measures also promoted education. The second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century brought laws introducing compulsory primary education in many countries in Europe and in the USA (Fyfe 2009). This development can be considered as

J.E. Doek Family and Juvenile Law, Vrije Universiteit, Lisse, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 187 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_9, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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a move from protection only to the provision of social conditions, in this case education, for positive developments, and the realization of improvements of child well-being. It should be noted that information on the history of child labor and education in developing countries is very limited, and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to elaborate more on the emerging protection of working children and the introduction of education (Cunningham 1996; Grier 1994). In the second half of the twentieth century, the well-being of the child became increasingly a matter of concern of the state. The new focus on the well-being of children was reflected not only in the strengthening of the protection of vulnerable children but also in the creation of conditions for the child’s development via laws and policies regarding education, health care, social services, and social security. Particularly in Europe, this resulted in the establishment of the so-called social welfare states. The well-being of the child as a social and public concern entered a new phase of development with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989 (Resolution 44/25) and its ratification by 193 states. The CRC made well-being a right of the child and moved it from charity to entitlement. This chapter explains and elaborates on the consequences of dealing with the well-being of the child from a rights perspective. After an introduction to the CRC, various aspects of the convention and its implications for the well-being of children are discussed.

7.2

Introduction to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

7.2.1

The Declarations of 1924 and 1959

The devastating impact of World War I (1914–1918) on the life of children was a matter of great concern for, among others, the Save the Children Fund. Eglantyne Jebb, an English school teacher who established the Save the Children Union, wanted to draft a charter identifying the aims of the union. This charter eventually developed into a Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This declaration was submitted to the League of Nations, the predecessor of what is now the United Nations, and was adopted on September 26, 1924. The declaration can be considered as the first truly international document on the human rights of children. Its content reflected the reason for its creation. In a very limited number of statements, the basic needs of children were addressed without using the word “right.” However, the wording clearly implied an entitlement (right) of the child. For example, the declaration stated, “The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed (. . .); and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored. The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually.” The Declaration of the Rights of the Child can be characterized as the first internationally adopted instrument of social and economic rights. The adoption of the declaration challenged the traditional view that civil and political rights are the first generation of human

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Principle 1: Every child shall enjoy all the rights in the Declaration (nondiscrimination). Principle 2: The child shall enjoy special protection and be given opportunities to develop in a healthy and normal manner in condition of dignity and freedom. In the enactment of laws, for this purpose the best interest of the child shall be the paramount condition. Principle 3: The child shall be entitled from his birth to a name and a nationality. Principle 4: The child shall enjoy the benefits of social security, and the child shall have the right to adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services. Principle 5: The child who is handicapped shall be given the special treatment, education and care required by his particular condition. Principle 6: The child shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and responsibility of his parents. Principle 7: The child is entitled to receive education that, at least in the elementary stage, shall be free and compulsory. The best interest of the child shall be the guiding principle in education and the child shall have the opportunity for play and recreation. Principle 8: The child shall always be among the first to receive protection and relief. Principle 9: The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation and shall not be subject to traffic in any form. The child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age and not be engaged in any work that would prejudice his health or education, Principle 10: The child shall be protected from practices fostering social, religious and any other form of discrimination and shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, and peace.

Fig. 7.1 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child

rights followed by social, economic, and cultural rights as the second generation (van Bueren 1995, pp. 6–9). World War II brought the end of the League of Nations but it was replaced by the United Nations in 1945. In 1946, discussions began within the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) about the possibility of a new Declaration on the Rights of the Child as the successor to the 1924 Declaration, updated to reflect the changes that occurred since 1924. After considerable discussion, the UN General Assembly adopted the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child on November 21, 1959 [Resolution 1386 (XIV) of 21 November 1959]. The 1959 Declaration contained ten principles that embody the minimum essential rights (Fig. 7.1). The 1959 Declaration, like the 1924 Declaration, is a nonbinding document, meaning that it does not impose any legal obligation on the member states of the UN. However, the principles do have a strong moral force given that the declaration was adopted unanimously. Some of the principles are modifications of articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly [Resolution 217A (III) of 10 December 1948]. Finally, the Preamble of the declaration “calls upon parents, upon men and women as individuals to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures.” In 1979 the UN General Assembly concluded that the principles of the 1959 Declaration have played a significant part in the promotion of the rights of children (UN Doc. A/33/45). The 1959 Declaration represents great progress in the concept of children’s rights. The document demonstrates the extent to which children are

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beginning to emerge as no longer passive recipients of handouts but as subject of international law and recognized as being able to enjoy the benefits of specific rights and freedoms (van Bueren 1995, p. 12). The Declarations of 1924 and 1959 show that the Convention on the Rights of the Child was part of a continuum of developments that began in 1924. However, the development of the concept of children’s rights was not only a matter of international documents but also of individuals. The most radical thinker and practitioner was Janusz Korczak, a Polish medical doctor and writer. He emphasized that a child is not a human-becoming but already a human being. The first and indisputable right of a child is that he can express his views and thoughts and that he can actively participate in all decisions regarding his life. Korczak practiced his radical views as the director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw in which he established a children’s parliament and a children’s court (Kerber-Gause 2009; Lifton 1988; Veerman 1991). The draft of a convention on the rights of the child submitted to the UN by Poland in 1978 was quite similar to the text of the 1959 Declaration. The main goal of the proposal was to upgrade the 1959 Declaration to an internationally binding instrument. The move from a declaration to a convention was also part of the broader development of human rights. The following section highlights some observations and background information on this broader human rights context.

7.2.2

The CRC in the Context of Human Rights

The emergence of human rights begins with the British Bill of Rights of 1688, regarded as an early human rights instrument. It was followed by the well-known Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in America (1776) and the Declaration des droits de l’homme et citoyen during the French Revolution (1789). These documents set forth for the first time the principles that are recognizable as propositions of modern human rights law. According to Sieghart (1990, p. 8), these principles can be summarized as follows: 1. The principle of universal inherence: every human being has certain rights (. . .) that are not conferred on him by any ruler, nor earned or acquired by purchase, but which inhere in him by virtue of his humanity alone. 2. The principle of inalienability: no human being can be deprived of those rights by the act of any ruler or even by his own act. 3. The rule of law: conflicts between rights must be resolved by the consistent, independent, and impartial application of just laws in accordance with procedures. Although the major developments in human rights took place after World War II, important principles of field were already established through those documents from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which provided a foundation for the developments after World War II. In 1948, the General Assembly of the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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[Res/217 (III) of December 10, 1948]. It contains provisions of direct relevance to children such as the right to special care and assistance (art. 25) and the right to education (art. 26 on both access to and aims of education). While it is a nonbinding instrument, the 1948 Declaration functioned as the key framework and source for the development of two binding international treaties: the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). During the drafting process for these two documents, a lack of political consensus prevented the creation of one comprehensive human rights covenant. After lengthy discussions it was decided that two separate treaties should be drafted. In 1959 the drafts prepared by the UN Commission on Human Rights were submitted to the Economic and Social Council of the UN and forwarded to the Third Committee of the General Assembly, which was responsible for, among other issues, human rights issues. Finally, in 1966 the General Assembly adopted the two covenants, though it took another 10 years before they entered into force. (After the ratification by 35 states, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights entered into force on January 3, 1976. After ratification by 35 states, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights entered into force on March 23, 1976.) The two covenants are applicable to all men and women without any discrimination, meaning that, inter alia, the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing, and housing; the right to the highest attainable standard of health; the right to education (arts. 11, 12, and 13 ICESCR); as well as the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right of expression; the right of peaceful assembly; and freedom of association (arts. 18, 19, 21, and 22 ICCPR) are applicable to children as well. Child-specific provisions within the two covenants were limited to the right to protection and assistance (art. 10 ICESCR and art. 24 ICCPR). The principle of applicability to all children of the rights enshrined in the two covenants left many questions unanswered. For instance, with regard to the right to protection and assistance, what kind of measures should states take to protect a child from all forms of violence and exploitation? The only more specific provision can be found in article 10 of the ICESCR: States Parties should set age limits below which paid employment of child labor should be prohibited and punishable by law. However, the documents do not specify acceptable age limits or conditions surrounding unpaid employment. The Human Rights Committee, entrusted with monitoring the implementation of the ICCPR, observed that States Parties often provide inadequate information on the way in which the special protection of children is enacted (General Comment No 17, 1989). The reports submitted by States Parties on this implementation of the covenant show that very little attention was given to not only the right to protection and assistance, but also the enjoyment of other rights enshrined in the covenants. After 1976, the year the two covenants entered into force, there was apparently a growing need to develop more specific international human rights treaties as a complement to the two covenants. Activities reflecting this need resulted in the

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adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979 (UN General Assembly Resolution 34/180 of December 18, 1979) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1984 (UN General Assembly Resolution 39/46 of December 10, 1984). The Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989 fits into this development of specifying international human rights enshrined in the UDHR, ICCPR, and ICESCR, which together are known as the International Bill of Human Rights. The key purpose of these specifications was to improve the protection and implementation of the human rights of specific vulnerable groups of people. This purpose is confirmed by the more recent international human rights treaties regarding migrant workers and their families (1990), persons with disabilities (2008), and forced disappearances (2009). In conclusion, in the context of human rights development, the CRC can be considered an international instrument with the aim of strengthening, via specification of existing human rights, including the introduction of new elements (see below), the protection and implementation of the human rights of children. Its complementary role is reflected in article 41 of the CRC which states that provisions in international law in force for the state, such as the two covenants, that are more conducive to the realization of the rights of the child should be applied. The state may not deny or limit the implementation of a right in other binding international (or regional) treaties because the CRC does not recognize that right or recognizes it to a lesser extent (Detrick 1999, pp. 712–716). For example, Article 2 ICCPR contains detailed provisions on the right to effective remedy in case of violations of rights recognized in the ICCPR (see also art. 8 UDHR), while the CRC does not contain that right. However, a child in a state that ratified both the ICCPR and the CRC can claim such remedy, for example, in case her/his right to freedom of expression (art. 13) is violated. Additionally, article 38 CRC prohibits the recruitment and use of children below the age of 15. Article 22 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) requires that States Parties shall take all necessary measures that no child (any person below the age of 18) shall take direct part in hostilities and shall, in particular, refrain from recruiting any child. An African state that has ratified both the CRC and the ACRWC must apply the more comprehensive article 22 of the ACRWC.

7.2.3

The Drafting, Adoption, and Ratification of the Convention

The history of the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been described in detail (Detrick 1992; Ek 2007; Le Blanc 1995). Therefore, I limit this section to some key facts and main characteristics of the history. The government of Poland chose to submit to the secretary-general of the UN a proposal for a Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1978, with the intention that it should be adopted in 1979 because 1979 had been declared the International

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Year of the Child. The circulation of this proposal to member states of the UN met with sympathy and support but also with some detailed criticism. The core of the criticism was that a Convention of the Rights of the Child should be more than the text of the 1959 Declaration. This led to the establishment by the UN Commission on Human Rights of an open-ended working group on the question of a Convention on the Rights of the Child. “Open-ended” meant that the representatives of the 43 state members of the Commission on Human Rights could participate as members of the working group, while other member states could send observers (with the right to take the floor). Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with consultative status with ECOSOC could attend the meetings of the working group. Although NGOs did not have the right to speak, their requests to participate in the discussion were almost always granted. The working group started its activities in 1979, and in 1980 Poland submitted a revised draft that became the working document of the group. Weeklong meetings on the topic took place every year at the end of January, preceding a session of the Commission on Human Rights. The working group operated on the basis of consensus. It meant that every text and proposed amendments had to be discussed until all members of the group agreed. This is one of the reasons that the drafting took so long. The other was the political climate during the first years of the drafting as a result of the tensions between the Western countries and the Communist countries during the cold war between East and West. This climate improved significantly after 1985 following Gorbatjov’s glasnost in the Soviet Union. After 1985, the slow pace of the first years, during which only three or four articles were adopted per year and often in incomplete form, changed and many more articles were adopted per session. The impact of NGOs on the discussions increased when they established an ad hoc group on the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which submitted many joint proposals for articles to be included in the draft. In 1987, pressure on the working group increased due to public promotion by the NGOs’ group and UNICEF to have the final draft ready by 1989 in order to allow its adoption by the UN General Assembly 10 years after the International Year of the Child. Extra meetings of the working group in 1988 succeeded in producing a final draft text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, 30 years after the adoption of the 1959 Declaration. This unanimous adoption was possible thanks to the fact that the working group had operated on the basis of consensus. The downside of this consensus approach was that certain proposals were abandoned despite the support of a clear majority. For instance, consensus could not be achieved on the text of a proposal placing severe limitations on medical experimentation with the involvement of children. This also happened with a proposal to include an article on the protection of children born out of wedlock (Ek 2007, pp. 601–602, 887–889). The CRC is a unique human rights treaty, not only because of its content (see below) but also because it is the most ratified human rights treaty in the history of human rights. The CRC entered into force on September 2, 1990 after being ratified by first 20 states; there has so far never been a human rights treaty that entered into force within a year after its adoption by the UN General Assembly.

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At the end of September 1990, a world summit on children took place, organized by UNICEF and attended by more than 60 heads of state. It was very instrumental in maintaining the momentum created by the adoption of the CRC and its rapid entering into force. The number of ratifications increased rapidly, and today 193 states are parties to the CRC. Only Somalia, the recently established state of South Sudan, and the United States have not ratified the CRC (for more on obstacles to ratification by the USA, see Todres et al. 2006).

7.3

Content of the CRC and Its Optional Protocols: A Summary

7.3.1

Some General Observations

The most important feature of the CRC is that it contains both civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights in one document (for more information, see Vuckovic et al. 2012). This is an especially unique achievement given the failed attempt to draft, as a follow-up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one international covenant comprising both sets of human rights. The CRC does not explicitly state which of the rights described belong to one or the other sets of rights, though one can use the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights to determine into which group a CRC right falls. For instance, several rights enshrined in the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights also appear in the CRC, such as the right to health, education, and an adequate standard of living. In addition, the CRC Committee has labeled a number of provisions of the CRC as “civil rights and freedom.” Still, there is not an authoritative definition of the two sets of rights to allow one to decide which right belongs to which set of rights. Different views and interpretations of specific articles do exist, while some articles may have elements of both sets. For instance, article 40 of the CRC on the treatment of children in conflict with the penal law (aka juvenile delinquents) contains rules that clearly belong to the set of civil and political rights (much of art. 40, para. 2 can also be found in art. 14 and 15 ICPPR), while provisions on social reintegration and the possible measures to achieve that (art. 40, para. 1 and para. 3) can be considered social rights. While the distinction has some practical value, the two sets of human rights are indivisible and interrelated. Freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his civil and political rights as well as his economic, social, and cultural rights (Preamble of the ICCPR). A child who lacks access to education will have serious problems with exercising their right to freedom of expression. The right to education or to an adequate standard of living requires that the inherent right to life of every child be fully implemented. Additionally, the distinction must not be used to suggest a hierarchy of rights: all are equally important. However, the distinction between the two sets of rights does have implications for their implementation, because states that have ratified each covenant are obligated to implement the rights described by the covenant. States that have

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ratified the ICESCR are obligated to implement the rights described in that covenant, using to the maximum extent their available resources with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of these rights (art. 2 ICESCR). A similar provision can be found in article 4 of the CRC, though it does not mention explicitly the progressive realization of the child’s economic, social, and cultural rights. However, the aim of achieving progressively the full realization is explicitly mentioned in article 24 (right to health) and article 28 (right to education). We may therefore assume that the overall obligation to achieve progressively the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights also applies to these rights as enshrined in the CRC. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Right states that everyone has the right to an effective remedy for acts violating their fundamental human rights (art. 8). The CRC does not contain a provision explicitly providing children with the right to such an effective remedy (see also para. 2.2). Children in their respective countries should be provided with effective remedies as well as have the right to seek effective remedies at the international level. For that reason a Third Optional Protocol has been drafted and was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 19, 2011 (described below).

7.3.2

Content of the CRC

After the Preamble, part I of the CRC presents 41 substantive articles regarding the human rights of children. Part II (articles 42–45) sets the rules for the establishment of a committee for the purpose of examining the progress made by States Parties in the implementation of the rights of the child, including their obligation to regularly submit reports on this progress to the committee. Part III (articles 46–54) deals with technical legal matters such as rules for ratification, entering into force, the possibility to make reservations (full or partial nonimplementation of one or more articles of the CRC), and the rules for amending the convention. Part I, which contains the rights of the child, does not have a systematic or thematic structure that divides rights into categories. Its structure reflects the indivisibility and interlinkage of all human rights of children. However, for the purpose of effective reporting by States Parties, the CRC Committee (Reporting Guidelines 2010) has recommended grouping the articles of the CRC into eight clusters. Reports of States Parties submitted to the committee (art. 44 CRC) should be structured in line with these clusters. These clusters are also a useful reference when discussing more specifically the child’s well-being from a rights perspective. A description of the clusters follows (Reporting Guidelines 2010).

7.3.2.1 Cluster I: General Measures of Implementation [Articles 4, 42, and 44(6) CRC] In this cluster, States Parties should present information on the overall infrastructure for the implementation of the CRC, inter alia, legislative measures, national policies and programs, coordination of activities, allocation of resources (both financial and

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human), data collection, independent institutions for monitoring children’s rights implementation (e.g., children’s ombudsperson; Gran 2011), cooperation with NGOs, dissemination of information on the CRC, and training of all relevant professionals and civil servants (for more information see GC No. 5, 2003).

7.3.2.2 Cluster II: The Definition of the Child (Article 1 CRC) A “child” means every human being below the age of 18 years, unless the child, under the applicable national law, attains majority earlier. In quite a number of countries, the marriage of a person below the age of 18 results in a person being considered to have attained majority with the full legal capacity of a person 18 years or older. It should be noted that article 1 defines the end of childhood but not the beginning. The definition of the beginning has been a matter of lengthy discussions in the working group. A first proposal defined the child as “every human being from the moment of his birth.” However, some state representatives wanted to include in the definition the entire period from the moment of conception. A problem with this was the text of paragraph 9 of the Preamble of the CRC: “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including legal protection before as well as after birth.” The discussion was concluded with the following statement: “In adopting this paragraph of the Preamble, the Working Group does not intend to prejudice the interpretation of article 1 or any other provision of the Convention by States Parties.” In other words, the CRC is silent on the matter of abortion. States Parties to the CRC are free to adopt whatever position they wish on the right to life of the fetus or unborn child (Detrick 1999, pp. 53–57, 133–136). Under this cluster, States Parties are expected to provide information on specific minimum ages, for example, for the use of alcohol or tobacco and for making independent decisions in health matters. The “definition” of a child is specific to the CRC, meaning that wherever in the text the term “child” is used, the related provision is applicable to every human being below the age of 18, but it does not mean that we must use the term “child” for every person below 18. The term “adolescent” or “juvenile” may give a more accurate image of a 16- or 17-year-old person. It is therefore fully acceptable, as in Spanishspeaking countries, to use two terms, such as ninos/ninas and adolescentes, for the group of persons below the age of 18 (Cantwell 2011, pp. 43–47). 7.3.2.3 Cluster III: General Principles (Articles 2, 3, 6, and 12) The CRC Committee identified four articles as the General Principles of the CRC. The committee did not explain why these articles should be considered the General Principles or what this qualification means. The term suggests that these articles should be used and/or taken into account with any of the other articles of the CRC. However, it is not clear whether that is equally feasible or gives added value to each of these principles. The committee should clarify how each article should be used in relation to other articles of the CRC (Doek 2008). Simply put, the General Principles are rights and not just guiding values that should be taken into account (or may be limited in practice).

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Article 2 imposes on States Parties the obligation to respect and ensure the CRC rights of each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind. This article on nondiscrimination was the first in a human rights treaty that explicitly mentioned “disability” as a prohibited ground for discrimination. Article 3 states that in all actions concerning children, the best interest of the child shall be a primary consideration. This principle may seem to be quite acceptable at face value. However, its practical use has been subject of many debates before it appeared in the CRC. The article was criticized because of its indeterminate, unjust, and self-defeating nature and its liability to be overridden by more general policy considerations (Elster 1987). A recent example of this liability is the way in which the Dutch government deals with refugee or asylum-seeking children and their families. It is unclear whether it is in the best interest of a child who lived in the Netherlands for more than 8 years to be returned to the country of origin of his parents, a country completely strange to him, or should it be just “a primary consideration” and overridden by the general immigration policy. Those who are willing to take the principle seriously must determine who decides what is in the best interest of the child and how the best interest is determined either in policies or in individual decisions (Zermatten 2010). Two fundamental problems have to be addressed: how to predict the consequences of a policy or decision and its alternatives and which criteria should be used to evaluate the alternatives’ consequences (Mnookin 1985). Eekelaar (1994) suggests developing an understanding of the child’s best interests using two methods: objectivity and dynamic self-determination. Objectivity is a process in which a decision maker (judge or legislator) derives her/his views on what is deemed to be the best interest of the child from results of research or from claims of child welfare professionals. For example, disruption of attachment at an early stage of bonding will have serious negative effects on the child’s development (Bowlby 1965), and therefore, children below the age of 3 should not be placed in institutional care (Brown 2009; Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children 2010, para. 22). In another example, contact of a child with an absent parent would be damaging to the child if that contact is not approved by the caregiving parent (Goldstein et al. 1996). However, despite the importance of objective criteria in determining the best interest of the child, social beliefs continue to play a role, such as the belief that a baby is better off with the mother than with the father who has a nanny or that it is better to grow up with the father than with his mother and a stepfather. The possibility of making objective assessments is important but their reliability is difficult to determine. Even when a consensus exists about the values that should determine whether a decision can be considered in the best interest of the child, many factors, such as the personality of the child, can play a role in making the decision not in the best interest of a particular child. Traditionally, the question “what is actually in the best interest of the child?” is answered by adults. The greatest danger of objectivization is that it can be a vehicle for furthering the interests or ideologies of others rather than the interests of the child (Eekelaar 1994). Eekelaar attempts to remedy this danger by adding to objectivization the concept of dynamic self-determination. This concept recognizes the importance of input from

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the child in the assessment of her/his best interests. As the child develops increasing capacities, shifting dynamics may require a revision of the assessment, for example, contact with the other parent or placement in an institution. The concept can be considered fully in line with article 12 of the CRC regarding the right of the child to express their views, the right to have them taken into account, and the importance of the developing capacities of the child as a factor in independently exercising rights (art. 5 and art. 14 CRC). Although this concept seems to be applicable to individual cases in particular, it is also useful in matters of policy development and legislation. As has been demonstrated here, the General Principle of the best interest of the child is a complex one (see Freeman 2008 for a full commentary on article 3). The implementation of this principle most likely will differ depending on specific aspects of an individual case and also on local traditions and culture regarding the role of the extended family and the different social, political, and economic conditions in the child’s country (various chapters in Alston 1994; Breen 2002). However, the meaning of “best interest” is not as indeterminate as some critics suggest. The CRC provides 193 states with a broad framework of values via the formulation of the rights of the child and obligations of states, signposts that should guide decision/ policy makers to identify what is in the best interest of the child (Alston 1994, p. 19). Article 6 first repeats perhaps the most fundamental human right: every child has the inherent right to life (see also, e.g., art. 3 UDHR and art. 6 ICCPR). The importance of this right is underscored by the rule that derogation of this right is not permissible under any condition, even in times of crisis (art. 6, para. 2 ICCPR). According to the Human Rights Committee, the right to life makes it desirable for States Parties to take all possible measures to reduce infant mortality and increase life expectancy, especially by adopting measures to eliminate malnutrition and epidemics (GC No. 6 2005). This broader concept of the right to life is reflected in paragraph 2 of article 6: “States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.” The qualifying phrase “to the maximum extent possible” was inserted to indicate that economic, social, and cultural conditions could be taken into account by States Parties when implementing their positive obligation to ensure the rights of the child to survival and development (see also art. 4 CRC). Article 12, known as the right to be heard, provides the child with the right to express their own views freely in all matters affecting the child, but only if the child is capable of forming her or his own views. The CRC Committee is of the opinion that this phrase should not be used as a limitation but should be seen as an obligation for States Parties to assess the child’s capacity to form her or his own views. Research shows that the child is capable of forming views at a young age, even when he or she may be unable to express them verbally (Lansdown 2005). Article 12 requires the recognition of and respect for nonverbal forms of communication such as play, drawing and painting, body language, and facial expressions through which very young children demonstrate understanding, choices, and preferences (GC No 7, 2005). Children with disabilities should be provided with and enabled to use any mode of communication necessary to facilitate the expression of their views (GC No. 12 2009, para. 21).

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The right to express views freely means that the child must not be manipulated or subjected to undue influence or pressure. The phrase “in all matters affecting the child” should not be limited to individual cases but be given a broader meaning. Children should be provided with meaningful and accessible opportunities to express their views at the local and national level on measures affecting them (GC No. 12 2009, para. 22–27). The views of the child must be “given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity.” Listening to the child is not enough; the convention states that “her or his views must be considered seriously. The level of weight given to the views of a child should not be determined by a biological age only, but her or his ability to understand and assess the implications of a particular matter should be a factor as well” (GC No. 12 2009, para. 28–30). In this regard the CRC Committee encouraged States Parties to introduce legislative measures requiring decision makers in judicial or administrative proceedings to explain the extent of consideration given to the views of the child (GC No. 12 2009, para. 33). Paragraph 2 of article 12 draws special attention to the implementation of the right to express views in judicial and administrative proceedings directly or via a representative. In General Comment No. 12 (2009), the CRC Committee provides specific recommendations for the implementation of the right to be heard in civil judicial proceedings (e.g., divorce, separation from parents, alternative care, adoption), penal judicial proceedings either as an alleged offender or as a victim or witness, and administrative proceedings (para. 48–67). The right to be heard should also be respected and implemented in the family setting, institutions for alternative care, health care, school or other educational facilities, the workplace, and violent and/or emerging situations (GC No. 12 2009, para. 89–131, with detailed observations and recommendations). In conclusion and according to the CRC Committee, all processes in which a child or children are heard must be transparent, informative, voluntary, respectful, child-friendly, relevant, inclusive, supported by training, safe, sensitive to risk, and accountable (GC No. 12 2009, para. 134).

7.3.2.4 Cluster IV: Civil Rights and Freedoms [Articles 7, 8, 13, 17, and 37(a)] The title of this cluster indicates that these rights should be fully respected and implemented immediately. A lack of resources is not an acceptable excuse. Article 7 states that the child has the right to be registered immediately after birth. While this may sound like a trivial administrative matter, it is not. In many situations, such as armed conflicts, natural disaster, asylum seeking, and criminal responsibility, the protection of a child depends to a large degree on the availability of a date and place of birth. Without birth registration a child does not count; it cannot be included in the official statistics used as basic information for governmental policies and budget allocations. Furthermore, the child has the right from birth to a name (last name and first/given) and the right to a nationality. The latter is linked to proper birth registration. In the jus soli system, one acquires the nationality of the state in which he/she was born. With the jus sanguinis system, a child’s nationality at birth is the same as that of his/her natural parents, whose

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names and nationalities are indicated on the birth registration (there are some exceptions). The importance of a nationality is pointed out in paragraph 2 of article 7 which requires States Parties to ensure the implementation of these rights, particularly with regard to children who would otherwise be stateless. States Parties must take every appropriate measure, via domestic law and/or international cooperation with other states, to ensure that every child has a nationality. Stateless children often suffer from lack of health care or education and lack of protection. Finally, the child has the right to know and to be cared for by her or his parents, as far as possible (for further discussion of this right, see hereafter para in Sect. 7.4.3). Article 8 contains a unique provision that is unknown in any other human rights treaty: the right of the child to preserve her or his identity, which includes nationality, name, and family relations (as recognized by law). If a child is deprived of some or all the elements of her or his identity, the state must provide appropriate assistance and protection for a speedy reestablishment of the child’s identity. The proposal for this article was submitted to the working group by the delegation from Argentina and inspired by the enforced and involuntary disappearances of children and adults during the military junta in the 1970s in that country. After considerable debate regarding the concept of identity, which is not necessarily limited to the elements mentioned in article 8 (Hodgson 1993), the article was adopted (Detrick 1999, pp. 159–165). It is an important legal tool for the ongoing efforts of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to identify and locate the missing children, many of whom turned out to be adopted in Argentina or abroad (for more information on the activities of this group, see Arditti 1999). Articles 13–17 contain many of the traditional civil and political rights which also can be found in the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the right to freedom of expression (art. 13); the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (art. 14); the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly (art. 15); the right to protection of privacy, family, home, and correspondence (art. 16); and the right to access information (art. 17). The right to freedom of expression should be distinguished from the right to express views in article 12. The latter is limited to matters affecting the child and requires specific legislative or other measures to ensure that this right is fully implemented, particularly in legal and other decision-making procedures on matters affecting the child. The right to freedom of expression allows the child to express views on all kinds of issues, regardless of whether they may have an effect on the child’s life. However, in contrast to article 12, freedom of expression can be subject to restrictions if necessary for the protection of the rights and reputation of others or for the protection of national security, public order, health, or morals. Article 37(a) repeats the full and absolute prohibition of torture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment (see also art. 7 ICCPR and the Convention against Torture). The CRC Committee is of the opinion that this provision includes the prohibition of corporal punishment in all settings (institutions, schools, families), a view supported by other human rights bodies, including the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights. The committee also provides specific recommendations for the implementation of this

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prohibition via legislative measures, public campaigns promoting nonviolent forms of disciplining a child, and training of teachers and other professionals (GC No. 8 2006). Furthermore, article 37(a) prohibits capital punishment and life imprisonment without the possibility of release for offenses committed by persons below the age of 18. The Supreme Court of the United States made reference to this article, which binds 193 states, in its decision that the death penalty for offenses committed by a person below the age of 18 is forbidden by the 8th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution and thus is unconstitutional (Roper vs. Simmons 2005). The CRC Committee strongly recommends States Parties to abolish all forms of life imprisonment for offenses committed by persons under the age of 18, because such imprisonment, even with the possibility of release (often only after having served 20 years or more), will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the aims of juvenile justice spelled out in article 40, para. 1 (GC No. 10 2007, para. 77).

7.3.2.5 Cluster V: Family Environment and Alternative Care (Articles 5, 9, 11, 18–21, 25, 27, and 39) The large number of articles included in this cluster reflects the importance of the family environment for the child. The concept of the rights of the child, and thus the Convention, has been criticized because it undermines the role, responsibilities, and authority of the parents (Kilbourne 1998). However, the CRC is the only international human rights treaty that requires States Parties not only to respect the responsibilities, rights, and duties of parents (and other categories) and to ensure the recognition of common responsibilities of parents for the upbringing and development of the child but also to provide them with appropriate assistance, including material support, in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities (art. 5, 18, and 27). 7.3.2.6 Cluster VI: Basic Health and Welfare (Articles 6, 18, 23, 24, 26, and 27) This cluster deals with the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of health (shortened to “the right to health”), the rights of children with disabilities (art. 23), the right of the child to benefit from social security and social insurance (art. 26), and the right to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development (art. 27). These provisions and their importance with respect to the child’s well-being are discussed later in this chapter. 7.3.2.7 Cluster VII: Education, Leisure, and Cultural Activities (Articles 28, 29, and 31) This cluster covers the right of the child to education (art. 28), the aims of education (art. 29), and the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts (art. 31).

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7.3.2.8 Cluster VIII: Special Protection Measures (Articles 22, 30, 32–36, 37b–d, and 38–40) The many articles included in this cluster reflect and confirm the fact that the protection of the child in various circumstances against abuse, violence, and exploitation is an important element of the CRC. This cluster deals with the protection of refugee children (art. 22) and children belonging to minorities (art. 30); protection from economic exploitation (art. 32); protection from illicit use of drugs, sexual exploitation, sale and trafficking, and all other forms of exploitation (art. 33–36); protection from involvement in armed conflict (art. 38); and protection of children in conflict with the penal law (art. 37b–d and 40).

7.3.3

Optional Protocols to the CRC

Part of the development of human rights was the adoption of so-called Optional Protocols. Most of these protocols established a special procedure for submitting complaints regarding violations of human rights. These procedures would allow citizens to seek remedies for these violations, and they are intended to complement the remedies available at the national level (See the optional protocols to the ICCPR 1966 (UN Treaty Service Vol. 999, p. 171), the CEDAW 1999 (UN Doc. A/RES/ 54/4), the ICESCR 2008 (UN Doc. A/RES/63/435), and the CRPD 2006 (UN DOC. A/RES/61/106).). The term “optional” indicates that States Parties to a human rights treaty are not automatically bound by an optional protocol adopted for that treaty. A state is bound by a protocol only if it chooses to ratify it, meaning that persons under its jurisdiction can submit a complaint about a violation of a right by the state (an organ or an official of the state). For the CRC three Optional Protocols have been adopted by the UN General Assembly so far: • Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) (adopted on May 25, 2000 (UN Doc. A/RES/54/263), in force since February 12, 2002, and ratified by 150 states) • Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography (OPSC) (adopted on May 25, 2000 (UN Doc. A/RES/54/263), in force since January 18, 2002, and ratified by 161 states) • Optional Protocol Providing for a Communications Procedure (OPCP) (adopted on December 19, 2011 (UN Doc. A/RES/66/138), not yet entered into force) The first two are quite unique in the world of human rights treaties because they raise the standards in the CRC (OPAC) and elaborate on the rather general provisions in the CRC for the protection of children against sexual exploitation (OPSC). Currently, an international campaign is being conducted for the universal ratification of both optional protocols (for more information, see Coomaraswamy (2010) for OPAC and Pais (2010) for OPSC). The OPAC sets the minimum age for participation in hostilities at 18, increasing the standard of 15 years set in article 38 CRC (art. 2). Furthermore, the compulsory recruitment of persons below the age of 18 is prohibited, while for voluntary

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recruitment the minimum age must to be at least 16, though these recruits cannot take part in hostilities until age 18 (art. 3). These rules apply for the armed forces of the State Party to OPAC. For nonstate armed groups, such as rebel groups and militias, the OPAC is even stricter: they should not under any circumstance recruit or use persons under the age of 18 (art. 4). The OPAC also requires States Parties to take all feasible measures for the demobilization, the physical and psychological recovery, and the social reintegration of children who were recruited and used in hostilities, contrary to the rules of OPAC. It should be noted that the OPAC does not contain specific provisions for the protection of all other child victims of armed conflict. The OPAC has been ratified by 151 states, including the United States, the only State Party to OPAC that did not ratify the CRC. This is made possible thanks to art. 9 OPAC which states that the protocol can be ratified by any state that is a party to the CRC or has signed it. The last part was included due to the very strong input of the USA. In accordance with art. 8 OPAC, the US reports regularly to the CRC Committee on the implementation of the OPAC. For more information on reporting obligations, international cooperation, and the idea of establishing an international voluntary fund for the support of child victims of armed conflict, see the Guide to OPAC (UNICEF 2003) and Doek (2011b)). The OPSC can be considered an elaboration of articles 34 and 35 of the CRC on the protection of children from all forms of sexual exploitation and the prevention of the abduction, the sale of, or the trafficking of children. The OPSC provides definitions of the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography (art. 2) and the acts and activities, whether committed domestically or transnationally and on an individual or an organized basis, which a State Party to OPSC must criminalize (art. 3). The State Party should establish both the legal liability of persons for the offenses and extraterritorial jurisdiction over these types of offenses (art. 4). The latter means that the state establishes the authority to prosecute an offender who is a national of the state or a habitual resident of that state, regardless of where this person committed the offense. It also means that the state can prosecute the offender, regardless of his nationality or the location of the offense, if the victim is a national of that state. Article 8 contains important provisions for the protection of child victims who become involved in criminal law proceedings as witnesses. Article 9 details the obligations of States Parties to promote awareness and training programs, such as those for professionals working with child victims, in order to support the full social reintegration and physical and psychological recovery of child victims and their access to adequate procedures to seek compensation for the damages they suffered from the persons legally responsible (for more information see, e.g., the Handbook on OPSC (UNICEF 2009)). The OPSC has been ratified by 163 states, including the USA, which is not a party to the CRC. (This was possible thanks to a provision in art. 13 OPSC similar to art. 9 OPAC). The OPCP is an important tool for ensuring full respect for an effective implementation of the rights of the child. In case of violations of these rights,

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States Parties are obligated to provide adequate procedures for remedies that are accessible also for children. However, in many countries there are no procedures for children to access or they produce disappointing results, often after very long processes. It is therefore necessary to provide, as a complement to (the lack of) national remedies, an international means to file a complaint about violations of the rights of the child. The OPCP fulfills this role. Children or their representatives can file a complaint with the CRC Committee about the violations of their rights. Complaints can be filed individually or as a group. The complaint has to be submitted in writing and must state the name(s) of the child or children. The CRC Committee will not deal with anonymous complaints. The child victim of a violation of her/his rights can submit a complaint after he/she has reached the age of 18 years. However, it has to be done within a year after the violation took place, with some exceptions. The complaint will then be sent to the state accused of the violation, with a request for a response. All the relevant information regarding the complaint will be dealt with by the CRC Committee in closed sessions. This process will result in recommendations to the State Party concerned for addressing the violation, which may include adequate compensation. This new Optional Protocol was subject to extensive debate in the Human Rights Council (Lee 2010). The OPCP has been open for ratification since March 2012 and will enter into force after the tenth ratification. As of this writing Gabon and Thailand have ratified it.

7.3.4

The Role of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee)

The first and most important task of the CRC Committee is to monitor the implementation of the CRC in all States Parties. To allow the committee to perform this task, States Parties have to report regularly on the measures they have taken to put into effect the rights recognized in the CRC, including information on the progress made and the difficulties encountered (art. 43 CRC). In addition to these governmental reports, the CRC Committee receives reports from national and international NGOs and UN agencies, in particular UNICEF, which complement the information provided by the government. Based on this and other information collected by the secretariat of the committee, the committee has a discussion with a delegation of the State Party during a daylong, public question-and-answer session. After this discussion, the committee issues its concluding observations that contain its recognition of progress achieved, its concerns, and its specific recommendation for further action to be taken by the government of the state concerned. Although the recommendations are nonbinding, governments do usually follow some or most of the recommendations. If necessary, national NGOs, UN agencies, and parliaments put pressure on the governments to implement the committee’s recommendations. In addition to the country-specific

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recommendations, the CRC Committee provides the States Parties with guidance and recommendations regarding the implementation of the CRC via annual Days of General Discussion and the publication of General Comments. Days of General Discussion have resulted in, for example, an international UN Study on Children in Armed Conflict (1996) and a UN Study on Violence against Children (2006). The Study on Children in Armed Conflict was followed by the adoption of the OPAC by the UN General Assembly and the appointment in 1997 by the UN secretary-general of a special representative on children and armed conflict, while the Study on Violence against Children (2006) resulted in the appointment in 2009 by the UN secretary-general of a special representative on violence against children (for more information, see Doek 2009). Since the beginning of twenty-first century, General Comments have provided States Parties with interpretation and recommendations for implementation of the CRC for children affected or infected by HIV/AIDS, children who are refugees and or seeking asylum, very young children, adolescents, children belonging to indigenous people, children with disabilities, and children in conflict with the penal law, among others. Everyone, not only governmental officials, who is involved in the care or protection of children who are covered by a General Comment, should read it and other GCs carefully to become familiar with a children’s rights perspective and approach. Finally, the committee has 18 members who are elected by the 193 States Parties. They serve for a 4-year term and can be reelected. Every State Party can submit one of its citizens as a candidate for the committee (no other candidates are possible). The committee meets in Geneva three times every year for 4 weeks. Members do not receive an honorarium except a symbolic one US dollar per year, but the costs of travel and accommodations are covered (for more information, see art. 43 CRC). The Committee is facing a lot of challenges, e.g., the considerable backlog of reports of States Parties waiting for an examination (Doek 2011a).

7.4

The Well-Being of the Child from a Child Rights Perspective

7.4.1

Introduction

There are various concepts and definitions of (child) well-being (Camfield 2009), but it goes beyond the purpose of this chapter to give an analytical overview of all the existing views of these concepts and definitions. One may argue that its meaning and content fluctuate, depending on who is using the term and why (Camfield 2009, p. 67). From the child rights perspective, I agree with Bradshaw that a child’s wellbeing can be defined as the realization of the child’s rights and the fulfillment of the opportunity for the child to be all he or she can be in light of the child’s abilities, potential, and skills. Over the last 20 years, a wide variety of research has been carried out to assess and/or contribute to the understanding of child well-being via

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national and international surveys. For example, the widely reported on Innocenti Research Centre’s report card compared the well-being of children in the 21 OECD countries (UNICEF 2007) by exploring children’s understanding of well-being via participatory methods and investigating factors that influence well-being via longitudinal studies (Camfield 2009, pp. 76–89). The objective of this section is to give some examples of how the realization of children’s rights can contribute to their well-being, with a specific focus on the CRC as described above. First I discuss the empowerment role of the CRC as an important contribution to the child’s well-being through the right to be heard. This is followed by observations about the support in the CRC for parents and family as the crucial environment for the child’s well-being. Next, the importance of the social and cultural rights in the CRC as tools for creating conditions for the child’s well-being is discussed. Finally, I discuss the right to protection and the provision of tools for intervention in cases where the child’s well-being is at risk.

7.4.2

The Right to Express Views and to be Heard

A rather common perception of the CRC is that it is an international legal instrument for the protection of children as human beings who are vulnerable to neglect, abuse, and exploitation. However, the CRC is much more as it recognizes the child as a person with evolving capacities (art. 5), with an identity (name, nationality, and family; art. 7 and art. 8), and with civil rights and freedoms (art. 13–16). One of the General Principles of the CRC identified by the CRC Committee is the right of the child to express her or his views and have them taken into account (see discussion above in Cluster III about article 12, the right to be heard). This right implies an active and growing participation of the child, linked to her or his evolving capacities, in all matters affecting her or him. As the CRC Committee observed, article 12 is the lynchpin with respect to the development of child participation (GC No. 12 2009, para. 16). Although the CRC does not contain a provision explicitly providing for the right to participation, it became an inherent part of the implementation of all its articles. (The only articles with a reference to participation are article 23, which recognizes that a disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life in conditions which (. . .) facilitate the child’s active participation in the community, and article 31, which recognizes the right of the child to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.) This explains why it became common to categorize the rights of the CRC with the well-known three P’s: provision, protection, and participation (for critical comments on this categorization, see Quennerstedt 2010). The importance of child participation has been recognized by all member states of the UN via the document “A World Fit for Children,” which was adopted in 2002 by the General Assembly at its special session on the rights of the child. In this document the member states committed themselves to “develop and implement programmes to promote meaningful participation by children in decision-making processes,

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including in families and schools and at the local and national levels” (A/RES/ 67/42, para. 32, subpara. 1). In its General Comment No. 12 on the right of the child to be heard (art. 12 CRC), the CRC Committee explained to the States Parties how the article should be interpreted and provided detailed recommendations for the implementation of this right in the family; in alternative care; in health care, education, and the workplace; and in a number of specific situations and proceedings. Examples of recommendations in these areas are as follows: • Family: In order to develop respect for the child’s right to be heard, States Parties should promote parent education programs that address the involvement of children in decision-making; the implications of giving due weight to the views of the child; the understanding, promotion, and respect for the child’s evolving capacities; and ways of dealing with conflicting views in the family (GC No. 12 2009, para. 93 and 94). • Alternative care: The child placed in alternative care (foster care, residential care) by law must be provided with information about the care and/or treatment plan and with a meaningful opportunity to express her or his views and ensure that these views are taken into account throughout the decision-making processes in alternative care. A representative council of children should be established in residential facilities with the mandate to participate in the development and implementation of the policy and rules of the institution (GC No. 12 2009, para. 97). • Health care: Legal provisions should be introduced to ensure that children have access to confidential medical counseling and advice without parental consent irrespective of the child’s age when this is needed for the child’s safety or well-being. Fixed ages should be set by law at which the right to consent to a medical treatment transfers to the child. Furthermore, States Parties should introduce measures that enable children to contribute their views and experiences to the planning and programming of services for their health and development (GC No. 12 2009, para. 101 and 102). With respect to HIV/AIDS in particular, children have a right to participate, in accordance with their evolving capacities, in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS by speaking out about its impact on their lives, and in the development of HIV/AIDS policies and programs. In this regard the participation of children as peer educators inside and outside schools should be actively promoted (GC No. 3 2003, para. 10). • Education: States Parties should promote in all educational settings the active role of children in a participatory learning environment. The CRC Committee considers children’s participation indispensable for the creation of a social climate in the classroom, which stimulates the cooperation and mutual support needed for child-centered interactive learning. Giving due weight to children’s views is particularly important in the elimination of discrimination and the prevention of bullying. Participation of children in decision-making processes about the development and implementation of school policies and codes of behavior should be achieved via class councils, student councils, and representation on school boards (GC No. 12 2009, para. 107, 109, 110).

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• Situations of violence: States Parties are encouraged to consult with children in the development and implementation of legislative, policy, educational, and other measures to address all forms of violence. Particular attention needs to be paid to ensure that marginalized and disadvantaged children, such as exploited children, street children, or refugee children, are not excluded from consultative processes designed to elicit views on relevant legislation and policy processes (GC No. 12 2009, para. 118). In conclusion, the child is recognized as a person who not only can have views but also has the right to express them freely and have them taken into account. The CRC protects the child’s right to actively participate in all matters that affect them, in accordance with their evolving capacities. This recognition contributes to the wellbeing of the child because it encourages and promotes the development of skills of engagement in both individual and collective decision-making processes. It also can contribute to the child’s ability to understand and deal with possible conflicting interests at the individual level of the family and the collective level of the school or the community. Finally, the recognition of a child’s right to be heard may strengthen the child’s sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and empowerment. The skills and abilities developed in the implementation of the right to be heard and to participate should be linked to the civil rights and freedoms of the child (art. 13–16 CRC). For instance, the exercise of the right to freedom of expression (art. 13) can benefit from the experiences of the child in expressing her or his views in the setting of the family, the school, or the institution. This right is not limited to matters concerning the child and allows the child to participate in the discussion of a wide array of social, political, and other issues. Furthermore, article 15, which covers the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, provides the child with the possibility to organize with other children and create tools for collective actions via meetings or by establishing an organization with a view to strengthen their active participation in matters of their interest. There is a wealth of reports, guidelines, and articles on child participation (e.g., The International Journal of Children’s Rights Special Issue, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2008). Most attention is on the participation of children in various aspects of governance at the national or community level (children’s parliaments and local youth councils) and in international events. The challenge in the coming years is to study more systematically child participation in the family, school, and, above all, institutional care with a view toward improving and strengthening the right of the child to be heard and to actively participate in decision-making processes on matters that concern them individually or collectively.

7.4.3

The Family and Alternative Care

In the preamble to the CRC, the family is recognized as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members, particularly children. The CRC recognizes that for full and harmonious development of the child’s personality, the child should grow up in a family environment.

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Therefore, the family should receive the necessary protection and assistance. That is precisely what the CRC states in a number of rather specific provisions that focus on support for parents in the performance of their rights and responsibilities. For those who believe that the CRC undermines parental authority, it is important to note that the CRC is the only human rights document that explicitly recognizes the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child (art. 18). The CRC states that States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights, and duties of parents to provide the child, in a manner consistent with her or his evolving capacities, with appropriate direction and guidance in the child’s exercise of the rights recognized in the CRC (art. 5). This means that parents should take into account the evolving capacities of the child as an enabling process and not as an excuse for authoritarian practices that restrict the child’s autonomy and self expression (GC No. 7 2006, para. 17). Furthermore, States Parties should leave the upbringing and development of the child to the parent(s) and should not interfere in family life (art. 16) unless necessary for the protection of the child (art. 9). At the same time and in line with the preamble, the CRC requires States Parties to render appropriate assistance to the parents in the performance of their childrearing responsibilities and to ensure the development of institutions, facilities, and services for the care of children. They also shall undertake measures to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from childcare services and facilities for which they are eligible (art. 18, para. 2 and 3). At the family level, parents have the primary responsibility of ensuring, within their ability and financial capacity, the right of their child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development (art. 27, para. 1 and 2). The States Parties to the CRC must take appropriate measures to assist the parents in the implementation of the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes, when needed, the provision of material assistance and support programs, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing, and housing (art. 27, para. 3). In short, the family environment and, in particular, parents are entitled to appropriate support and assistance to ensure the best conditions (as much as possible) for the full and harmonious development of the child. This means that States Parties have to develop (depending on the available resources of the state, art. 4 CRC) an integrated approach for the purpose of providing this support and assistance. This support and assistance should include measures that have an indirect impact on the ability of parents to promote the well-being of the child (for instance, special benefits or taxation privileges, adequate housing, and working hours) and measures that have a more direct effect, such as home visitation programs, parent education courses, and health-care services. Unfortunately, all the efforts of the State Party to support and assist parents cannot guarantee that a child can always stay with and be cared for by her or his parents. The child may become the victim of serious neglect or abuse in the family setting to the extent that it is necessary to move the child to alternative care. Article 20 of the CRC obliges States Parties to ensure that alternative care is provided, which can include foster care, kafalah of Islamic law, adoption, and, if necessary,

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suitable institutions for the care of children. Unfortunately, the CRC does not contain more specific rules on the nature and quality of this alternative care. However, international Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children were developed and recommended by the UN General Assembly for use by all member states in the development and implementation of alternative care for children on November 20, 2009 (A/RES/64/142, 2010). The guidelines underscore the importance of measures to be taken by States Parties to assist and support families and provide concrete recommendations in that regard with a view to preventing the necessity of alternative care. Furthermore, the guidelines contain many rules to be followed to ensure the well-being of children while in alternative care.

7.4.4

Social and Cultural Rights

The right to the highest attainable standard of health (art. 24 CRC), the right to education (art. 28 and 29 CRC), and the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities, and to participate in cultural life and the arts (art. 31) are some examples of the rights that contribute in a significant way to the well-being of the child. States Parties must pursue the full implementation of these rights by taking the appropriate measures specified in the articles mentioned. In addition, the CRC Committee has issued General Comments that provide the States Parties with specific guidance and recommendations on health care for children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS (GC No. 3 2003), on adolescent health and development (GC No. 4 2003), and on the aims of education (GC No. 1 2001). Giving detailed examples of all the measures recommended to States Parties is well beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is obvious that the implementation of these measures will contribute to the well-being of children. I would like to emphasize that these recommendations are aimed at not just achieving quantitative results, for instance, the reduction of infant and child mortality or the increase in enrollment of children in education, but also getting attention focused on the quality of health care and education, including the active participation of children in the development and use of these rights. For example, I would like to highlight some elements of General Comment No. 1, on the aims of education recognized in article 29. The key goal of education is the development of the child’s personality, talents, and abilities (art. 29a). This implies, according to the CRC Committee, that the curriculum must be directly relevant to the child’s social, cultural, environmental, and economic context and to her or his present and future needs, taking into full account the child’s evolving capacities. Teaching methods should be tailored to the different needs of different children. Education must also be aimed at ensuring that essential life skills are learned by every child and that no child leaves school without being equipped to face the challenges that he or she can expect to be confronted with in life (GC No. 1 2001, para. 9). The overall objective of education is to maximize the child’s ability and opportunity to participate fully and responsibly in a free society. It should be emphasized

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that the type of education that focuses primarily on the accumulation of knowledge, which prompts competition and leads to an excessive burden of work on children, may seriously hamper the harmonious development of the child to the fullest potential of her or his abilities and talents. Education should be child-friendly, inspiring and motivating the individual child (GC No. 1 2001, para. 12).

7.4.5

The Right to Protection

The CRC contains quite a number of articles that recognize the right of the child to be protected from neglect and from all forms of abuse, exploitation, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment (art. 19, 32–38), with special attention for especially vulnerable groups such as refugee children (art. 22) and children with disabilities (art. 23). The child’s right to respect for her or his dignity and physical and mental integrity makes this protection a human rights imperative. All actions to prevent and intervene in this realm should be aimed at protecting and promoting the well-being of the child. Specific obligations of States Parties in that regard can be found in the Optional Protocols discussed above, in the CRC Committee’s country-specific recommendations, and in its General Comments, such as GC No. 8 on the rights of the child to be protected from corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading punishment and GC No. 13 on article 19, the right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence (GC No. 13 2011). The latter contains a detailed commentary on article 19, its meaning, and the measures States Parties must take for its full implementation. Children are mentioned throughout this General Comment. For example, under the section on social policy measures, in order to reduce risk and prevent violence, it is recommended that children be provided with accurate, accessible, and age-appropriate information and empowerment on life skills, self-protection, and specific risks, including those related to information and communication technologies and how to develop positive peer relationships and combat bullying. Additionally, children must be provided with as many opportunities as possible to signal the emergence of a problem before it reaches a state of crisis and for adults to recognize and act on such problems even if the child does not explicitly ask for help. Many more actions are recommended to protect the child’s well-being via a comprehensive national plan of prevention and effective intervention when needed, developed, and implemented with the participation of children.

7.4.6

Implementation

After this brief overview of the CRC and its possible contribution to the well-being of children, we must move from the “possibles” to the “realities,” in other words, what about the implementation of all these rights and obligations of states? In the following section, I document both good and bad developments in the realm of implementation.

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The Good News: Since the CRC entered into force on September 2, 1990, the States Parties have undertaken a wide range of legislative, social, and other measures to bring their laws, policies, and practices into compliance with the provisions of the CRC. The best regional overview of these measures is available for Africa in the African Reports on Child Wellbeing 2008 and 2011 (African Child Policy Forum 2008, 2011). The 2008 report concludes that: • Improved governance and rapid economic progress are providing favorable environments for the child well-being. • Most African governments have increased the proportion of their budgets allocated to health and education (detailed information on budgeting for children can be found in the 2011 report). • Many countries have harmonized or are in the process of harmonizing their national laws with international law and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. • Governments are becoming more committed to ensuring longer and better lives for people affected by HIV/AIDS through improved access to antiretroviral drugs. • The 12 most child-friendly governments followed a two-pronged approach: instituting appropriate laws to protect children and ensuring adequate budgetary commitments to child-related services (The Report 2008 contains a ChildFriendliness Index Ranking of African governments. It is regrettable that no other region of the world has produced a similar report). Global figures show an ongoing reduction in child mortality; an increase in school enrolment, particularly of girls, thus closing the gap between boys and girls; and successes in preventing and eliminating child labor (Diallo et al. 2010; UNICEF 2012). However, there is much that we do not know when it comes to the impact of the implementation of the CRC on the well-being of children. For example, with regard to the reduction of children in alternative care, there are countries where there are active policies to achieve such a reduction by developing more and better familytype forms of alternative care such as kinship care and foster care. Similar observations can be made regarding the prevention of child abuse and neglect, including sexual exploitation. Global figures do not exist or are not more than estimates (Country-specific information can be found in the reports submitted to the CRC Committee by States Parties to the CRC and the Concluding Observations of this Committee in the Human Rights database (www2.ohchr.org/)). It should be noted that the progress achieved is not just due to the activities of governments of the States Parties to the CRC. Civil society, and in particular the many national and international NGOs, and professional associations (of, e.g., social workers, psychologists, pediatricians) continue to play an important role in promoting the full implementation of the CRC. The same applies for UN specialized organizations, in particular UNICEF. Without the activities of these organizations, States Parties would not have made the progress they achieved. The Bad News: Progress so far has been slow, and too often governments do not put their money where their mouth is. For instance, budgetary allocations to health care, education, and child services are not sufficient for the implementation of the

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rights of the child with respect to those items. Furthermore, the statement that violence against children is preventable and never justifiable has not resulted in a full prohibition of violence, including corporal punishment, in the upbringing and education of children in the family, schools, institutions, and the workplace, as recommended in the UN Study on Violence against Children 2006. The African Report 2008 concluded that: • Given their large numbers, the invisibility of Africa’s children with disabilities is disturbing and shameful. • Malnutrition is still serious and accounts for about 60 % of the deaths of children under 5 years old in some parts of Africa. • Despite considerable progress in increasing enrollment at the primary school level, little has been achieved in increasing secondary school enrollment and in improving the quality of education at both levels. It is reasonable to assume that similar and other worrisome conclusions, for instance, on the number and living conditions of children in institutions, can be made regarding the developments in other regions of the world.

7.5

Conclusion

A review of the literature shows that the well-being of children has different meanings. Notions like health, opportunities to grow and learn, feeling safe and secure, positive personal and social relationships, the importance of feeling respected, and to have a voice that is listened to can all be seen as aspects of a child’s well-being. In other words, the child’s well-being has many aspects that may more or less be interrelated. The Convention on the Rights of the Child covers all aspects of the life of a child and is thus an important tool for the promotion of the well-being of children. The progressive and full implementation of the rights of the child as enshrined in the CRC and its Optional Protocols is therefore the best contribution to the well-being of the child. As described here, this implementation requires a wide variety of actions by the governments of States Parties, civil society organizations, and UN agencies with the goal of providing the child with health care, education, social services, and protection. At the same time, the implementation contributes to the well-being of the child by recognizing and respecting him or her as a rights holder. The key element of that recognition is the obligation to provide the child with meaningful opportunities to express their views on all matters concerning the child, which implies a growing participation of the child in discussions and decisions on these matters, taking his or her views into account. With regard to measuring the impact of the CRC’s implementation, there is ongoing discussion on the development of indicators, with considerable attention focused on quantitative results, for example, statistics on infant mortality, malnutrition, and other health rates; education enrollment figures; and the number of children in institutions, foster care, and juvenile justice system. While these statistics play an important role, the recognition of the child as a holder of rights means

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that measuring the impact of the CRC also requires soliciting the views of children and their active participation in the measuring process in meaningful ways. Including children’s perspectives may help get an accurate picture of their activities and experiences and capture important aspects of their lives, such as children’s contribution to their own well-being and the well-being of their significant others (Ben-Arieh 2006). For all people working with or for children and aiming at the promotion of their well-being, ongoing awareness and the effective implementation of the rights of the child remain a daily challenge.

References African Child Policy Forum. (2008). The African report on child wellbeing 2008: How childfriendly are African governments? Addis Ababa: The African Child Policy Forum. African Child Policy Forum. (2011). The African report on child wellbeing 2011: Budgeting for children. Addis Ababa: The African Child Policy Forum. Alston, P. (1994). The best interest of the child: Reconciling culture and human rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Arditti, R. (1999). Searching for life: The grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo and the disappeared children in Argentina. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ben-Arieh, A. (2006). Measuring and monitoring the well-being of young children around the world. Background paper for the education for all global monitoring report 2007: Strong foundations: Early childhood care and education. Paris: UNESCO. Bowlby, J. (1965). Child care and growth of love (2nd ed.). London: Penguin. Breen, C. (2002). The standard of the best interests of the child: A western tradition in international and comparative law (International Studies in Human Rights). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Brown, K. (2009). The risk of harm to young children in alternative care. London: Save the Children Foundation. Camfield, L. (2009). Laura Camfield, Natalia Streuli and Martin Woodhead: What’s the use of “well-being” in contexts of child poverty. Approaches to research, monitoring and children’s participation. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 17, 65–109. Cantwell, N. (2011). Are children’s rights still human? In A. Invernizzi & J. Williams (Eds.), The human rights of children: From visions to implementation (pp. 37–60). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Coomaraswamy, R. (2010). The optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflict – Towards universal ratification. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 18(4), 535–549. Cunningham, H. (1996). In H. Cunningham & P. P. Viazzo (Eds.), Child labour in historical perspective 1800–1985: Case studies in Europe, Japan and Colombia. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Detrick, S. (Ed.). (1992). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: A guide to the “Traveaux pre´paratoires”. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff. Detrick, S. (1999). A commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Diallo, Y., Hagemann, F., Etienne, A., Gurbuzer, Y., Mehran, F., & International Labour Office, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). (2010). Global child labour developments: Measuring trends from 2004 to 2008. Geneva: ILO. Doek, J. (2008). The CRC general principles. In J. Connors, J. Zermatten, & A. Panayotidis (Eds.), 18 candles. The convention on the rights of the child reaches majority (pp. 31–42). Sion: Institut international des droits de l’enfant.

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Doek, J. E. (2009). The CRC 20 years: An overview of some of the major achievements and remaining challenges. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33, 771–782. Doek, J. E. (2011a). The CRC: Dynamics and directions in monitoring its implementation. In A. Invernizzi & J. Williams (Eds.), The human rights of children: From visions to implementation (pp. 99–116). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Doek, J. (2011b). The international legal framework for the protection of children in armed conflict. Disarmament Forum, 3, 7–23. Eekelaar, J. (1994). The interest of the child’s wishes: The role of dynamic self-determination. In P. Alston (Ed.), The best interest of the child: Reconciling culture and human rights (pp. 42–61). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ek, S. (compiler). (2007). Legislative history of the convention on the rights of the child. New York/ Geneva: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner and Save the Children. Elster, J. (1987). Salomonic judgement: Against the best interest of the child. University of Chicago Law Review, 54(1), 1–45. Freeman, M. (2008). Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 3: The best interests of the child (Vol. 3). Leiden: Brill. Fyfe, A. (2009). Coming to terms with child labor: The historical role of education. In H. D. Hindman (Ed.), The world of child labor: An historical and regional survey (pp. 49–53). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. GC No. 1 (2001). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 1: The aims of education, 17 Apr 2001, CRC/GC/2001/1. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/ 4538834d2.html GC No. 3 (2003). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 3: HIV/AIDS and the rights of the child, 17 Mar 2003, CRC/GC/2003/3. http://www.unhcr.org/ refworld/docid/4538834e15.html GC No. 4 (2003). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 4: Adolescent health and development in the context of the convention on the rights of the child, 1 July 2003, CRC/GC/2003/4. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4538834f0.html GC No. 5. (2003). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No.5: General measures of implementation of the Convention on the rights of the child, 27 November 2003, CRC/GC/2003/5. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid4538834f11.html GC No. 5. (2003). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 5: General measures of implementation of the convention on the rights of the child, 27 November 2003, CRC-GC-2003-5. http://www2.ohchr.org GC No. 6. (2005). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 6: Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, 1 September 2005, CRC/GC/2005/6. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/42dd174b4.html GC No. 6. (2005). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 6: Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, 1 September 2005, CRC-GC-2005-6. http://www2.ohchr GC No. 7. (2005). UN Doc. General Comment No. 7: on Implementing child rights in early childhood, 20 September 2006, CRC/GC/7/Rev. www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/ GC7Rev.1_en.doc GC No. 7 (2006). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 7 (2005): Implementing child rights in early childhood, 20 Sept 2006, CRC/C/GC/7/Rev.1. http:// www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/460bc5a62.html GC No. 8 (2006). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 8 (2006): The right of the child to protection from corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment (Arts. 19; 28, Para. 2; and 37, inter alia), 2 Mar 2007, CRC/C/ GC/8. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/460bc7772.html GC No. 10 (2007). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CRC General Comment No. 10 (2007): Children’s rights in juvenile justice, 25 Apr 2007, CRC/C/GC/10. http://www. unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4670fca12.html

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GC No. 12 (2009). UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), General Comment No. 12 (2009): The right of the child to be heard, 20 July 2009, CRC/C/GC/12. http://www.unhcr.org/ refworld/docid/4ae562c52.html GC No. 13 (2011). General Comment No. 13: Article 19: The right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence. CRC/C/GC/13, 17 Feb 2011. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/ comments.htm General Comment No. 17. (1989). UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 17: Article 24 (Rights of the Child), adopted at the 35th session of the Human Rights Committee, 7 April 1989. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/45139b464.html Goldstein, J., Solnit, A. J., Goldstein, S., & Freud, A. (1996). The best interests of the child. The least detrimental alternative. The landmark trilogy of beyond the best interests of the child, before the best interests of the child, and in the best interests of the child. New York: The Free Press. Gran, B. (2011). The role of independent children’s rights institution in implementing the CRC. In A. Invernizzi & J. Williams (Eds.), The human rights of children: From visions to implementation (pp. 219–238). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Grier, B. (1994). Invisible hands: The political economy of child labour in Colonia Zimbabwe, 1890–1930. Journal of Southern African Studies, 20(1), 27–52. Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children. (2010). Considered by the UN General Assembly which encouraged all UN Member-States to take them into account (UN Doc. A/RES/64/142, 24 February 2010). Hindman, H. D. (2002). Child labor: An American history. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Hodgson, D. (1993). The international legal protection of the child’s right to a legal identity and the problem of statelessness. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 7, 255–270. Kerber-Gause, W. (2009). Die Menschenrechte des Kindes. Die UN-Kinderrechtskonvention und die Padagogik von Janusz Korczak: Versuch einer Perspektivenverschranking. Opladen/ Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich. Kilbourne, S. (1998). Opposition to the US ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Responses to parental rights arguments. Loyola Poverty Law Journal, 4, 55–70. Lansdown, G. (2005). The evolving capacities of the child. Florence: UNICEF (Innocenti Research Centre) and Save the Children. Lazoritz, S. (1990). Whatever happened to Mary Ellen. Child Abuse & Neglect, 14, 143–150. Le Blanc, L. J. (1995). The Convention on the Rights of the Child: United Nations lawmaking on human rights. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lee, Y. (2010). Communications procedure under the convention on the rights of the child: 3rd optional protocol. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 18(4), 567–583. Lifton, B. J. (1988). The king of children: The life and disaster of Janusz Korczak. New York: Collins. Meuwese, S., Detrick, S., Jansen, S., et al. (Eds.). (2007). 100 years of child protection. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal. Mnookin, R. H. (Ed.). (1985). In the interest of the child. Advocacy, law reform, and public policy. New York: W.H. Freeman. Pais, M. S. (2010). The protection of children from sexual exploitation. Optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 18(4), 551–566. Quennerstedt, A. (2010). Children, but not real humans? Critical reflections on the hampering effect of the “3 p’s”. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 18(4), 619–635. Reporting Guidelines. (2010). Treaty-specific guidelines regarding the form and content of periodic reports to be submitted by States parties under article 44, paragraph 1 (b), of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Adopted by the Committee at its fifty-fifth session, 13 Sept–1 Oct 2010; UN Doc. CRC/C/58/Rev.2. Roper, Superintendent, Potosi Correctional Center v. Simmons, argued Oct 13, 2004; decided Mar 1, 2005, 543 US 551 (2005). Sellin, T. (1944). Pioneering in penology. The Amsterdam houses of correction in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Pittsburgh: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Sieghart, P. (1990). The international law of human rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ten Bensel, R. W., Rheinberger, M., & Radbill, S. X. (1997). Children in a world of violence: The roots of child maltreatment. In M. E. Helfer, R. S. Kempe, & R. D. Krugman (Eds.), The battered child (5th ed., pp. 3–28). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Todres, J., Wojcik, M. E., & Revaz, C. R. (2006). The UN convention on the rights of the child: An analysis of treaty provisions and implications of US ratification. Ardsley: Trans-national. Tuttle, C. (1999). Hard at work in factories and mines: The economics of child labour during the British Industrial Revolution. Boulder: Westview Press. UNICEF. (2007). Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. UNICEF. (2009). Handbook on the optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (p. 74). Florence: Innocenti Publications. UNICEF. (2012). The state of the world’s children 2012: Children in the urban world. New York: UNICEF. UNICEF, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. (2003). Guide to the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (p. 71). New York: UNICEF. van Bueren, G. (1995). The international law on the rights of the child. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhof. Veerman, P. (1991). The rights of the child and the changing image of childhood. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhof. Vuckovic, S. N., Doek, J. E., & Zermatten, J. (2012). The rights of the child in international law. Rights of the child in a nutshell and in context. Bern: St€ampfli Verlag. Weissbach, L. S. (1989). Child labor reform in nineteenth-century France: Assuming the future harvest. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Zermatten, J. (2010). The best interest of the child principle: Literal analysis and function. The Journal of International Children’s Rights, 18(4), 483–499. Zigler, E., & Hall, N. W. (1989). Physical child abuse in America: past, present and future. In D. Ciccheti & V. Carlson (Eds.), Child maltreatment; theory and research in the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Neuroscience and Child Well-Being Adeline Jabe`s and Charles A. Nelson

8.1

Introduction

Over the past few decades, the field of developmental neuroscience has witnessed an exponential increase in research aimed at elucidating brain development. Historically, the development of the brain has long been thought to be a purely maturational process, one largely under the control of genetics. However, we now know this view is in many respects incomplete, having been challenged by the increasing evidence that experience (defined as the interactions with a social and physical environment) can have a major impact on neural development. To date, it is clear that brain development is the result of a combination of genetic predispositions and environmental factors (see Nelson and Bloom 1997; Fox et al. 2010 for elaboration). Moreover, the interaction between the developing brain and experience has been shown to be highly complex and reciprocal. Indeed, not only does experience impact brain development, but, conversely, changes occurring in development will influence how the child interacts with his or her environment. Understanding the interaction between brain development and experience can provide an important perspective on child well-being. First, it is clear that a solid understanding of brain development is essential to understanding the potentials and limitations of the individual to interact with his or her world. Perhaps one of the more remarkable processes in human development is the emergence and elaboration of cognitive capacities, blossoming at an amazing rate from birth to adolescence. The development of the brain is the process by which cognitive abilities emerge gradually during life. For example, a child will not have the same capacities at 4 and 8 years of age, and this greatly impacts how one might interact with a child or the approach one takes in educating a child.

A. Jabe`s (*) • C.A. Nelson Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 219 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_10, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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A second way to comprehend child well-being that we propose in this chapter is in studying the impact of experience on brain development. As mentioned above, the relation between the developing brain and experience is not a fixed and linear process, but instead is quite complex. This intricate relationship can be summarized in three points: (1) Experience can promote child well-being by providing the necessary information for the brain to develop properly. (2) Experience can also interfere with brain development, by disturbing the delicate and precise machinery that comprises the biological substrate, therefore disrupting the child’s ability to experience the world in an optimal way. (3) Finally, aspects of the environment can alleviate the negative impact of other environmental factors by taking advantage of the unique plastic abilities of the developing brain, a capacity that will eventually allow us to develop better interventions. An important point to be noted here is that the interaction between brain and experience will be greatly modulated by the different developmental status of the brain throughout life. Not only will children incorporate experience differently depending on the developmental status of their brain, but, additionally, their experience will impact their growth differently depending on the stage of brain development. In other words, as the brain is developing, its sensitivity to external inputs changes, so the brain will need particular environmental inputs at specific time points in order to mature properly. Also, while brain development may be especially vulnerable to perturbations during specific developmental windows, it retains the plasticity to alleviate deleterious effects from the environment during certain developmental periods. Therefore, it is important to recognize that ontogeny is much more than the execution of a genetic program. Even children of the same age who share the same DNA (i.e., monozygotic twins) may well incorporate experience differently, as the environment in which we progress greatly shapes the development of our brain. To understand how experience affects brain development, it is first important to understand how the brain develops. For this purpose, we briefly describe this ongoing and prolonged process, following from conception to early adulthood. We review the different maturational processes leading to the developed brain, highlighting that while brain development is most profound during prenatal life, it goes through significant change postnatally as well. Second, we describe the interrelation that exists between experience and the developing brain, presenting the mechanisms through which the environment impacts the brain. Finally, we illustrate this interaction by presenting examples of this interrelation within the frameworks of sensory, language, memory, and social and emotional development. We emphasize the importance of studying brain development and its relation to the environment. This information begins to shed light on our understanding of the needs and vulnerabilities of children at each step of their development and will eventually lead to crucial improvements in education, policies, therapeutics/intervention, as well as benefits in everyday care with those who interact with them. Taking this valuable perspective on development will help to ensure optimal outcomes in child well-being.

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Brain Development

The formation and development of the human brain is a protracted process, beginning within a few weeks after conception and continuing through early adulthood. Shortly after conception, the two-celled zygote begins to divide, creating a cluster of unstructured cells called the blastocyst that contains an inner (the embryoblast) and an outer layer (the trophoblast). The former will give rise to the embryo proper, whereas the latter will give rise to support structures, including the amniotic sac, placenta, and umbilical cord. After several more cell cycles have been completed, sometime between the first and second prenatal week, the embryoblast subdivides into three layers: an inner layer (endoderm), middle layer (mesoderm), and outer layer (ectoderm). The endoderm will give rise to most of the internal organs of the body, the mesoderm will give rise to support structures (e.g., bones), and the ectoderm will give rise to the central and peripheral nervous systems. This section will focus on the ectoderm, as this layer gives rise to the brain and spinal cord, the two parts of the central nervous system.

8.2.1

Neural Induction and Neurulation

The formation of the neural tube, which is derived from the ectoderm, is considered by most to be the first stage of brain development. The process of transforming the undifferentiated tissue lining the dorsal side of the ectoderm into nervous system tissue is referred to as neural induction. The additional processes of primary and secondary neurulation refer to the further differentiation of this neural tissue into the brain and the spinal cord (for a review of neural induction and neurulation, see Lumsden and Kintner 2003). As cells that line the ectoderm multiply, the ectodermal layer thickens to form a pear-shaped neural plate. This plate gradually begins to fold over onto itself, forming a tube (Fig. 8.1a and b). This process takes place approximately between Day 22 and Day 26 of gestation (Keith 1948; Sidman and Rakic 1982). This tube gradually closes at the bottom, which will give rise to the spinal cord, and then the top, which will develop into the brain. Cells trapped inside the tube will lead to the formation of the central nervous system (CNS), whereas those trapped between the outer layer of the neural tube and the dorsal portion of the ectodermal wall (i.e. the neural crest) will give rise to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) (see Fig. 8.1c). As illustrated in Fig. 8.2, the neural tube rapidly becomes a three-vesicle structure, and then a five-vesicle structure. The caudal portion of the tube (bottom) will give rise to the hindbrain (rhombencephalon), which will consist of three structures: (1) the medulla oblongata, which regulates basic bodily functions and forms important connections from the rest of the brain to the spinal cord; (2) the pons, which relays sensory information between the cerebral hemispheres and the cerebellum; and (3) the cerebellum, which will subserve a variety of motor functions. The middle vesicle of the neural tube gives rise to the midbrain (mesencephalon), which caudally (along the bottom) connects to the pons and rostrally (along the top) connects to the diencephalon, a forebrain structure that

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222 Fig. 8.1 The process of neurulation (See text for details; from Kandel, Schwartz and Jessel, Copyright 1992, McGrawHill Co. Reproduced with permission)

a

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Notochord Neural groove

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Neural crest Neural tube

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Somite Ventral

consists of the thalamus and the hypothalamus. Finally, the most rostral portion of the tube will give rise to the forebrain (prosencephalon), which in turn will subdivide into the telencephalon (cerebral hemispheres), the diencephalon, and the basal ganglia.

8.2.2

Cell Proliferation and Neurogenesis

Once the neural tube has formed, cells that line the innermost portion of the tube (the ventricular zone) begin to divide, a process called mitosis. Each of these newly generated cells then begins the process again. Eventually some of these cells will

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b 1

Forebrain

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Lateral ventricle

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Metencephalon (pons and cerebellum) Myelencephalon (medulla)

Cerebral aqueduct Spinal cord Fourth ventricle

3b

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Fig. 8.2 Once the primitive neural tube is formed and cells begin to differentiate, the central nervous system emerges (From Kandel, Schwartz and Jessel, Copyright 1992, McGraw-Hill Co. Reproduced with permission)

stop dividing and will differentiate into neurons (neurogenesis) or glia (gliogenesis), the two main cell types composing the brain. This proliferative stage leads to a massive production of new neurons, generally beginning in the fifth prenatal week, and peaking between the third and fourth prenatal months (for a review see Bronner-Fraser and Hatten 2003). It has been estimated that at its peak, more than several hundred thousand new nerve cells are generated each minute (Brown et al. 2001). This proliferative stage continues for some time, ultimately resulting in the newborn brain having many more neurons than the adult brain. The overproduction of neurons is compensated for by a second

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normative process referred to as apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Apoptosis is responsible for the pruning back of these neurons to adult numbers. With the exception of neurons in the olfactory bulb, virtually every one of the estimated 100 billion neurons we possess seems to have its genesis during prenatal development. One additional area that shows neurogenesis postnatally in both animals and humans is the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation (Altman and Das 1965; Rakic and Nowakowski 1981; Eriksson et al. 1998). For example, it has been shown in monkeys that neurogenesis peaks within the first 3 months after birth and remains at an intermediate level between 3 months and at least 1 year of age. Moreover, a lower but significant level of neurogenesis has been observed in adult monkeys (Jabe`s et al. 2010). The protracted developmental process found in this region is particularly relevant to this chapter as this neurogenesis can be influenced by early postnatal experience (this will be discussed later in the context of memory as well as environmental enrichment). Despite recent debates regarding neurogenesis in various regions of the neocortex, to date the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus are the only brain regions known to exhibit postnatal neurogenesis (for a review on the topic see Gould 2007). The assumption that the brain is limited in the production of new neurons after birth has important implications for development, as it suggests that the brain will not have the ability to repair itself after injury or following disease by creating new neurons. Future work on neurogenesis will prove vitally important to our understanding of brain plasticity and to the development of interventions and therapeutics (for a general discussion of links between postnatal neurogenesis and therapeutics see Lie et al. 2004).

8.2.3

Cell Migration

The neocortex (the outer covering of the brain comprised of “hills and valleys,” more technically, sulci and gyri) is constructed by immature neurons that move from the subventricular region outward – a process referred to as cell migration. This migratory journey, which lasts less than a day per neuron, progresses in wave upon wave of cells marching from one location to another until the neuron receives a signal to stop and set up home in a particular location. Six months after conception, all six layers of the cortex have been formed (Marin-Padilla 1978). There are two types of migratory patterns illustrated by cells – radial and tangential. The former refers to the propagation of cells from the deepest to the most superficial layers of the cortex. Approximately 70–80 % of migrating neurons (primarily pyramidal neurons) and most glia (including oligodendrocytes and astrocytes) use this radial pathway (for more information on radial migration see Kriegstein and Gotz 2003). In contrast, cortical interneurons and nuclei of the brainstem adopt a tangential migratory pattern (Nadarajah and Parnavelas 2002). Most cell migration is complete by approximately the 25th prenatal week. Once a cell has completed its migratory journey, it continues through a complex

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developmental process that we discuss in the next section. We focus on the development of neurons, as they are the key components for information processing in the brain network.

8.2.4

Cell Maturation

Once a neuron has migrated to its target destination, it generally proceeds along one of two roads: the cell can develop processes (axons and dendrites) or it can be retracted through apoptosis. Current estimates place the number of neurons that are subsequently retracted at 40–60 % (Oppenheim and Johnson 2003). The development of axons is facilitated by growth cones, small structures that sit on the top of axons. The growth cone directs an axon toward some targets and away from others using cues from the extracellular matrix surrounding the neuron, and possibly local gene expression (for a review on axonal development see Sanes et al. 2011). Lamellipodia and filopodia, two anatomical structures extending from the growth cone play a primary role in axon guidance. Lamellipodia are thin fan-shaped structures, whereas filopodia are long, thin spikes that radiate forward. These structures provide the axon with the ability to move through the brain micrometer by micrometer until the axon is within synapse range of a neighboring neuron. There are various molecular cues helping the axon to find its way, some in the extracellular matrix (e.g., laminin, tenascin, or collagen) and some that sit on the surface of established axons and act as guides (e.g., cell adhesion molecules). Whether the molecules reside in the extracellular matrix or on the axon proper, axons are guided toward (attractant cues) or away from (repellant cues) neighboring neurons (for a review see Tessier-Lavigne and Goodman 1996). Early dendrites appear as thick processes with few spines (small protuberances that occupy the length of the dendrite) that extend from the cell body. As dendrites mature, the number and density of the spines increase; this, in turn, increases the chance that a dendrite will make contact with a neighboring axon. The first dendrites appear approximately 15 weeks after conception, which is about the same time the first axons reach the cortical plate. At 25–27 weeks gestation, dendritic spines greatly increase in number, on both pyramidal and non-pyramidal cells (Mrzljak et al. 1988). Dendritic growth has been shown to continue during an extended postnatal period in some cortical regions (until roughly the age of 5 years; Koenderink and Uylings 1995). Additionally, there appears to be an overproduction of both axons and dendrites during development with the final number achieved through competitive elimination.

8.2.5

Synaptogenesis

A synapse is the point of contact between two neurons, frequently between an axon and a dendrite. Depending on the neuron in question, the action of a synapse can be

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excitatory (promoting the likelihood of an action potential) or inhibitory (reducing the likelihood of an action potential). The first synapses are generally observed by about 23 weeks gestation (Molliver et al. 1973), although the peak of production does not occur until sometime in the first year of life (for a review see Webb et al. 2001). As is the case with neurons, there is a massive overproduction of synapses, which is followed by a gradual reduction (i.e., synaptic pruning); it has been estimated that 40 % more synapses are produced than exist in the adult brain (see Levitt 2003). The peak of overproduction varies by brain area. In the visual cortex, a synaptic peak is reached between approximately 4 and 8 postnatal months (Huttenlocher and de Courten 1987), whereas in the middle frontal gyrus, a region of the prefrontal cortex, the peak synaptic density is not obtained until after 15 postnatal months (Huttenlocher and Dabholkar 1997). There is evidence that the overproduction of synapses is largely under genetic control, although little is known about the genes that regulate synaptogenesis. For example, Bourgeois and colleagues (Bourgeois et al. 1989) have reported that being born prematurely or even removing the eyes of monkeys prior to birth has little effect on the overproduction of synapses in their visual cortex. Thus, in both cases, the absolute number of synapses is the same as if a monkey experienced a typical, full-term birth. This suggests a highly regularized process with little influence by experience. However, the same cannot be said for synaptic pruning. Indeed, synaptic pruning is strongly influenced by the environment. The process of retracting synapses until some final (and presumably optimal) number has been reached is dependent in part on the communication between neurons. Following the Hebbian principle of use and disuse, the more active synapses tend to be strengthened and the less active synapses tend to be weakened or even eliminated (Chechik et al. 1999). Neurons organize and support synaptic contact through neurotransmitter receptors on the presynaptic cell (the cell attempting to make contact) and through neurotrophins expressed by the postsynaptic cell (the cell on which contact is made), and synapses are modulated and stabilized by the distribution of excitatory and inhibitory inputs (Kostovic 1991). Le Be´ and Markram (2006) demonstrated using 12–14-day-old rat neocortical slices that pyramidal neurons spontaneously connect and disconnect from each other and that adding an excitatory neurotransmitter (glutamate) increases the number of connections that are formed. The adjustments that are made in the pruning of synapses can either be quantitative, with a reduction in the overall number of synapses, or qualitative, with a refinement of connections such that incorrect or abnormal connections are eliminated. Growing research has found that the pruning of synapses appears to vary by area. The number of synapses in the human occipital cortex peaks between 4 and 8 months of age and is reduced to adult number by 4–6 years of age. In contrast, synapses in the middle frontal gyrus of the human prefrontal cortex reach their peak closer to 1–1.5 years of age, but are not reduced to adult numbers until mid- to late adolescence (Huttenlocher 1979, 1994; Huttenlocher and Dabholkar 1997;

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Fig. 8.3 Synaptogenesis follows a different time course in different regions of the brain. Mean synaptic density in auditory (filled circles), visual (open circles), and prefrontal (x) cortices (Huttenlocher and Dabholkar 1997; reused based on the permission/STM permission Guidelines)

Huttenlocher and de Courten 1987). Figure 8.3 summarizes the different time course of synaptogenesis in different brain regions. Unfortunately these data are based on relatively few brains and relatively old methods. We should expect improved figures in the years to come with advances in new methods, a point that applies to much of the literature reviewed thus far.

8.2.6

Myelination

Myelin is a fatty substance, which, when wrapped around an axon, tends to increase the conduction velocity or speed at which neuronal impulses travel. Oligodendroglia produce myelin in the CNS, whereas Schwann cells produce myelin in the ANS. Myelination occurs in waves beginning prenatally and ending in young adulthood (and in some regions, as late as middle age; see Benes et al. 1994). Historically, myelin was examined in postmortem tissue using staining methods. From such work, it was revealed that myelination begins prenatally with the peripheral nervous system, motor roots, sensory roots, somesthetic cortex, and the primary visual and auditory cortices (listed in chronological order). During the first postnatal year, regions of the brainstem, cerebellum, and the splenium of the corpus callosum

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become myelinated, and by 1 year of age, myelination of all regions of the corpus callosum is under way. Although staining for myelin is undoubtedly the most sensitive metric for examining the course of myelination, this procedure can only be done on postmortem brains, raising question of how representative these brains are of the general population. Fortunately, advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have now made it possible to acquire detailed information about myelination in living children; importantly, several longitudinal studies have examined the course of myelination from early childhood through early adulthood (Giedd et al. 1996a, b; Jernigan et al. 1991; Paus et al. 1999; Sowell et al. 1999). Thus far, these findings have revealed that the pre- through postadolescent period demonstrates an increase in gray matter volume, followed by a decrease, whereas white matter shows first a decrease and then an increase. During this same period, notable changes occur in the dorsal, medial, and lateral regions of the frontal lobes, whereas relatively fewer changes are observed in the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. This suggests, not surprisingly, that the most dramatic changes in myelination occur in the frontal lobes through the adolescent period (for a general overview see Durston et al. (2001)).

8.2.7

Summary on Brain Development: What About Childhood?

Brain development is an ongoing process, including age-specific changes occurring from the first days of gestation throughout the first two decades of life. The basic architecture of the brain is formed during the first two trimesters of fetal life, while the last trimester and the first few postnatal years see changes in connectivity. Finally, the most prolonged changes occur in the wiring of the brain (synaptogenesis) and in making the brain work more efficiently (myelination), both of which show dramatic, nonlinear changes from the preschool period through the end of adolescence. Despite all we know about brain development, it is important to note that much of the available information is greatly limited to the prenatal and early postnatal period. We know that by the age a child begins preschool, the basic architecture of the brain has been established. However, while some functions might be already adultlike by then (e.g., sensory functions), others seem to exhibit a protracted developmental profile (e.g., memory functions; see below for more details). At the brain level, one noticeable maturational event occurring during childhood is a change in the overall ratio between grey matter volume, areas containing mainly cell bodies, and white matter volume, areas containing mainly myelinated axons (see above); specifically, an increase in the white matter volume is observed during childhood and adolescence. This means that long-distance myelinated connections appear to be developing during childhood, permitting one region of the brain to communicate with other regions more efficiently. For example, it has been suggested that the connections between the hippocampal formation, a brain region subserving memory processes, and the prefrontal cortex, which has been proposed

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to be involved in the cognitive control of memory (among other functions; Badre and Wagner 2007), might undergo late development. Indeed, it has been shown that the functional interaction between these two regions of the brain still increases between 10 and 20 years of age (Menon et al. 2005). These changes might potentially lead to the development of more effective memory processes during childhood and beyond. In accordance, it has been shown that memory abilities continue to improve throughout childhood (Sluzenski et al. 2006) and even until young adulthood (Ofen et al. 2007). Therefore, even if the main brain components are present at birth or shortly after, major changes, such as myelination, occur during childhood that will lead the brain to subserve the complex adult functioning later in life.

8.3

Environmental Influences on Brain Development

The description of brain development provided above might lead us to believe that this process is fixed and mainly predetermined; however, this is not the case. Although the developmental events occurring from conception are largely maturational in nature and primarily controlled by intrinsic genetic factors, it is essential to also emphasize the profound influence that experience exerts on the developing brain. Indeed, the brain not only changes as a function of development, but also as a function of its interaction with the environment and this can have significant impacts on the quality of life and well-being of the developing individual. The brain’s ability to be molded by experience during development is called developmental plasticity. Interestingly, experience is not something that just happens to the brain, but rather reflects the product of an ongoing and reciprocal interaction between the environment and the brain. For example, experience interacts importantly with genetics. Turkheimer and colleagues (2003) examined IQ in 7-year-old twins, a substantial number of whom were drawn from families living at or below the poverty level. The authors reported that the heritability of IQ varied nonlinearly as a function of socioeconomic status (SES). Thus, among twins living in impoverished environments, a substantial portion of the variance was accounted for by the environmental factors, with relatively little variance accounted for by genetics; in contrast, this effect was almost completely reversed among twins living in affluent families. More importantly for the focus of this chapter, experience greatly impacts the developing brain in a time-dependent manner. In other words, the extent by which the environment influences the brain varies greatly as a function of the maturational state of the brain at the time of exposure. Indeed, the different regions of the brain, and by extension their particular functions, mature at different time points during development. As the brain passes through different developmental stages, its sensitivity or vulnerability to experience varies accordingly – hence the concept of sensitive periods (see Knudsen 2003). More specifically, these sensitive or critical periods of development are distinct for each

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maturational process; each developmental process occurs for a different time window during which they are particularly sensitive to environmental influences. For example, developmental processes such as proliferation, neurogenesis, or migration, all of which primarily occur prenatally, will be less susceptible to environmental factors after birth (see below the noticeable exception of postnatal neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus). In contrast, synaptogenesis and myelination, processes occurring throughout a longer time period (prenatally and postnatally), are more sensitive to environmental factors and might be modulated by the environment from birth to early adulthood.

8.3.1

Experience-Induced Plasticity

Before describing specific examples of relations between brain and behavioral development and the environment, we should briefly introduce the different kinds of experience-induced plasticity that can impact brain development. Indeed, two types of experience-induced plasticity have been described (for a review see Black et al. 1998; Greenough et al. 1987): experience-expectant plasticity and experiencedependent plasticity. Experience-expectant plasticity refers to experience-induced changes in the brain that are common to all members of the species. These experiences must occur for the brain to develop normally and thus for behavioral development to proceed on a typical trajectory. For example, our ability to use both eyes to derive information about depth (i.e., binocular depth perception) requires access to pattern light information. Importantly, access to this type of visual information must occur at a time in development when synapses in the visual cortex are still malleable, a sensitive period ending approximately around 4–6 years of age (see Sect. 8.2.5). This again underscores one key point of developmental plasticity: brain systems remain plastic during a limited time window (specific to the developmental profile of each system), and if such inputs fail to occur or if the inputs are abnormal, the development will be disrupted. In the case of depth perception, exposure to a typical environmental experience (e.g., access to pattern light information) during a specific period during development allows for successful development of this visual function. This type of basic visual experience can be categorized as expected by all members of a species as it presupposes that the young organism will confront a normal visual world with an intact visual system. Experience-expectant plasticity will be further discussed in several of the examples below, including the cases of sensory, language, and social and emotional development, as it is expected (or, indeed, hoped) that a child will be reared in an environment that will provide the needed inputs to allow for typical development in these domains. Experience-dependent plasticity is the second type of environmentally induced plasticity, and this allows the brain to adapt to environmental factors that are unique to each individual rather than common across species. An example of such plasticity is learning; individuals will be exposed to a variety of information that will be stored and drive future behavior, and since this information is differentially

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available or stored across individuals, it will give rise to differences in a variety of cognitive domains from person to person. In the next section, we provide specific examples of such developmental plasticity. As mentioned above, experience-expectant development will be the main mechanism behind these examples. By describing research on the impact of experience on brain development, we aim to reiterate two major concepts: First, a certain normative environment is essential to ensure that the brain will develop properly. Second, modulation of the brain by the environment is highly dependent on the developmental stage of the brain at the time of exposure. We present examples of both positive and negative factors that can impact brain maturation during specific postnatal developmental periods. These examples will be restricted to the sensory, linguistic, memory, and social and emotional domains. It is important to note that once the brain is fully developed (i.e., around 20 years of age as described earlier), the potential of the brain to be molded by experience or to recover from injury is still present in some brain circuits. The reader can refer to another work from our laboratory for an overview on these adult plasticity mechanisms and a discussion on the difference between developmental and adult plasticity (Nelson et al. 2006b).

8.4

Models of Brain-Environment Interactions

The important role of experience on brain and behavioral development has been most commonly demonstrated using studies of deprivation. The studies reviewed below focus on the impact of adverse environmental factors, such as deprivation of sensory input, food, or care, on the development of brain and behavior. We also discuss instances where the brain and its function can be shaped by positive experience.

8.4.1

Sensory Development

8.4.1.1 Visual Function Pioneering work on the developmental plasticity of the visual system was provided by Hubel and Wiesel 50 years ago in studies of visual deprivation in kittens (for a review on the topic see Huttenlocher 2002). These authors showed that although a bilateral ocular deprivation (i.e., by suturing both eyes shut) occurring between 3 and 8 weeks of life leads to severe deficits of visual functions, the same deprivation in adult cats had no such effects. Moreover, these authors found that unilateral deprivation between 3 and 8 weeks postnatally leads to an increase in the number of neurons in the area of the visual cortex processing information from the nondeprived eye, but again, not if this occurs in adulthood. The same observations have been made in nonhuman primates, showing that a critical period exists for the development of the visual system from birth to the first year of life during which

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visual function can be impacted by environmental manipulation. These data were among the first to show the importance of early experience on the development of visual function. Extending from this work using animal models, more recent work on congenital cataracts in humans has explored early experience on the visual system. A cataract is an opacity that covers the eye, which, if dense enough, may permit only light perception but no pattern perception, which is the perception of distinct items and the relation between them. For example, drawing on longitudinal data, Maurer and colleagues (1999) reported that among infants born with cataracts that are removed and replaced by new lenses within months of birth, even just the first few minutes of visual experience can lead to a rapid change in visual acuity. Not unexpectedly, the longer the cataracts are present (reducing the amount of time for exposure to a normal visual world to occur), the less favorable the outcome. More specifically, if the cataract is removed before 2 months of age, visual function will develop normally, and if the surgery occurs between 4 and 6 months of age, visual acuity will show significant improvement (Mohindra et al. 1983). In sharp contrast, work examining this intervention during adulthood has found extremely limited benefit on visual functions (Fine et al. 2002). Interestingly, although most visual functions undergo dramatic improvements following early cataract removal, some aspects of face perception continue to be impaired, suggesting that this specific visual function has a distinct and narrower sensitive period of development. There is now extensive evidence to support the notion that experience powerfully contributes to face processing abilities (for a review see Nelson 2001, 2003; Scott and Nelson 2004). First, e.g., we know that adults have difficulty discriminating inverted faces, a phenomenon that appears to emerge by about 4 months of age (Fagan 1972). This inversion effect is typically attributed to the fact that we have extensive experience seeing faces upright and virtually no experience seeing them upside down; thus, it is experience with the former that accounts for poorer performance in processing or recognizing inverted faces. Second, there is the well-known “other race” effect, in which adults, more so than children, find it easier to recognize faces from their own race (see Chance et al. 1982; O’Toole et al. 1994). Third, as previously discussed, Maurer and colleagues (1999) reported that children born with cataracts go on to develop very good visual functions in general once the cataracts are removed, although subtle deficits in face recognition persist. These findings have been interpreted to suggest that exposure to normal faces during a sensitive period of development is crucial for normal face processing skills to develop properly. Fourth, perhaps the strongest evidence for the role of experience in the development of face processing comes from the findings that both monkeys and human adults are better at recognizing faces from their own species (Pascalis and Bachevalier 1998). For example, in the first 6 months of life, infants are quite good at discriminating both human and monkey faces, but by 9 months, infants behave more like adults: they can discriminate two human faces but have a very difficult time discriminating two monkey faces (Pascalis et al. 2002). These data strongly suggest that cortical specialization for face processing is driven by experience with faces.

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Altogether these data show that visual functions are not only dependent on postnatal experience, but this dependency occurs within a relatively narrow period of time – and when it comes to face processing, a very narrow period of time.

8.4.1.2 Auditory Function Although the auditory system seems to be functional as early as the 27th week of gestation (for reviews on the development of auditory function see Werner et al. 2012), the maturation of auditory perception in humans is a protracted process from prenatal life throughout adolescence (Sanes and Bao 2009). The impact of early experience on auditory functioning has been tested in 9-day-old rats reared in an environment of continuous, moderate-level noise (Cheng and Merzenich 2003). Continuous noise rearing delayed the organization of the auditory cortex; specifically, the auditory receptive fields differed from what would be expected under normal auditory rearing conditions. Moreover, when these rats reached young adulthood, the auditory cortex appeared very similar to infants, suggesting that an adverse acoustic environment early in life can disrupt maturation. Interestingly, the same noise exposure applied to rats older than 30 days did not lead to changes in neural activity in the auditory cortex (Zhang et al. 2002), suggesting that the critical developmental period for auditory functioning has already passed. A related set of data has been collected through the study of children suffering from congenital deafness who later received cochlear implants. Electrophysiological responses to speech sounds were recorded 6 months after children received the implant, and for children receiving this intervention at 3.5 years of age or less, age-appropriate responses were exhibited. In contrast, those implanted at 7 years of age or later showed abnormal electrophysiological responses to speech (Sharma et al. 2002, 2005); for a review see Kral and Eggermont (2007).

8.4.2

Language Development

Studies on the development of language have also contributed to discussion of a developmental critical period for auditory function. Indeed, it is well established that language abilities can be better acquired during infancy than later in life. One set of studies have focused on work showing that monolingual adults have difficulty discriminating speech contrasts from various nonnative languages. For example, native English-speaking adults who have never been exposed to Japanese experience great difficulty in discriminating speech contrasts from this language. This differs dramatically from the English-speaking adult’s highly developed ability to discriminate speech contrasts from their own language. In contrast to a monolingual adult, infants during the first year of life are initially able to discriminate speech contrasts from all languages, whether native or non-native. Between 6 and 12 months of life, however, the infants’ ability to discriminate phonemes from languages to which they are not exposed declines greatly (for a review see Saffran et al. 2006).

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Thus, although a 6-month-old infant raised in an English-speaking home may be able to discriminate contrasts from English, as well as those from Japanese, e.g., by 12 months of age, such infants become more like English-speaking adults, losing the ability to discriminate contrasts from nonnative languages. Collectively, these data have been interpreted to suggest that the speech system remains open to experience for a certain period of time, but if experience in a particular domain (such as hearing speech contrasts in different languages) does not occur, the window begins to close within the first year of life. Interestingly, Kuhl and colleagues (2003) have found that infants who are given additional experience with speech sounds in a nonnative language before 12 months of age continue to retain these discriminatory abilities. This implies that certain discriminatory abilities might be lost unless experience with nonnative languages occurs during a sensitive period of development. Beyond more basic speech perception, which surely has implications for later language processing, another domain of language development that can be considered in the context of developmental brain plasticity is the ability to acquire a second language during the life span. The development of language is a classic example of developmental plasticity (for a review see Kuhl 2010). There has been great debate surrounding the sensitive period for acquiring a second (or third or fourth) language. Dehaene et al. (1997) have reported that the neural representation of a second language is identical to that of a first language in truly bilingual individuals. However, if linguistic competence of the second language is not as strong as the first, then the functional neuroanatomy (based on PET data) shows differences. Since the bilinguals studied in this work had acquired their second language early in life, the initial conclusion was that the second language needed to be acquired early to be represented in the brain in the same location as the first language. Perani et al. (1998) have challenged this conclusion in work that asked whether it was the age at which the second language was acquired that was the critical variable or the proficiency with which this language was spoken. In this study, the age at which the second language had been mastered covaried with how well this language was spoken. The authors reported that it was proficiency, not age of acquisition, that was most critical. Thus, shared neural representation for both languages related to whether the second language was spoken with equal proficiency as the first language. Related findings have been obtained with congenitally deaf individuals who are proficient in sign language: the areas of the brain involved in processing sign language for deaf individuals are identical to those areas processing spoken language for hearing individuals (Petitto et al. 2000). Furthermore, Newman and colleagues (2002) have reported that sign language is represented in the same location as spoken language only among individuals who acquired sign language before puberty. This suggests that there is a sensitive period for representing sign language in the same regions of the brain as spoken language. Work by Mayberry and colleagues (2002) has also reported that proficiency in sign language among deaf individuals was far greater among subjects who had been exposed to sign language earlier in life, pointing to a sensitive period for

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acquiring high proficiency in sign language, as seems to be the case for spoken languages (see above). It is interesting to note that the issue of shared neural representation for multiple languages differs from the issue of speaking a second language without an accent. Indeed, individuals who acquire a second language before the age of 10 years are far more likely to speak that language without an accent than those who acquire that language after the age of 10 (e.g., Johnson and Newport 1989).

8.4.3

Declarative Memory Development

Further examples of the effects of early experience on brain development can be found in the literature about declarative memory, i.e., memory for facts (semantic memory) and memory for events (episodic memory). Indeed, it has been shown that adverse environmental factors impact the development of the hippocampal formation, a medial temporal lobe structure subserving declarative memory. Work in animals has found that birds experiencing nutritional deprivation during the first 2 months of their life will exhibit memory deficits later in life (Pravosudov et al. 2005). Indeed, at 1 year of age, those birds had smaller hippocampi with fewer neurons, and their performance on different spatial memory tasks was significantly decreased. In contrast, deprived birds performed similarly to control animals on a hippocampal-independent learning task. Most interestingly, nutritional rehabilitation from 2 months to 1 year of age does not alleviate the deleterious effects of early malnutrition, suggesting that a critical neurodevelopmental period had passed. The development of the hippocampal formation is a particularly prolonged process. Indeed, as described earlier, neurogenesis in this region occurs over a protracted period as compared to other brain regions, extending the functional maturation of this memory system (Richmond and Nelson 2008; for a perspective on the topic see Jabe`s et al. 2011). One might therefore expect that the hippocampal formation will be particularly vulnerable and sensitive to postnatal environmental influences. This point has been illustrated by Vargha-Khadem and colleagues (1997) in their initial report of three children who had suffered hypoxic insult (i.e., lack of oxygen) during infancy or childhood and who presented with severe impairments in everyday memory functioning. Volumetric MRI showed bilateral hippocampal atrophy in all three cases with volumes ranging from 39 % to 57 % below normal. Neuropsychological evaluations revealed that while these children had IQs within the normal range, their scores on standardized memory tests were significantly lower than would be predicted by their intelligence. The pattern of impairment exhibited by these children closely resembled that of adult amnesic patients: Performances on tests of immediate memory were normal; however, they exhibited severe deficits when they were asked to recall information after a delay. Further, the children found it difficult to navigate even familiar surroundings, often forgot where they had left objects, were unable to remember appointments or messages, and could not provide accounts of everyday events in which they had

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participated. Despite this profound amnesia, the children attended mainstream school and had learned to read, write, and spell at a level that was consistent with their IQs. The children had also acquired considerable factual knowledge, as evidenced by normal performance on vocabulary, information, and comprehension subtests. Vargha-Khadem and colleagues (1997) suggested then that these children exhibit severe impairments in episodic memory but relatively spared semantic memory abilities, a syndrome now known as developmental amnesia. This phenomenon contrasts with the fact that a lesion of the hippocampus in adults generally impairs both semantic and episodic memory processes (Squire and Zola 1996). Since the initial report by Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997), several additional cases of developmental amnesia have been identified (Adlam et al. 2005; Baddley et al. 2001; Gadian et al. 2000; Isaacs et al. 2003; King et al. 2004; Vargha-Kahdem et al. 2001, 2003). Interestingly and in accordance with the data presented so far, it seems that the selective pattern of impairment seen in developmental amnesia (i.e., impaired episodic memory but intact semantic memory) is not necessarily restricted to cases in which the injury occurs very early in life. Children who incurred hypoxic-ischemic insult during middle childhood exhibit the same neuropsychological profile as do children who had experienced perinatal hypoxic-ischemic insult (Vargha-Khadem et al. 2003). To date, it is unclear if the differential pattern of impairments characterizing developmental amnesia as compared to adult amnesia is related to differences in the extent of the hippocampal pathology or due to the role of plasticity and compensatory mechanisms in the developing brain (Bachevalier and Vargha-Khadem 2005). Bachevalier and Vargha-Khadem (2005) proposed that because the rhinal cortex was intact in these individuals, all retained the ability to form context-free semantic memories; but, because of the hippocampal damage, none developed the ability to form context-rich episodic memories. An alternative interpretation is that the hippocampal formation is necessary for semantic memory as well, but in the cases of developmental amnesia, the brain exhibited remarkable plasticity ability at least until childhood. This type of developmental plasticity has been reported in monkeys that received hippocampal lesions shortly after birth. Indeed, spatial relational learning persisted following neonatal lesions (Lavenex et al. 2007), whereas hippocampal lesions prevented spatial relational learning in adult-lesioned monkeys (Banta Lavenex et al. 2006). Lavenex and colleagues have proposed that early insult to the hippocampal formation might be functionally compensated through the recruitment of brain regions that normally will not subserve spatial relational memory function.

8.4.4

Social and Emotional Development

A rather dramatic example of the effects of early experience on cognitive development can be found in studies examining individuals being reared in institutional settings, an environment characterized by highly impoverished sensory, cognitive, and linguistic stimulation as well as low-quality caregiving practices. This type of

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early deprivation has been found to have profound effects on a variety of aspects of development. For example, Gunnar (2001) reported that the long-term sequelae of children experiencing early institutionalization and concomitant deprivation include deficits in social-emotional functioning and in executive functioning. However, despite the lengthy history of studying post-institutionalized children, there are few, if any, studies that have (1) examined the effects of institutionalization on brain and behavioral development and (2) shown, using a randomized, casecontrol design, the efficacy of early intervention in ameliorating the effects of early deprivation (for more information see Nelson et al. 2007). These limitations of previous studies have been addressed in an ambitious project focusing on the effects of early institutionalization on a set of brain and behavioral functions, and the efficacy of a specific intervention – in this case, high-quality foster care – to ameliorate the expected negative sequelae of the deprivation that is inherent in institutional settings. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is a longitudinal study contrasting three groups of children: (1) The institutionalized group was comprised of children who had lived virtually their entire lives in institutional settings in Bucharest, Romania. (2) The foster care group included children who were institutionalized at birth, and then following an extensive baseline assessment, placed in foster care (the mean age of placement was 22 months). (3) The never-institutionalized group included children living with their biological families in the greater Bucharest community (for details see Zeanah et al. 2003). The neuroscientific premise underlying this project is that the deficits and developmental delays that result from institutional rearing have their origins in compromised brain development. As illustrated so far, for the brain to wire correctly requires input, and a lack of this input could lead to the under-specification and mis-wiring of circuits. Because children living in institutions lack inputs on multiple levels, one might expect these children to show a range of problems as a result of “errors” in brain development. Further, as some domains of function are more experience-dependent than others, and as the critical timing of the experience needed to ensure healthy development is domain-specific, the efficacy of foster care would be hypothesized to vary by domain (e.g., language, psychopathology) and duration of deprivation. Before turning to findings relating to social and emotional development, it is interesting to first discuss additional results from this project that also illustrate the concept of sensitive developmental periods. First, in term of language development, at baseline, the institutionalized group’s overall language quotient was at about 65 (with 100 being the mean); however, for measures of comprehension and production, institutionalized infants performed at about the tenth percentile. In contrast, the overall language quotient among the never-institutionalized infants was about 110, and they scored at the 70th percentile on language comprehension and 60th percentile on language production. Importantly, foster care appeared to have been remarkably effective in ameliorating much of this language delay. For example, among the infants placed in foster care before 24 months of age, catch-up growth in language amounted to approximately three raw score units per month; for those placed after 26 months, the rate of change was about one raw score unit per

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month (Windsor et al. 2011). Second, in terms of cognitive development, at baseline, institutionalized children showed greatly diminished intellectual performance as compared to never-institutionalized children; the average developmental quotient of the former was about 74, whereas among the latter the value was about 103 (Smyke et al. 2007). In addition to linguistic abilities, children randomly assigned to foster care also experienced significant gains in cognitive function. Moreover, there appears to be a sensitive period during which the placement in foster care (the intervention in this case) will lead to better cognitive outcome: if the infants were placed before 2 years of age, the cognitive performance measured at 42 and 54 months of age were significantly better than for infants placed after 2 years of age (Nelson et al. 2007). This suggests that there may be a sensitive period during which foster care benefit on cognitive development might be maximal. The effects of early deprivation on social and emotional development have been described using attachment assessments as well as face and emotion recognition paradigms. The attachment data showed, at baseline, profound attachment difficulties among institutionalized infants. For example, whereas 100 % of the neverinstitutionalized infants fall into the A, B, C, and D classification categories, only approximately 5 % of the institutionalized infants do so; roughly 10 % are classified as nonattached, and almost 30 % show attachment behavior with severe abnormalities. Moreover, among the never-institutionalized infants, nearly 75 % are classified as B babies, or as securely attached (Zeanah et al. 2005). Interestingly, a marked improvement of attachment has been observed following foster care placement. As for language and cognitive development, a secure attachment is more likely to be restored if the infants are placed in foster care before the age of 24 months (Smyke et al. 2010). A critical dimension of social-emotional functioning concerns the ability to decode and recognize facial expression of emotion. Specifically, based on the hypothesis that infants reared in institutional settings receive impoverished exposure to social-communicative facial signals, it can be expected that these infants might show deficits in discriminating facial expressions of emotion. Work has found that, in fact, institutionalized and never-institutionalized children are performing comparably on an emotion discrimination task when evaluated using both behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Based on preferential-looking measures, both groups find certain expression pairings easy to discriminate (e.g., happy vs. fearful, sad vs. fearful), and others more difficult (e.g., neutral vs. fearful; Nelson et al. 2006a). Institutionalized and never-institutionalized children also showed similar electrophysiological responses to facial expressions of emotion. Specifically, fearful faces elicited larger amplitude and longer-latency responses than happy faces for the P250 and Nc components (Moulson et al. 2009). These findings indicate that the ability to discriminate facial emotions is left largely intact following early deprivation, whereas attachment behavior appears greatly affected by early institutionalization. Follow-up work at 8 and 9 years of age with these children raised in institutionalized settings has revealed that whereas some cognitive functions are impaired, such as visual memory, attention, visually mediated learning, and inhibitory

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control, others have an age-appropriate level on similar tests where auditory processing was also involved and on tests assessing executive processes such as rule acquisition and planning (Pollak et al. 2010; see also Bos et al. 2009). These findings provide additional evidence that distinct domains of brain and behavioral development are particularly vulnerable to early adverse experiences. Thus far, the BEIP has demonstrated that early psychosocial deprivation is related to subsequent language, cognitive, and social and emotional impairments. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of the time frame during which these negative outcomes can be compensated, at least partially, with foster care appearing to be more effective in reducing later impairments if occurring during the first 2 years of life. This timing leads us to speculate that the neural circuits that subserve these functions may be established before 2 years of age, the time when these children with better outcomes were removed from the institution and placed in foster care.

8.4.5

Environmental Enrichment

Studies on the relation between brain development and the environment have mainly focused on the negative factors that could impact brain and behavior. However, there is also a great deal of interest in studying the potential positive impact that the environment can have on brain maturation. A large number of experiments with animals have found that an enriched environment has favorable impacts on the brain (van Praag et al. 2000). The enriched environments used in such studies, however, are defined relative to standard laboratory conditions that are most certainly an impoverished environment as compared to natural living conditions, informing us mainly about the differential effects of impoverished versus natural-like environment on brain/behavior development (Greenough et al. 1993). In other words, this work might not be as informative for environmental manipulations of populations living in normative conditions, though it is an important start for understanding environmental influences. Evidence of improved cognitive functions following exposure to an “enriched” environment has been provided in the domain of memory. An “enriched” environment has been shown to regulate neurogenesis in developing 21-day-old mice (Kempermann et al. 1997), leading to an increased number of neurons and an improvement of hippocampal function (i.e., spatial learning). Interestingly, when such manipulations are imposed on 6- or 18-month-old mice, neurogenesis is also regulated, but neither structural nor functional effects are observed (i.e., no differences in neuron number or spatial memory performance; Kempermann et al. 1998). These data suggest that not only can negative environmental factors impact brain structure and function during limited periods of development, but positive factors as well. In humans, the literature on enrichment is less convincing, probably due to the fact that children from relatively deprived backgrounds are exposed to enrichment programs for only a limited period of time (e.g., preschool period), whereas rats are typically exposed 24 h a day, 7 days a week, for 30–60 days (an estimation of

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childhood to early adolescence in term of human life span; for a review see Curtis and Nelson 2003). It has been reported that whereas enrichment programs lead to immediate gains in children’s IQ level, this effect seems to fade away gradually during childhood. As emphasized in the first section of this chapter, brain development is a prolonged process, with some protracted changes occurring beyond adolescence (e.g., myelination and synaptogenesis). Thus in humans we might speculate that environmental enrichment during the preschool period is falling before the critical period of development for higher cognition (as those assessed by the IQ questionnaire) that may extend into adolescence and even beyond. Overall, it is clear that the effects of early intervention on intellectual function among children living in impoverished environments are modest at best. There are many potential reasons for this, including the following: (1) the measures used to assess intellectual function tend to be more global and unable to pick up on more subtle changes, (2) interventions tend to have broad targets for improvement and therefore might show a lack of precision in the specific “enriching” experiences, and (3) a failure to consider the child’s genetic potential, which may influence the ceiling of intellectual ability. With advances in the sophistication with which we understand specific cognitive abilities, and our knowledge of the neural circuitry that underlies such abilities, it will be important for future research to examine whether specific intellectual abilities in children living in typical (i.e., non-impoverished) environments can be enhanced by specific experiences.

8.5

Summary

Brain development is a complex and long-term process, occurring from conception to early adulthood. Although genetic factors widely influence this ongoing developmental progression (particularly during prenatal life), it has been well established that experience has an enormous impact on typical brain maturation and consequently on the individual’s ability to comprehend the world. First, we discussed how an expected environment is essential for the brain and some of its functions to develop normally. For example, we demonstrated that visual and auditory inputs or a secure and interactive caregiving environment allows the related systems to develop properly. Second, we emphasized that each neural circuit exhibits different sensitive periods of development during which they are more malleable or vulnerable, as their maturation is in progress. For example, we showed that the hippocampal formation of birds and its related functioning is particularly vulnerable to food deprivation if it occurs during a specific period of development and that nutritional rehabilitation has no effect after this critical neurodevelopmental period had passed. Such data has strong implications for our understanding of developmental needs and vulnerabilities and can greatly impact the way individuals and societies think about the definition of child well-being. Indeed, the available information reviewed in this chapter stresses the fundamental need to provide certain basic environmental conditions during early postnatal life to ensure that brain/behavior develop

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appropriately. Again, examples in the development of the visual system show that proper visual stimulations are essential for this system to mature normally. Moreover, as neural systems remain plastic for a certain period of time, it is essential to keep in mind that these sensitive periods constitute windows of vulnerabilities and potentialities. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project illustrates perfectly the importance of such information. Whereas institutionalization has been shown to have dramatic impacts on child development in a variety of functional domains, foster care placement before a critical window of development closes has been shown to counteract some of the potential negative outcomes of institutionalization. Although many abandoned or orphaned children are still placed in an institutional setting for lack of individual or societal resources or because of long-standing cultural traditions, this scientific data has begun to raise consideration of the child protection systems, and has influenced changes in the policies regarding these practices. Furthering our understanding of the brain’s structural and functional development and better defining the specific developmental windows during which different systems might be particularly malleable or vulnerable will continue to influence child policies and intervention programs. Advances in developmental neuroscience are fundamental to achieve this goal. In light of the information reviewed here, future studies exploring the interactions between brain and experience during development will have to consider the following: First it is necessary to carefully define the specific environment to which a child is exposed. Indeed, as mentioned in Sect. 8.4.5, the impact of intervention targeting children living in an impoverished environment might provide fairly different results than the same intervention applied to children living in a standard environment. It would be reasonable to predict that the mechanisms of plasticity used by an impaired system (or “by a system receiving impoverished inputs”) might be different than the mechanism available to a typical developing system. Second, the timing and the duration of the experience should be precisely defined. As we showed, the same experience will have dramatically different impacts depending on the point it occurs in development. In addition, it is possible that a very positive or a very negative influence may exert little or no effect on brain development if it is of very short duration. Conversely, an experience of very short duration might impact development if it occurs at the wrong sensitive time (see the effect of early visual deprivation on face recognition). Third, the domain of brain function under investigation should be well-characterized. As discussed earlier, visual experience is likely to have an effect on brain development for a relatively brief period of time (e.g., the first year of life), whereas cognitive experience could impact the brain and behavior for a more extensive period of time (throughout development). Finally, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the developmental status of the brain when exposed to specific environmental influences. The examples provided in this chapter demonstrated that the brain’s sensitivity to potential environmental influences will vary throughout development and will be distinct for each neural circuit. Thus, after specifying the experience, the timing of the experience

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and the domain of brain function, it is important to consider where the brain is in its maturation when these three factors interact. In sum, defining the critical periods during which particular developmental processes occur is essential to fully understanding environmental impacts on brain development. The increased number of studies investigating brain maturation using neuroimaging tools during infancy and childhood will greatly improve our knowledge in the near future. This information will considerably benefit the field of intervention, as new treatment approaches based on a specified time period when distinct brain circuits are most malleable will refine the impact of such practices. Equally, this information might help to improve our understanding of our children, leading to more age-appropriate and therefore higher-quality education and care system. This field carries important implications on childhood policy and practice. We hope this chapter has convinced the reader that child well-being should also be considered at a neuroscientific level, allowing for an understanding of the necessary and critical role of experiences to shape brain structure and functioning during development.

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Educational Science and Child Well-Being Sabine Andresen

9.1

Introduction

This chapter examines how a field covered by the three terms educational science, education, and pedagogic, which I shall generally refer to here as educational science, relates to the scientific concept of child well-being (CWB). For the sake of international comparability, education, pedagogic, and educational science are used synonymously in this chapter. Whereas education and pedagogic are more practice-related, educational science refers to theories, concepts, and empirical research. In German-speaking countries, there is an even more detailed debate that also relates to the specific history of German humanistic pedagogic. However, these differentiations do not make any relevant contributions to the aspects of CWB addressed here. After clarifying how educational science has influenced not only the status of children and adolescents but also the concepts of childhood and youth, I shall present and discuss two key terms, education/Bildung and learning, that may help to clarify what is in no way a self-evident relation between educational science and CWB. I shall first address discussions on which dimensions of CWB can be derived from educational science. This will then make it possible to assess these dimensions with indicators taken from the latter. I shall concentrate on two central theoretical concepts in educational science, namely, education/Bildung and learning. Both have become particularly significant since, for example, the UNICEF study on “Child Well-Being in Rich Countries” (2007) introduced a specific understanding of “education” as one dimension of well-being. In this understanding, what is meant primarily is the access to school education, the acquisition of competencies, and, above all, the issue of how academic achievement relates to the social origins of children and youths.

S. Andresen Faculty of Educational Science, IDeA Research Center on Adaptive Education and Indivdual Development on Children at Risk, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 249 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_11, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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However, because the discourse on educational and learning theory in educational science goes further, this chapter systematically examines the theoretical contribution of education/Bildung and learning to CWB. It formulates education/Bildung and learning as a theoretical dimension of CWB in order to sketch how CWB can be operationalized from the educational science perspective. Following this introduction, I shall start my chapter by looking at the disciplinary roots of educational science and the challenges these create for CWB. I shall then go on to examine the perspectives on childhood and adolescence to be found in educational science. In the next section, I shall look at what recent education theory can contribute to a conceptualization of CWB. After that, I shall discuss a further key concept in educational science – the concept of learning – and examine the ways in which this is a key dimension of CWB. In the final section, I shall draw conclusions on the relation between educational science and CWB and show how important it is for educational theory to figure out the otherness of CWB. But, first of all, it is necessary to delve into the roots of my discipline.

9.2

Disciplinary Roots of Educational Science and the Accompanying Challenges for CWB

Although educational science is to be found throughout the world, it has no clear-cut disciplinary form (Tenorth 2009). This is why it is also not a standardized or fixed, unequivocally identifiable discipline, and why there are also no standard and universally relevant educational perspectives on CWB. Because education nonetheless possesses an indisputably identifiable core, plural terms are frequently used such as “educational studies” or “sciences de l’e´ducation.” Hence, the discipline is more of a loose bundle of thematic, methodological, and theoretical approaches to the topic of education in formal, nonformal, and informal fields. However, orientation is provided by the institutions associated with education and thereby the pedagogic fields of action. Not just in the German-speaking world, this has also led to the formation of various subdisciplines such as school pedagogic, pedagogic of early childhood, or, in light of the call for lifelong learning, adult education. Internationally, the school is the most prominent action field, and therefore, the most prominent subdiscipline is school pedagogic. International trends and particularly the large-scale empirical comparisons of performance such as PISA have shown that it is not just educational science alone that is concerned with issues such as achievement and the acquisition of competence. The OECD has been monitoring education in the PISA studies and a series of other international comparisons since the end of the 1990s. These studies are using a complex set of quantitative instruments to assess and measure school-based competencies at regular time intervals. PISA focuses on the competencies of 15-year-olds attending all types of school in one country; other studies such as TIMMS concentrate on the mathematical and scientific competencies of students in different cohorts, and PIRLS compares international reading literacy and foreign languages. The PISA

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studies, in particular, have been a frequent source of data for international studies of CWB (Keung 2011), and in some countries – including Germany – they have led to controversial debates and education reforms. Indeed, the rather poor PISA findings on Germany have been one of the main reasons for the introduction of regular all-day schooling. Psychology and the neurosciences are also taking on an increasingly important role. This can be seen particularly strongly in Germany, because the label education/pedagogic has now been joined by the terms Bildungsforschung [education research] or even Bildungswissenschaften [education sciences]. With their empirically based understanding of science, both wish to distinguish themselves decisively from the humanistic tradition of education/pedagogic; they hope that this will bring them into line with international research, and their interest focuses particularly on teaching and school as well as teacher training. There are various reasons for the diversity in educational science that can only be sketched here. One is the particular constitution of the object “education.” Education labels a problem field and set of issues that is very much a public and not purely an academic concern (Andresen et al. 2009). All cultures think about how to rear their offspring, their successes and failures in doing so, and which are the best methods and didactics of teaching. However, scientifically controlled work on this subject began only in the eighteenth century. The development of sociology and psychology as well as the strengthening of the humanities in the universities has also been influential factors in the further development of education as a university discipline. In summary, this means that one has to assume the existence of major nationally and socially determined differences. One particularly interesting example of this – above all in relation to CWB – is the institutional framework in which social pedagogic and social work are embedded. For example, in contrast to the United States and Great Britain, both are assigned to educational science in Germany and Switzerland. Moreover, countries vary in terms of the role of educational science in teacher training. In other words, which of the different subdisciplines of educational science finds its way into the canon of university degree courses and research contexts varies internationally. Accordingly, it can be seen that educational science possesses no uniform theories and methods, it has no clearly demarcated set of topics, and, as a scientific discipline, it has to relate to highly different fields of pedagogic practice. Thomas Popkewitz (2000) has shown how globalization is changing the demands on state education systems throughout the world and that this should also be viewed as a major force shaping the science associated with these changes. This points to the need to consider the close relationship and the dynamic between politics, educational science, and pedagogic practice. Educational reform has become a central item on the agendas of national governments and international agencies (such as the OECD, UNICEF, and European Union’s task Force on Human Resources, Education, Training, and Youth) that are concerned with modernization as well as research projects such as the International Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). In most nations, educational “reform” is considered to be a strategic site for

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interventions that promote the modernization of nations, enhance the viability of economic systems within world markets, and link macro issues of regulations with micro patterns of socialization and child rearing. (Popkewitz 2000, p. 3)

This dynamic has major consequences for educational science, as the German researcher Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (2009) explains: “The institutional dynamic and the safeguards of the process of ‘scientizing’ reflection on education do not follow an impetus that comes primarily from within science or even just a desire for knowledge, but are triggered primarily by societal concerns” (p. 853, translated). However, this situation did not first emerge in the epoch of globalization analyzed by Popkewitz. The dynamic between politics, practice, and science is part of the history of the discipline, and it is precisely this that it shares with CWB within the framework of both the sociology and the history of science. This is because research on CWB has also been promoted by political discourse, and it is precisely the international organizations mentioned by Popkewitz such as the OECD and UNICEF that have proved to be major players in the definition and measurement of its indicators. Despite its historically determined and subject-related heterogeneity, educational science has nonetheless been able to develop its own status as a scientific discipline, and, in recent decades, it has managed to meet international standards of research – particularly those of empirical research. Nonetheless, it is still one of those disciplines that address historical, philosophical, and sociological topics; that have a strong theoretical orientation; and that possess a normative core. The latter has repeatedly led to the criticism that it is unscientific. Hence, educational science has to critically examine its normative basis and relate this to systematic theoretical reflection and the standards of empirical research. However, the international comparative studies such as PISA, TIMMS, and PIRLS have also influenced educational science (see above). They have helped it to deal with international comparisons and work with highly complex empirical procedures to a far greater extent than in the past, and they have heightened its awareness of the relation between achievement measurement and its political consequences. These comments on the status of educational science as a discipline should show that we cannot expect a homogeneous set of findings when analyzing the educational perspective on CWB. This has yet to develop, and research on the indicators and measurements of well-being is still not at the center of the discipline. In contrast, we are only beginning to see a gradual increase in attention being paid to this interdisciplinary research landscape. Nonetheless, the CWB movement diagnosed by Asher Ben-Arieh (2005) has yet to reach educational science, and the accompanying programmatic change in perspective from, for example, well-becoming to well-being has been acknowledged only indirectly or marginally. Indeed, even the outcome of Ben-Arieh’s analyses of CWB research is not that clear-cut, as a search of the literature shows. In their systematic database analysis, Pollard and Lee (2003) have pointed out that CWB is also used very frequently in comparison to terms such as quality of life, wellness, or life satisfaction, but that there is no standard orientation. The well-being concept is often applied when the concern is with child development, and its central focuses include cognitive, physical, psychological, economic, and

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social domains. One interesting finding from Pollard and Lee is that the study of psychological domains is mostly deficit oriented, whereas the other four are oriented toward strengths and resources. In other words, simply using the term well-being in no way guarantees a change of perspective that will fade out well-becoming and shift attention from deficits to resources. However, Pollard and Lee did not examine the relevant publications in educational science. A personal search of German- and English-language publications since 2000 in textbooks and relevant journals revealed that CWB still hardly ever appears in German-language educational science. The term cannot be found in any German-language educational science textbook, and both the term and the topic tend to be underrepresented in the relevant journals. CWB is considered only within the context of the theoretical discussion on the capability approach (Albus et al. 2009; Otto and Ziegler 2010) and in educational-science-based empirical work on childhood (Andresen et al. 2010; World Vision 2010). The focus is more on thematically linked issues within such fields as happiness (Brumlik 2002; Zirfas 2011), health education, and pedagogic ethics (Graumann 2006). English-language publications, in contrast, do reveal some educationally oriented analyses of CWB (Keung 2011). These focus particularly on school, the acquisition of competencies, and academic achievement and, in part, also on violence and its prevention among peers, as well as child poverty and the fight against child poverty. Antonia Keung (2011) has measured education in terms of formal qualifications as a function of age, gender, ethnicity, and social class for the studies on “the well-being of children in the UK” (Bradshaw 2011), drawing decisively on PISA data. “Additionally, the chapter reviews how schoolchildren feel about their well-being at school” (Keung 2011, p. 112). Here as well, she analyzed survey data, although she also included primary data on school climate and satisfaction. Finally, Keung also discussed the relation between educational outcomes and social background that is relevant for CWB while also taking account of dropout rates and the social exclusion of adolescents from all systems. In all, the English-language discourse reveals a clearer position on the issue of what schools contribute to CWB or how they tend to impede it. As Munn (2010) says: Schools are important public institutions that provide a universal service and are one of the first places in which young people learn about personal and social relationships that extend beyond the family and social community. They, therefore, play an important role in promoting well-being and in detecting when a young person’s well-being may be at risk. (p. 91)

In summary, it can be seen that CWB still has to become a systematic point of reference for research in educational science. Up to now, the discipline has addressed it only marginally or with regard to specific themes. In particular, it has not yet been able to realize its theoretical potential. Within the international context, the educational discourse on well-being has concentrated on the school, but this does not exhaust the contemporary pedagogic action fields and tasks. However, if one proceeds from a traditional and very persistent assumption in education, it is precisely the change in perspective from well-becoming to well-being that reveals one of education’s potentially systematic difficulties with the concept.

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Education was and continues to be oriented primarily toward well-becoming. Overcoming this orientation and granting children and adolescents as well as the child and youth life phases their own special status of equal rank to that of adults is in no way a new challenge. It was already called for during the first quarter of the twentieth century by pedagogues such as Janusz Korczak and Siegfried Bernfeld. Proceeding from these first systematic findings, if we want to understand the relation between educational science, research, and the discourses over CWB, it is important to ask where central aspects of well-being can be found in educational theory formulation, which empirical research perspectives reveal potential links to the international empirical research on well-being, which topics in educational science link up with CWB, and what educational science can contribute to the formulation, explanation, study, and measurement of indicators of CWB.

9.3

Educational Science Perspectives on Childhood and Adolescence

9.3.1

Childhood

Since the reception of the new sociology of childhood in educational science, concepts of childhood have been classified within the social–constructivist paradigm. Conceiving childhood as a social construction has made it possible to examine various differential phenomena that are relevant to childhood on several levels. To a large extent, this has enabled educational science to successfully distance itself from earlier essentialist assumptions about the nature of the child. The social constructivist approach does not make it necessary to cast doubt on the special nature of the developing child and how childhood differs from adulthood. In educational science, it orients the concept of childhood far more toward its sociospatial and temporally anchored contexts. Treating childhood as a construction does not mean focusing on abstract ideas that are detached completely from the daily life of the child, the child’s own self-will, and the child’s constructions of reality. Childhood is always influenced by the society and by the prevailing visions of a “good childhood.” Educational research often distinguishes between research on childhood and research on children. Research on childhood addresses how the life phase of childhood has developed and changed and which cultural, social, and political ideas of the child can be found in a society. It studies ideas about what a child is; concepts of childhood; the relation between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; but also the relation between childhood, education, and development. In his work Sisyphos oder die Grenzen der Erziehung [Sisyphus or the limits of education] published in 1928, the childhood and education theorist Siegfried Bernfeld already emphasized that “education is the sum of a society’s reactions to the fact of development” (p. 157, translated). He used this statement to express

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how the social and cultural shaping of childhood reflects a society’s ideas on human development. Research on children, in contrast, concentrates on the ways in which single children see and act, on their forms of expression, or their bodily perceptions. It assumes explicitly that it is in no way just adults who can claim to be competent providers of information on children and childhood, but that children themselves are also able to do this. The lifeworld of children should be explored through their own eyes. The two approaches complement each other within educational research, and, on one major point, they both agree: The dominant belief in both research on children and research on childhood is that this first phase of life is an independent period within a human being’s life course. Children are more than not-yet-developed adults, and childhood is more than just one necessary preliminary stage before adulthood. Starting roughly in the eighteenth century, children began to be perceived as individuals. This simultaneously changed not only the ideas about but also the conditions of the phase of life known as childhood. The result was paradigmatic controversies. These included the question whether the neonate enters the world as a tabula rasa or as a predetermined human being. Both ideas had consequences for the social and pedagogic approach to children. If one sees the child as a tabula rasa, then education only has to find the appropriate “writing”; if, in contrast, one sees the child as a predetermined being, then education is subject to constraints right from the start. This was also associated with the moral ideas that were becoming increasingly significant during this period, for example, whether one should view children as being good and innocent in principle or as sinful beings right from their birth. If one viewed childhood as a time of innocence and children as the better human beings – as the Romanticists did – then the function of education was to protect children from the negative influences of society. If, in contrast, one assumed that children were sinful beings from birth and childhood should be seen primarily as a phase of extreme imperfection, then the primary function of education was to discipline the nature of the child. However, there was agreement on one aspect: Supporters of both perspectives emphasized the importance of education for the development of children, for the survival of the human race, and for progress in society (Boas 1966). This belief in the importance of education gradually spread throughout society. The increasing significance from the early eighteenth century onward of the child’s education and therefore of pedagogic was due more broadly to the realization that humanity in general and children in particular not only need education but are also equipped with a basic ability to learn. Education and childhood theorists combined this belief with the goal of perfecting the human being and, by perfecting the child, perfecting the whole of society. In the eighteenth century, it was JeanJacques Rousseau the philosopher from Geneva who found the words to express this. The opening sentence of his still famous novel E´mile, ou Traite´ de’e´ducation (1762) was the socially critical comment: “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author; everything degenerates in the hands of man.”

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Rousseau, whom many pedagogues love to stylize as the “inventor of childhood,” delivered a popular and long-lasting perception of children, namely, as primarily helpless victims of adults and a wicked society. In historical childhood research, this has led to a major controversy over the course of the civilization process for children. Did it lead to them being increasingly excluded from the interesting world of adults and imprisoned in separate worlds like Kindergarten and school, as the historian Arie`s (1962) has concluded for French society? Or did the gradual progress in society since the eighteenth century lead to the development of an awareness of the needs of children, as Lloyd de Mause (1982) has emphasized in his psychohistorical studies? For de Mause, the history of childhood has been dominated by endless suffering. He believed that the level of civilization in a society can be judged by the way it handles its children. Pedagogic in particular started to become highly influential in the twentieth century, and this had an enormous impact on the idea of childhood. An increasing pedagogization of childhood experience, the spread of preschool institutions, the efforts of progressive teaching to introduce a “pedagogic proceeding from the child” as the reform-oriented German teaching associations demanded, or the US-American variant of “child-centered education” led to a new awareness in society. In Germany, for example, this awareness expressed itself in a great enthusiasm for the progressive writings of the Swedish pedagogue and feminist Ellen Key. These were first published in Germany in 1902 under the title of Das Jahrhundert des Kindes and in Great Britain and the United States in 1909 under the title of The Century of the Child. Although the German elementary school structure of a local 4-year common schooling of children regardless of their age or gifts was not introduced until the 1920s, its continued dominance until today shows how strongly these new pedagogic ideas have come to influence the shaping of childhood. However, the development of scientific knowledge on children and childhood played a central role internationally and not just in German history. The US-American “progressive education” and the success of, for example, the American kindergarten movement at the beginning of the twentieth century were based to a major extent on the scientific expertise of “child studies.” One of its leading early proponents was the psychologist G. Stanley Hall, whose monumental study not only highlighted the difference between the child and the adolescent phase but also represented a combination of scientific knowledge and pedagogic practice (Andresen 2005). The reform pedagogue Ellen Key called for a strong scientific orientation in order to treat children correctly and progressively. She hoped that this would come from experimental and interpretative child psychology and child studies. This strengthened the marked distinction between the two life phases of childhood and youth and certainly led to an increased sensitivity for the particular characteristics of both. Studies by William Stern, Martha Muchow, Lev Vygotsky, or Sigmund Freud in the first decades of the twentieth century and later by Jean Piaget, by Anna Freud, Erik H. Erikson, or Rene´ Spitz generated scientific knowledge on human development, on the relation between cognition and language, the acquisition of social space, childhood crises, and the role of nature and nurture in childhood personality

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development. However, today’s pedagogues have to bear in mind not only numerous scientific findings but also pedagogic insights such as that of Janusz Korczak on the need to respect the child’s dignity. Criticism of the socialization and development paradigms led to the idea of the child as an actor who is not only socialized passively but also actively shapes her/his reality and even socializes adults in turn. Since the 1970s, international child studies in the social sciences have no longer viewed children primarily as teachable beings with a need to learn, but as active agents. However, the educational perspective on children has found it increasingly hard to accept this, because it focuses more strongly than sociology on the particular vulnerability of the child. In all, the relevant aspect for this discourse is an idea that has asserted itself during the process of modernization. This is the idea of creating specific spaces for children in which to shape childhood. However, this seems to be an ambivalent approach. Protection, for example, can take fundamentally different connotations: It can promote integrity just as much as it can permit paternalism. The resulting differentiation between children and adults nonetheless already emphasizes the oftforgotten dependence of adults: Human life is of limited duration, and the species needs offspring to survive. In this framework, Hannah Arendt (1958) contrasts Martin Heidegger’s arguments over the finiteness of life with the idea of birth as a new beginning. Arendt considers one central reason for the emergence of generational concepts to be the continuous confrontation with novelty through the child. In her work Vom Leben des Geistes [Life of the mind], she draws on Augustine when reflecting on the conditions of beginning and of freedom by virtue of birth. She treats the fact of birth as the access to a freedom to which we are bound “whether it suits us or whether we would prefer to withdraw from its frightening responsibility . . . . This dead point, if it is such, can be overcome only through a further mental faculty, one no less secret than the faculty of beginning: the power of judgment” (Arendt 1979, p. 207, translated from the German). In a book first published in the United States, The Human Condition (1958), Arendt discusses the human dependencies and the fundamental activities of labor, work, and action. Her ideas are helpful when formulating a theory that views childhood as the outcome of public, political framing. Labor, work, and action correspond, according to Arendt, with the fundamental conditions of life, being in the world, and plurality. Above all, however, they are interwoven with the most general conditions of human life: natality and mortality. In awareness of the temporal finiteness of human life, labor ensures the survival of the individual and the continuation of the species, whereas work builds an artificial world that has a degree of permanence beyond the lives of individual actors. Finally, action makes it possible to set up and maintain political common spaces and to create conditions for the continuity across generations, for memory, and thereby for history. Action, the political activity par excellence, is bound explicitly to human beingness, to the fundamental condition of natality, because every newcomer can make a new beginning and thus possesses the ability to act. In this sense, Arendt views natality as a decisive element of political thought, comparable with the significance of mortality for metaphysical philosophical thought.

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Arendt calls for a strict separation of the world of adults as a political public space from the sphere of children, and for adults to deal with beginning conservatively and protectively. When adults apply this “conservative” approach, this grants children their chance to start something new, to do the unexpected (Arendt 1958). Here she accordingly formulates a clear educational task and calls for a strict separation between children and adults within the generational order. It is only this separation that reveals whether we love our children enough. When Arendt talks about education, then she is visualizing an education space in which children develop before they enter the world of adults. In this education space, children should become familiarized with the power of judgment and thinking that will enable them to take on responsibility as adults. Hence, the increasing importance of education and training in childhood aiming toward a “planned adaptation” to society also changed the shaping of childhood and the idea of being a child. And, not only this, the institutions for growing up in such as family or school changed as well. The central perspectives of educational science refer to this situation. Nowadays, institutions share between them the task of socializing children, that is, preparing them for society without destroying their individuality. Recent socialization research, which is of central importance to educational science, reveals that this is a process of personality development in the sense of a productive processing of physical, mental, and environmental givens. The child intervenes in this process and shapes it just as much as the parents. Accordingly, the child is a co-constructor in the socialization process. In research, this perspective has led to a greater effort to take the shaping and co-constructing achievements of children seriously and to study them in more detail in order to understand them better.

9.3.2

Youth

Pedagogic work is also always directed toward youth. Analyses in educational science, theoretical questions, and empirical studies address youth as a whole as well as its individual members. Pedagogic history shows how the developmental phenomena and problems associated with the youth phase can be seen as a major starting point for systematic thinking. Hence, youth will be viewed here as an effective historical concept for educational science. Such a concept orders, structures, and evaluates not only information, knowledge, and ideas but also prejudices. Although these are all subject to historical change, the basic concept of youth as a special phase in the life course has remained more or less constant. The concept is not just decisive for scientific analyses and historical interpretations. It can also influence the self-perception of individuals or guide particular practices such as pedagogic youth work in the public sector. One variant of this concept has been of major significance for pedagogic since the eighteenth century. Starting with Rousseau, entry into the youth phase came to be conceived as a second birth of the human being, and youth came to be viewed as a special phase of development. By the end of the nineteenth century, the youth

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phase was receiving more attention than ever before. Since then, it has become a much loved topic in research, politics, business, cultural studies, and education – a topic that adults discuss, deplore, and problematize. Youth is examined in a pedagogic, anxious, critical, idealized, political, or even envious way. However, such strong attention does not correspond inevitably to a consistent commitment to actually addressing youth’s concerns, needs, or interests. The youth phase has now become one of the central conditions of growing up in modern societies. It is framed by the family and the peer group and by school, leisure time, vocational training, and study. Youths benefit from special legal protection, are freed from certain obligations, and have limited rights compared to adults. Nonetheless, they are exposed to structural changes just as much as any other age group, and the risks in modern societies such as unemployment do not pass them by. In 1925, Siegfried Bernfeld, as mentioned above, defined education as the sum of all of a society’s reactions to the fact of development. Since the twentieth century at the latest, these reactions have included the idea that not only childhood but also youth needs to be framed and shaped in a special way. In this context, I shall call this socially organized pattern based on the family a moratorium. A moratorium is a temporally limited freedom from duties granted to achieve a preordained goal. This goal is the production of an adult who is integrated into society and willing to produce and reproduce. Youths do not always subject themselves unconditionally to this goal, so the sum of all social reactions to the fact of development also includes numerous risk discourses over, for example, deviant behavior, delinquency, or drug abuse. It is clear that educational science is directly involved in this moratorium, and it has always had a strong interest in findings from youth research in all the different disciplines. The expansion of youth research has been closely tied to society’s interest in youth and the problem awareness for this special phase of life between childhood and adulthood. This expansion has led to a differentiation into psychological, sociological, cultural, and educational fields, resulting in the exceptionally heterogeneous and many-sided discipline we know today. Psychologically oriented youth research was particularly responsible for the differentiation between puberty and adolescence, although this was soon picked up by educational science as well. This differentiation continues to play a role in the discourses of educational science, and it also impacts on our everyday understanding. Puberty is mostly used to describe the onset of sexual maturity. Research in this field then focuses particularly on a young person’s bodily and hormonal changes and the accompanying social and psychological transformations. Adolescence, in contrast, describes a phase that mostly extends beyond puberty. Research on adolescence has generated knowledge about, for example, the process of separation from the parental home, the orientation toward the peer group, the exploration of sexuality, and adolescent identity and self-discovery. The discourse over youth in educational science reveals that the youth phase is not self-explanatory. We have no clear biological or natural markers that can be used to draw valid conclusions on how to deal appropriately with relations between

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the generations, with youth education, or with meaningful prohibitions or freedoms. As already pointed out for childhood, the understanding of what is meant by youth during a certain historical period is a social construct. Although we can observe and describe phenomena such as physical development and sexual maturity, this does not lead to any set prescriptions regarding how to understand and approach the youth phase or how to understand and approach those we call youths. Youth is accordingly subject to historical change. Like both children and adults, youths are self-willed; or, to put it scientifically, they are subjects, actors, or co-constructors of their reality. This means that the social construct of the youth phase is not just created by “external” conditions such as the parental home, pedagogic institutions, youth-oriented services, dress, music, or vocational training. Youths themselves play their part, even when this takes the form of evading all efforts to politicize, pedagogize, or domesticate them. Some areas of youth research motivated by educational science have tried to focus on this dynamic. Bernfeld described the genesis of youth culture and youth research as follows: “What has drawn our attention to the problem of youth is the conflict currently experienced so vividly by large sectors of youth between what they want. . . and the existing institutions that adults provide for their lives on the basis of their naive concept of youth” (Bernfeld 1915/1991, p. 70, translated). The second half of the twentieth century saw the firm establishment of the idea that youth in general is a time for education, vocational training, development, and identity formation. However, this did not lead to the creation of homogeneous life conditions. Everyday life as a youth was in no way the same for boys compared to girls or for those from middle class compared to socially weak milieus; the distribution of chances and risks in the process of growing up remained unequal. Essentially, this has changed very little right up to the present day. Nonetheless, the idea or expectation that it is normal for the youth phase to take the form of a psychosocial education moratorium has become firmly established in society. This term can be traced back to the youth theorist and psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson. Erikson also worked out that one of the central developmental tasks confronting youth in the form of a crisis is the formation of a distinctive positive identity. Hardly any other psychological term has been adopted more readily in other disciplines as well as in everyday language than this concept of identity. Erikson’s analysis of the epigenesis of identity was based far more on personality theory than biology. He characterized a developmental logic that has to be conceived as a planned sequence of successive stages that each differ through the addition of something new.

9.4

Education as a Dimension of CWB

9.4.1

Education as a “Fuzzy and Critical Concept”

In this section, I shall draw on more recent education theory in order to examine its potential for a conceptualization of CWB. (Education is equated here with the

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German term Bildung. Bildung goes somewhat beyond the English term education in that it is related to normative ideas on individual development.) Although all national and international studies on CWB take education as a central dimension, they operationalize it in different ways. Nonetheless, and possibly also for pragmatic reasons, they all focus on school performance. We now have a series of comparative studies on this, and we also know how modern societies regulate access to opportunities decisively over the educational qualifications gained in school. When defining education as a dimension of CWB, this suggests that it would be logical to define it in terms of school education. However, this is inadequate from the perspective of educational science. Although “education” is a basic key concept in the German-language context, no other country seems to make the traditional German distinction between education [Bildung] and child rearing [Erziehung]. (This section is based on Andresen (2009).) Nonetheless, there is also an internationally relevant theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of education in, for example, the philosophy of education, and this also distinguishes education from child rearing, defining the latter as an intentional action directed toward the behavior of children and youths. Whereas there is no great difficulty in understanding education as a dimension of CWB, how far could education make a systematic contribution to its conceptualization? First of all, such an approach makes things more complex, because hardly any other concept in educational science reveals such a diversity of different subtopics as education – especially in German-language monographs, edited books, or articles. Moreover, when we go beyond educational science, we find that other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, or, for example, history and literary studies and, in recent years, even brain research are also doing work in educational theory. Not only is this scientific interest joined by a strong public concern, but education is also becoming increasingly a focus of national associations and international economic interests as represented by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Education is also guiding the policies and strategies of international cooperations and organizations such as the OECD (Popkewitz 2000). However, this development is not only a reaction to a lack of resources and an expression of control interests but also a sign of a growing awareness of the importance of education for individual life courses and as a strategic key position for political activity. Because education can be understood not only as a kind of “fuzzy concept” with vague contours though numerous thematic interfaces but also as a “critical concept” with its own language for criticizing education systems, there is a clear need for a theoretical appraisal of CWB from the perspective of educational science (Andresen 2009). Education and CWB are both fuzzy concepts, because they focus on not only objective framing conditions but also the subjective, inner dynamics of the individual. Regarding the latter, CWB concerns subjective well-being and reports on subjective satisfaction, whereas education concerns that which the philosophy of education tradition understands as self-education or personal development. Up to now, both have resisted any complete and generally valid definition or measurement.

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Both education and CWB also have to be understood as critical concepts aiming to deliver a better explanation of what is good for children and youths and to use research to influence political decision-making processes. This also means that both concepts have a normative basis. Approaches in education theory cannot function without this normative basis: They are always concerned with what separates education from noneducation or semi-education, which ideals are associated with education, how it gives people the capability to be free, and also how education is linked to an understanding of human dignity. The same applies to the theoretical discourse on CWB. Here as well, there is a fundamental normative embedment, because well-being focuses on ideas about the good life and on the good way to grow up, but – and this is what this discourse has in common with that on educational theory – without specifying precisely what this good consists of for everybody. Not only historically but also and in particular in the current discourse in education theory, this concerns aspects of justice, which can also be linked up systematically with CWB, and, finally, it also concerns a very specific synthesis of science and politics. The educational philosopher Gerd Biesta (2003, p. 62) has even said that education is two-faced: “One face is educational, the other is political.” The same applies to CWB, because it always concerns not only political action fields but also pedagogic practice. Hence, there are clear parallels between education and CWB on a structural level. In the following, I shall try to explain what systematic benefits can be gained from an educational theory analysis of CWB. I shall distinguish between three approaches within the recent education theory discussion. These represent different weightings that also play a role in society and touch on the question of how we understand childhood and youth and what goal we finally want to pursue with education. I shall present them in detail here, because they offer systematic interfaces with the challenges facing the formulation of theories on CWB. Even when conceptualizing CWB, it is necessary to clarify how we understand childhood and youth and how we relate the social framing conditions in which children grow up to ideas on a “good childhood” or “good education.” I shall draw on recent discussions in education theory and address the “human capital model of education,” the “capability model of education,” and the “rights-based model of education” (Robeyns 2006; Andresen 2009). The first refers to education as a central resource for the vocational training of human capital; the second, to education as a capability with the goal of positive freedom and the acquisition of abilities; and, finally, the third refers to the right to universal education given by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These are relevant approaches in the current discourse on education theory; they have the potential to provide a theoretical foundation for empirical research, and they reflect international social challenges. When discussing an approach to CWB in education theory, I shall focus on these three models as follows: The first section will address the relation between education and justice and thereby examine the normative implications. The second will look at the relation between education and economics, because this reveals the material basis for ideas in education theory. Finally, the third section will discuss

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the relation between education and rights. In all, this should show that all three models deliver important indicators for operationalizing the well-being dimension known as education.

9.4.2

Education and Justice

Placing justice and education in one and the same context is not just specific to modern welfare state societies. In developing countries as well, education in the form of school education is a major indicator of, for example, child health care, better nutrition, and the possibility of having one’s own income. Accordingly, life opportunities are also distributed over education, and this brings us to questions of justice. In particular, the demand that education should also be a critical concept has made justice not only a benchmark in education theories but also a crystallization point in the growing up of children. In his latest book, The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen (2010) writes about “three children and a flute.” Let me illustrate the problem with an example in which you have to decide which of three children – Anne, Bob, and Carla – should get a flute about which they are quarreling. Anne claims the flute on the ground that she is the only one of the three who knows how to play it (the others do not deny this), and that it would be quite unjust to deny the flute to the only one who can actually play it. If that is all you knew, the case for giving the flute to the first child would be strong. (pp. 12–13)

However, from a perspective focusing on the question of justice, there is more to consider. This is because Bob now suggests that he should get the flute because he is the only one who is so poor that he has nothing to play with, and the two girls do not dispute this. Then Carla also claims the flute, because she was the one who invested months of hard work in making the instrument, “and just when she had finished her work, ‘just then’, she complains, ‘these expropriators came along to try to grab the flute away from me’” (Sen 2010, p. 13). Sen uses this scenario to point out how theorists from different schools of thought – utilitarians, economic egalitarians, or libertarians – would arrive at straightforward solutions to the problem – giving good reasons in each case. The economic egalitarian would support the child in poverty, Bob; the libertarian would support the maker of the flute, Carla; and the utilitarian, perhaps with some wavering, would support the flute player, Anne. Hence, that which should serve as the benchmark for justice – be it ability, production, or deficit – can be justified systematically in theory, but cannot be clarified so unequivocally in action. The conflict concerns which basic principles can generally be differentiated for the allocation of resources. They [the principles] are about how social arrangements should be made and what social institutions should be chosen, and through that, about what social realizations would come about. It is not simply that the vested interests of the three children differ (though of course they do), but that the three arguments each point to a different type of impartial and non-arbitrary reason. (Sen 2010, p. 15)

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Sen is pointing to the problem that there can be no easily detected and completely just social arrangement on which an impartial agreement would emerge. The production of just social arrangements for the relation between the generations and for the education of children and youths is a fundamental issue in educational science. It is linked to questions of partiality and normativity just as much as to ideas on whether pedagogic should actually pursue the goal of helping people to be as happy as possible. Particularly when taking the children’s perspective, it is worth considering whether to replace the systematic reasoning about justice on the basis of principles with one referring to feelings and, above all, to moral feelings such as wrath over injustice. Possessing no idea of what it means to be treated unjustly, according to the philosopher Judith Shklar (1997), means possessing no knowledge of morals and not leading a moral life. Sen also analyzes the interplay between wrath and reasoning as a form of resistance to injustice, referring particularly to the early eighteenth-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. While Wollstonecraft is quite remarkable in combining wrath and reasoning in the same work (indeed, alongside each other), even pure expressions of discontent and disappointment can make their own contributions to public reasoning if they are followed by investigation (perhaps undertaken by others) of whatever reasonable basis there might be for the indignation. (Sen 2010, p. 392)

This brings us to the already classic theories of justice of John Rawls or Ronald Dworkin, combined with the assumption that the significance of these theories for education theory is that they understand individual freedom as being a basic premise of justice theory and as being central for just social relations. The international discussion on justice theory reveals a generally close relation between justice and freedom and attributes an essential role to education (Brighouse 2004; Brighouse and Unterhalter 2008). The capability approach is a further justice theory approach with origins in economics. However, it does not link justice to the loss of freedom, and addresses human development instead of human capital. It was formulated decisively by Amartya Sen (1992) and then further developed in social philosophy by Martha Nussbaum (1999, 2006). The capability approach offers an access to the relation between education and justice, because it addresses the capability of deciding and acting and how each individual can achieve what she is able to do and be under complex social conditions. Drawing on Aristotelian ethics, the question of a “good life” and a successful practical way of living is particularly relevant for Nussbaum, but with the provision that this should not be determined through paternalism or authoritarianism. She favors a strongly vague conception of the good and points out that creating the framing conditions for this is a public, that is, political responsibility. However, the status of “education” is not unequivocal within this framework oriented toward justice theory. For Sen, education is one of the central capabilities. It is a basis for all capabilities, and one of his main concerns as expressed in the “Dewey Lectures” is “to explore a moral approach that sees persons from two different perspectives: well-being and agency” (Sen 1985, p. 203). For Nussbaum as well, education is “a key to all human capabilities” (Nussbaum 2006), whereby

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she links this particularly to empowerment. In her analysis of liberal higher education in the United States, she proposes three central capabilities: critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination (Nussbaum 1997; Walker 2008). This shows how Nussbaum aims toward a concept of education as “cultivating humanity.” Sen has developed a multidimensional typology of education, his “uses of education.” In this, education is first an intrinsic value; second, an instrumental personal value; and third, an instrumental social value (Dreze and Sen 1999). This typology provides a major link to justice in the debate on education theory, because education is something that should basically be universally available. This is why the British discussion presents the approach as a framework for reimagining education and justice (Walker 2008). How education fits into the social conditions of equality and justice is one of the major issues in English-language equality research. This has worked out five relevant dimensions for education: equal respect and recognition; equality of resources; equality of love, care, and solidarity; equality of power; and working and learning as equals (Baker et al. 2004). A justice theory approach to education can link up meaningfully with CWB in one specific sense: the importance of a just treatment of children and youth. Certain lines of discussion in CWB also take a justice theory direction; there are also interfaces with the capability approach’s question of the “good life” (Albus et al. 2009). A justice-related definition of education as a dimension of CWB makes it necessary for the individual indicators to satisfy criteria of the good life. For example, it is then necessary to ask whether Nussbaum’s three indicators of critical self-examination, ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination are appropriate for a conceptualization of CWB. Critical selfexamination can be transformed pedagogically into the ability to reflect, criticize, and view oneself impartially; the ideal of world citizen would be political education, and development of narrative imagination would contain, from a pedagogic perspective, the ability to open oneself to literature, to recognize oneself in the stories of others, or to learn to respect the ways of life of others. What is clear in this approach is that education combined with the idea of justice covers more than just assessing performance in a certain school grade, and could therefore also be more far-reaching as a dimension of CWB.

9.4.3

Education and Economics

International student protests against study fees, demonstrations for free access to education institutions, or the discussion on free preschool education – these are all current examples for the economic side of education or, more precisely, access to education. Three sets of topics are relevant here: first, the returns that education can bring; second, the question how returns can be increased through optimal production; and third, the financing of education. Particularly in the context of “human capital” theory, education points to modes of economic production and reproduction, and the focus is not just on the question

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of the social but also the individual returns. Human capital theory has shown how education can be understood as an investment decision, which social expectations and investments can be associated with it, and which individual behavior may result. In this context, the function of education is considered to be directed toward the success of the individual on the qualification and labor markets and to how wellinformed she is as a customer or investor (Becker 1993). However, any calculation of returns to education reveals how difficult it is to trace the effective returns back to investments in education alone. Neither econometric models, nor twin studies in psychology, nor experiments in general have yet been able to clarify the actual individual return (Wolter 2009). This question of causality likewise applies to the evaluation of the returns to investments in education for society as a whole or how far total returns are greater than the sum of all individual returns. Human capital theory was formulated decisively in the 1960s by the Chicago economists Gary Becker and Theodore Schulz. This paradigm views the relevance of education in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and skills as an investment in the “human being” as a production factor. One central impulse from recent economics for educational science comes from the work of the economist Heckman on the returns to investment in early education. Heckman’s calculations have decisively confirmed the economic added value of early education, and in many countries, his findings have led to more intensive pedagogic efforts in this field. The long-term returns will reveal themselves in the years to come. The Belgian philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, however, characterizes primarily economic arguments as an instrumental outlook on education: “The instrumental personal economic role of education is that it can help a person to find a job, to be less vulnerable on the labour market, to be better informed as a consumer, to be more able to find information on economic opportunities, and so forth” (Robeyns 2006, Onlinepaper, p. 3). However, what can be seen clearly in this context since the 1990s is an increased pairing of market and competition-theory issues with educational theory issues in modernization theory debates that have adopted “knowledge” and the “knowledge society” as key terms (Ball 1993; Bridges and McLaughlin 1994; Peters and Humes 2003). As Peters and Humes (2003, p. 1) put it, “It is not fashionable to claim that economic progress depends upon knowledge and the utilisation of knowledge – the so-called ‘knowledge economy.’ Yet economic progress and expansion has always depended on new ideas and innovation.” In sum, it is clear that the cycle of production of education, returns to education, and financing of education impacts strongly on the lives of children and youths, and it also seems to be evident that education has its utility on both an individual and a societal level. However, the justifications for the efforts to increase returns or to introduce efficiency criteria are based on different concepts. A society that focuses on performance in the interest of its national economy and neglects the cultivation of individual meaningfulness and life satisfaction while simultaneously encouraging individual responsibility for education is pursuing more of a neoliberal concept. In this context, individual responsibility for one’s own education becomes a particularly relevant issue. In contrast, a society that invests in the most egalitarian

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education landscape possible and tries to exclude competitive criteria from the education system is pursuing – though unable to guarantee – equal opportunity. Nonetheless, one thing is clear from an economic perspective: Simply increasing the investment capital does not result in any greater returns, in any greater efficiency. The education system always seems to also depend on other incentives and on quality criteria. The critical response to a more neoliberal approach to education theory is that it subjects education and those being educated to competition and that it grants autonomy only to serve the principle of optimizing performance rather than to increase subjective freedom. For example, Robeyns (2006) has criticized that the approach to education from the “human capital” perspective is concerned exclusively with making those educated fit to work and it equates education with fitness for work. Recent analyses in educational science have drawn on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault and established a promising education theory approach to the mechanisms, functions, and effects of the economization of education and a critical response to the neoliberal criticism of the welfare state and its education policy. Feminist analyses in education theory also critically reject the idea of viewing those being educated primarily as a human capital resource. Likewise, a holistic perspective on education leads to criticism of an economicsbased education theory: Summing up, understanding education exclusively as human capital is severely limiting and damaging, as it does not recognise the intrinsic importance of education, nor the personal and collective instrumental social roles of education. Note that this does not imply that we should completely do away with seeing education as human capital; instead, it is important to recognize that there is more to education than human capital. (Robeyns 2006, Onlinepaper, p. 7; see Andresen et al. 2008)

In conclusion, economic aspects play an important role in the operation and organization of education. However, it is always necessary to clarify which purpose lies behind, for example, individual and societal investments in education, and which benchmarks are used to measure effectiveness and efficiency. We also find a similarly contoured debate over economic interests in the theoretical considerations on CWB, and we should not lose sight of the discourse that wanted to see well-being understood as an alternative concept to the gross national product. When considering how the dimension of education can be understood, defined, and operationalized for CWB and which systematic contribution to its conception this can deliver, the relation between education and economics reveals the following: Education is a question of individual access to different educational institutions; linked to this are both individual and familial private investments as well as public economic resources, that is, social investments by society in educational infrastructure. This permits the derivation of further indicators such as whether all children in one birth cohort have comparable access to basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic; whether free access to teaching materials is broad or only basic; whether how large school classes are; and whether or not an education system follows the principle of inclusion. All these issues have an economic

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basis; they are all relevant for educational processes, although causal statements on the returns are not yet possible; all touch on education concepts and they all deliver indicators on how to conceive CWB.

9.4.4

Education and Children’s Rights

Education, justice, and the economy are all closely related to basic principles in legal theory. Historical education research demonstrates how the granting of rights has been of enormous significance for education and child rearing. For example, child labor laws have contributed to the formation of modern childhood, and compulsory education has granted children the right to a fixed amount and a fixed curriculum of school education while making parents and the state responsible for ensuring its provision. How this responsibility for education is distributed between more private and more public sectors decisively shapes national education systems, and the distribution of these rights and duties has become one of the most controversial challenges of the present day. Ralf Dahrendorf (1966) called for a basic “citizen’s right to education” in his liberal education theory of the 1960s. He viewed education as a social right of all citizens, and he understood compulsory schooling as only just one first concrete form of this civil right that would still need to be extended through further measures. Moreover, he also articulated the demand for the need to achieve equal opportunity. A basic idea within such a rights-based model of education is to educate the citizen to political empowerment. All must have the same right to, for example, freedom of expression, but all must also be in the position to exercise this right competently. Hence, rights provide a basis for reflections in education theory. “The rightsbased framework submits that every human being, including every child, is entitled to decent education, even when one cannot be sure that this education will pay off in human capital terms” (Robeyns 2006, Onlinepaper, p. 8). From the perspective of legal theory, those bearing political responsibility are obliged to provide the resources to educate each and every child and to supervise the quality of these resources. However, rights also offer a basis for theoretical reflections on those being educated, because they not only try to define the autonomy of the human being but also focus on her/his dependence. This is a particularly tense dichotomy with regard to children and youths, because the autonomy of the child has to balance in relation to her/his specific dependence. Hence, there is also a need for education theory to clarify how to recognize the child as a bearer of fundamental rights, while simultaneously acknowledging and appropriately responding to the need to promote and support the child’s education process as well as her/his need for care and welfare. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights already assigned priority to the right to education – also as a right to vocational training – in 1948, because disadvantage in this sector curtails other rights such as the right to health or work. The rights of children laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are particularly significant for the relation to education. This convention

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regards children as autonomous personalities with specific needs and rights. For every child, these rights include the right to identity; freedom of expression; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; free assembly; but also the right to education. In 2005, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child laid down that education begins at birth, thereby granting a fundamentally new framework for early childhood education. Following discussions over the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the rights to be respected in the child were divided into protection, provision, and participation. This also organizes the relation of the child to the family, society, and the state. Education is embedded particularly in the rights of provision and protection, and these require further differentiation. Basil Bernstein (2000), for example, formulated three central pedagogic rights: the right to confidence, the right to inclusion, and the right to participation. Throughout the world, not only political actors but also professionals in the pedagogic work fields and science are facing the challenge of putting these rights into practice and thereby contributing to a paradigmatic shift from a paternalistic to a participatory relation between the generations – and this also has to be related to education (Mason 1994). Both Dahrendorf’s formulation of education as a citizen’s right within a specific democratic tradition and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child also reveal clear approaches toward education as a dimension of CWB. One indicator would be the opportunities for participation and codetermination or the right to freedom of expression even as a child. Basil Bernstein’s differentiation into explicit pedagogically based rights, even though still formulated in abstract terms, can also form a basis for concrete indicators. Finally, the discussion on legal theory needs to clarify whether its conceptualization of CWB is more involved with protecting children, granting them rights against this background, and providing them with education, or whether it favors a liberal approach. The latter assumes that children must have the same rights as adults. However, such an approach has major consequences for pedagogic and thereby for the understanding of education. When it comes down to it, pedagogic is based on an advocacy understanding of the need to protect, care for, rear, and educate children. This section has been an attempt to examine the accompanying approaches in justice, the economy, and children’s rights in order to clarify what they mean for the formulation of the core dimension defining CWB. Up to now, and no doubt also for pragmatic reasons, the international discussion has frequently revealed a one-sided definition of education as a single dimension and a differentiation into single indicators based particularly on performance outcomes. In this section, I have tracked this but used an education theory discussion to show how education as a dimension of CWB can be further differentiated so that we can work with powerful indicators based on educational science. The categorization of education theory in terms of the concepts of justice, economy, and children’s rights also helps to reorganize the concept of CWB. An appropriate task for research on CWB in educational science would be to perform further systematic analyses of such a dimension of education and test it empirically.

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9.5

Learning as a Dimension of CWB

9.5.1

Learning as a Key Concept in Educational Science

In this section, I shall discuss a further key concept in educational science as a dimension of CWB: the concept of learning. Unlike education, learning can be traditionally linked more strongly to empirical research, although we also find complex theories here with roots in a variety of disciplines. Most research on learning in educational science takes a national focus and is oriented toward subdisciplines such as research on teaching, didactics, adult education, or early childhood education. There is a strong tradition of empirical research on learning and teaching. This also investigates learning outcomes of, for example, instruction. Further research on learning in educational science relates to pedagogic institutions such as kindergarten, school, or child and youth service facilities as well as work on the impairment of learning through the abuse and neglect of children and adolescents. In recent years, there has also been an increase in international research on achievement and the measurement of achievement, and this approach now dominates the field. Hence, learning is one of the basic concepts in educational science, although – as with education – it is also one of its fuzzy concepts. This is why the OECD 2002 and 2007 both called for the development of an interdisciplinary science of learning. In particular, the OECD expertise “Understanding the Brain: The Birth of Learning Science” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2007) called for a greater integration of the cognitive neurosciences because educational learning research is only “prescientific.” With their imaging methods, neuroscientists are able to identify functional changes in the brain as a result of learning processes. Although their highly experimental designs can show which learning processes are visible in specific regions of the brain, up to now, they have been able to deliver only rather general statements on learning and on the laws of learning. Nonetheless, research on the neural correlates of learning disorders, that is, not on learning processes in the “normal” case, promise to deliver important findings for children at risk. However, it has yet to be seen whether this learning science called for by the OECD can prove to be productive for research on CWB. Learning as a human ability that is trained and not impeded, it is assumed, can probably make a major contribution to well-being. Therefore, this also leads us to ask what approaches to this can be gained from research in educational science. The resulting questions are: How can learning be defined in relation to CWB? Which areas of science are involved? How can we study and measure individual learning and its more far-reaching returns?

9.5.2

Learning as a Human Ability

Any discussion on learning as a key concept in educational science and on its potential as a dimension of CWB has to start by considering assumptions in evolutionary theory. This also links up with the nature–nurture controversy.

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Understood in this way, assumptions in education theory and learning theory complement each other, and it is necessary to test whether findings generated by, for example, evolutionary research or attachment theory need to be integrated more strongly than before into ideas on how to conceive CWB. This also provides an opening for findings on the determinants of CWB from social anthropology. Hence, the following will start by considering learning as a fundamental human ability with which we are equipped as a species and which is central for our individual histories. One fundamental assumption in pedagogic is the human ability to be taught or to learn. All our pedagogic efforts would be in vain without the assumption that a child or youth will change, develop as far as possible, and acquire knowledge as a result of pedagogic measures. Ever since the eighteenth century, scholars such as the French encyclopedists have been addressing the idea of perfectibilite´, the human ability to attain perfection. This requires specific endowments; in other words, an individual’s nature makes a major contribution to her/his ability to achieve self-realization or, to put it better, her/his ability to develop and to learn. However, nature does not achieve this alone, because the human being is fundamentally dependent on other human beings. This brings us to the nature–nurture controversy: As in other disciplines, modern educational science assumes a kind of “rule of thumb” based on the assumption that nature and nurture are balanced and that neither should be conceived as being strictly separate from the other. A child may enter this world with the best possible abilities. However, if he/she does not gain the opportunity to engage in what Margret Mahler called “a love affair with the world” (Leuzinger-Bohleber 2009, p. 77, translated), she will never be able to fully develop these abilities. This section will discuss the work of the primatologist and developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello, because it contains important information for learning as a dimension of CWB. Tomasello (1999) discusses the nature–nurture controversy and its significance for learning in great detail: There is thus no question of opposing nature versus nurture; nurture is just one of the many forms that nature may take. The question for developmentalists is therefore only how the process takes place, how the different factors play their different roles at different points in development. At birth human infants are poised to become fully functioning adult human beings: they have the genes they need and they are living in a prestructured cultural world ready to facilitate their development and actively teach them things as well. But they are not at that point adults; there is still more work to be done. (p. 212)

Consequently, this is where we find the challenge facing us today of how to conceive the development of precisely human learning, what happens when and how in the child’s learning and education process against the background of human evolution on the one side and completely different cultural backgrounds on the other. Recent research on evolutionary theory rejects a static contrasting of what are actually outdated categories such as nature versus nurture, congenital versus learned. This is because, among others, the human world of culture is not independent from the biological world, and culture is also a comparatively young product of evolution. The child does not start at zero, because the human being possesses the

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ability to engage in “cultural learning” so that the child can enter the culture surrounding her/him. What distinguishes human learning from that of other primates is the ability to identify in far greater depth with other conspecifics and thereby to comprehend the other’s intentions and feelings. Naturally, this human cognition is a form of primate cognition, because primates also cultivate familial and hierarchic relations, and they also develop strategies when confronted with problems in their social or physical environment. However, as Tomasello (1999) notes: In the current hypothesis human beings do indeed possess a species-unique cognitive adaptation, and it is in many ways an especially powerful cognitive adaptation because it changes in fundamental ways the process of cognitive evolution. This adaptation arose at some particular point in human evolution, . . . (perhaps fairly recently, presumably because of some genetic and natural selection events.). This adaptation consists in the ability and tendency of individuals to identify with conspecifics in ways that enable them to understand those conspecifics as intentional agents like the self, possessing their own intentions and attention, and eventually to understand them as mental agents like the self, possessing their own desires and beliefs. (pp. 201–202)

Phylogenetically, human primates therefore first had to develop their specific understanding of other members of their species, whereupon, over the course of historical development, forms of cultural inheritance developed through which human beings accumulated increasingly more cognitive “goods” so that, finally, every single child has to assimilate everything that her/his culture has to offer (ontogenesis). Neonates already show a specific form of identification with conspecifics through imitation and protoconversations. Protoconversations are early dialogue-like interactions between an infant and her/his primary attachment person. By imitating sounds, an infant enters into a dialogue with, for example, her mother. After about 9 months, infants are capable of producing analogies between self and others, and thereby recognizing intentions. This, in turn, enables them to participate in activities with other persons when these are the focus of attention for all participants. This is how children learn to imitate the actions of others, and they thereby grasp a principle of learning. In language acquisition as well, they orient themselves toward the structure of that which they hear. In this way, verbal symbols have an intersubjective nature, because they are shared by many, and this is the way in which children develop the ability to adopt different perspectives. The idea behind this very brief summary of recent research is to illustrate the fundamental insight that in order to develop and learn, children have to be enabled to recognize the intentions of others and finally to enter into interactions. The specifically human form of learning is the ability to already estimate what the other might be thinking and how she might react. This is what distinguishes human beings from other primates, but it is something that they could never develop in isolation on a lonely desert island without any conspecifics. As a dimension of CWB, the focus on the human ability to learn is initially directed toward early childhood. It concerns the fundamental opportunities for the infant to engage in interaction and to experience her/his as well as herself/ himself primary reference persons as responsive. Experiencing that the sounds I make elicit certain reactions in my mother, father, or another person is

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a learning process in the infant that enables her/him to also act and react in more complex situations, that is, to learn. However, an infant will still learn even when these opportunities are not given, and this is where this links ups with CWB. Experiencing that there is no response to the infant’s behavior, to her/his facial expressions, her/his cries, and therefore, her/his needs also creates learning. However, it can be assumed that this learning process will, with all probability, tend to block a child’s development. Therefore, this phenomenon can be used as a basis for naming CWB indicators. These may refer to the abilities of the reference persons, biological parents, and/or nursing staff in hospitals, staff in children’s homes or nurseries to pay attention to the infant’s signals and to respond to them appropriately, but also to the ability to give impulses themselves. However, these indicators also refer to the framing conditions in which early childhood is embedded, and, in this context, the threats it is exposed to through violence, absence, and chronically sick or depressive parents. At this point, this means that any conceptualization of CWB coming from educational science has to clearly specify what needs to be understood under ill-being – that is, in certain ways, the opposite of well-being. The theory of learning as a fundamental human ability offers important links here that need to be developed further through empirical research.

9.5.3

Forms of Learning

It is not enough to understand learning as a fundamental human ability and thereby adopt an anthropological perspective. We still have to explain which forms of learning can be distinguished in which ways. This is particularly important when learning needs to be further operationalized as a dimension of CWB. Recent research in evolutionary theory has distinguished three basic types of human learning: imitation learning, learning through instruction, and learning through cooperation (Tomasello 1999). All three forms also involve “demonstrating.” Surprisingly, this also reveals very interesting links with recent research on artificial intelligence. For example, robots are now being programmed on the basis of precise observations of behavior between mothers and fathers and their infants. The Genevan philosopher, Rousseau, also examined such basic forms of learning in much detail in his educational novel Emile. For Rousseau, the three “tutors” from whom the child learns are human beings, nature, and objects. This provides an excellent illustration of the breadth of the discussion over the basic concept of learning in educational science. One can distinguish rather roughly between an empirically oriented research on teaching and learning that has close ties to psychology and, in contrast, a philosophically based theory of learning. If we want to link this to theoretical and empirical work on CWB, it is necessary to examine both lines of research. One source of controversy has to be mentioned here. Psychological research on teaching and learning understands learning primarily from the perspective of the outcome: The learner changes her/his behavior and acquires knowledge. In contrast, the dominant focus in philosophical,

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phenomenological research on learning is on the procedure of learning itself and not on its outcome. This makes it necessary to ask which has closer ties to a CWB that finally does not favor well-becoming, that is, the behaviors or stocks of knowledge learned in the future, but focuses on the here and now of the child and her/his well-being. It suggests that research on learning should focus on the learning procedure itself and on the experiences that the learning child goes through with herself/himself as learner. This calls for the following systematic differentiation: first, between the implicit teaching and learning that can occur anywhere, and which is the particular responsibility of the family in childhood, and the explicit learning that is based on an intentional teaching. This particularly means school teaching that is naturally directed toward outcomes. It is above all here that it is necessary to ask not only about the how of learning but also decisively about the what (Becker 2009). Hence, scientific approaches can be distinguished that focus on a learning and teaching directed either toward behavior or toward knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge. When it comes down to it, learning theories generally aim to deliver statements on how learning proceeds, what one can observe while it is proceeding, and what learning is based on. However, theories of teaching aim to be able to state how learning should be shaped by instruction. Psychologically oriented research on teaching and learning is interested almost exclusively in explicit learning and instruction. Two directions can be reconstructed here: From the beginning of research until well into the twentieth century, this field was dominated by behaviorist research. This is linked to names such as Iwan Petrovich Pavlov, Edward Lee Thorndike, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, and John B. Watson. Modern neurobiological research on learning with its experimental designs – applied mostly to animals – is also behaviorally oriented, and in educational practice, this orientation is enjoying a renaissance in, for example, parent trainings. Starting in the 1950s, however, research started to move in another direction, and the focus shifted toward, among others, the information processing of the child while learning, thus drawing attention to cognition. Since then, research on teaching and learning has been strongly concerned with the knowledge dimension. Nonetheless, there is an increasing awareness that the attainment of multiple learning goals requires a combination of various teaching and learning models (Weinert 1996). For example, it has been shown that more constructivistically designed learning environments that emphasize the personal responsibility of the learner are more favorable for strongly achieving children, whereas less strongly achieving children have more need of an instructive and teaching-centered learning environment. The philosophical approaches and, in particular, the schools of thought that draw strongly on the experience concept such as pragmatism or phenomenology address not only the explicit but also the implicit forms of learning and instruction. The primary focus in a systematic examination of experience is on the process of learning itself rather than on its outcome parameters. As a result, this does not just consider the cognitive dimension of learning but strongly emphasizes the bodily and sensory dimension as well. In this sense, philosophical approaches

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are also concerned with knowledge, but beyond this, experience and awareness through learning. A further aspect emerges here: Learning also takes place within and through conflict situations, and these are always intersubjective in nature. This also links it up with modern anthropology and Tomasello’s cultural learning, in which it has been confirmed that human beings only learn in interaction with others. Hence, others are always constitutively involved in learning events. These interdisciplinary lines of theoretical and empirical work on learning indicate that learning as a dimension of CWB has to consider different forms of learning. There is a major need for more research here. Learning as a dimension of CWB has to be understood in relation to experience. Learning is experience. It is dialogic, meaningful, and holistic – in other words, both cognition- and body-related. On this basis, learning can be divided into four subdomains that can be formulated as indicators for CWB: If one is asking about school curricula, this is learning for knowledge. However, this alone does not suffice: Children and youths have to be able to act and make decisions within personal contexts in an increasingly more complex environment. They need to be enabled to do this, and this concerns learning for abilities. If one is referring to, for example, the family as a location of learning or the peer group, this often concerns questions of living together, of shaping everyday life together, of the division of labor, but also learning to care for others. This is called learning for life. And, finally, recent research on teaching and learning is working on methods that enable children and youths to further develop their human ability to learn, that is, learning how to learn (G€ ohlich and Zirfas 2007). These four forms, learning for knowledge, learning for abilities, learning for life, and learning how to learn, offer systematic and educationally relevant indicators for the CWB dimension of learning. One of the challenges for the future will be to continue work on this.

9.6

Conclusion

What educational theory has to figure out now is the otherness of CWB in order to generate further ideas on its foundation and conceptualization. From the perspective of educational science, the question arises whether CWB is founded on a clear concept of “ill-being” and whether there are any links to the educationally relevant discourses on children at risk. These aspects are mostly discussed in relation to early childhood. Early childhood and the conditions of growing up in a family and the increasingly important institutions for children under the age of 3 years are also major educationally relevant fields of action in CWB. This leads us to ask how educational science can successfully focus on the resources and potential of children and youths without losing sight of their vulnerability. The international literature specifies the vulnerability of children particularly in terms of income poverty, educational poverty, a migration background, and the household context (single parent). The central issues from

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an educational science perspective are how children and youths experience disadvantage, how they cope with it, and how this impairs their well-being (Wolff and De-Shalit 2007). Beyond this, the particular vulnerability of children is based on the following phenomena: Alongside the child’s general physical inferiority and age-dependent lack of knowledge, experience, and control, we find, first, that only soft norms and sanctions when children become victims; second, that children are unable to choose whom they live with and whom they meet; and, third, that there continues to be a general lack of awareness of how vulnerable children actually are (Finkelhor 2008). Nick Axford (2008) has worked out five concepts that are relevant for CWB and also asked how they can be related to each other systematically. Research in educational science can also link up with this issue. Axford’s concepts focus on resources and precarious living conditions. The concepts representing primary resources are needs, rights, and quality of life; those representing deficits are poverty and social exclusion. If learning and education/child rearing are conceived in terms of needs, they grant the young generation the ability to engage in positive activities, to acquire the world, and to be self-determined. Rights, in contrast, describe the status of an individual, and they are essential for an adequate understanding of the pedagogic approach to children. Quality of life is directed toward the subjective perspectives of children and youths – a perspective that has previously not been adopted sufficiently in research within educational science. The deficits that make children vulnerable, that is, the other side of well-being with a strong relevance for educational science, are the causes and consequences of poverty and the complex experiences of social exclusion. Both have particularly disastrous consequences for the process of growing up – as a host of empirical studies confirm. This all raises further questions on the relation between educational science and the child-well-being movement, questions that educational science will be obliged to tackle in the years to come.

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Geographies of Children’s Well-Being: in, of, and for Place

10

John H. McKendrick

In this chapter, it is argued that children’s well-being is shaped by where they live. It does not suggest that where they live determines their well-being; rather, it argues that where children live is one of several factors that contribute to their well-being. It does not even suggest that where they live is more or less important than these other factors; for example, it is not the purpose of this chapter to suggest that neighborhood is more or less important than family life in shaping children’s well-being. Such an ambition may appear lowly to a social science welded to binarisms (what matters most – structure or agency?) or reductionism (what factor accounts for most of children’s well-being?), but these knowledge goals are for others to pursue. The hiatus of this chapter is to propose a conceptual framework that accounts for the way in which where children live interfaces with other factors to shape children’s well-being. The journey toward this point will necessitate an articulation of why geography matters in any appraisal of children’s well-being. In Localities: a holistic frame of reference for appraising social justice in children’s lives (McKendrick 2009), I argued that where children live is an integral and central part of the experience of childhood. This earlier paper focused on neighborhoods, the dominant locality, and realm of everyday experience for children. It contended that childhood studies must take place seriously if we are to understand the totality of children’s lives. It drew a distinction between neighborhood problems and problem neighborhoods and reflected on the significance of “control and presence,” and “opportunity and constraint” in shaping children’s neighborhood lives. This, together with a critical reflection on localities as a political project in the shape of attempts to promote child-friendly neighborhoods, inadvertently provided much relevant insight for understanding the geography of children’s well-being.

J.H. McKendrick School of Law and Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 279 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_12, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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This chapter does not merely replicate the contentions made in Localities and other papers that have sought to demonstrate the importance of place in children’s lives (Burton 2011; Cunningham and Jones 1994; Gill 2008; Hart 1979; Hiscock and Mitchell 2011; Moore 1986; and Ward 1978, 1990). Rather, it complements this work by directly considering the ways in which neighborhood effects child well-being and it provides tools to guide further work in this area. This is not to suggest that geographical studies of children’s well-being are absent from the literature. On the contrary, in recent years, several high profile studies have sought to compare levels of child well-being across world regions, nations, regions, and districts. The knowledge gained – and the knowledge that is marginalized – by pursuing macro-geographies of child well-being is considered early in this chapter. Following from this, the challenges that are involved in measuring geographies of children’s well-being are considered. Having appraised the findings of studies that purport to examine the geographies of children’s wellbeing, and elucidated the methodological challenges that must be negotiated to measure it, this chapter turns to summarize the broader knowledge base on what constitutes a “good place” for children. This leads to the development of a range of descriptive and conceptual tools to better understand the geography of child well-being and, finally, the proposal of the argument that it is in everyone’s interests to enhance children’s well-being in place. By way of introduction, this chapter begins by drawing observation that, in recent years, there appears to have been a spatial shift in civic society’s approach to promoting and supporting child welfare.

10.1

Children’s Welfare: A Spatial Shift?

Academic disciplines are, quite rightly, very particular about their core concepts and geographers are no exception to this rule. Here is not the place for a lesson in the philosophy of geographical thought, but it is important to clarify that this chapter contends that wider civic society has been increasingly concerned to identify the spatial patterning of child welfare (a spatial shift), rather than being concerned to elucidate the character of child welfare in particular localities (a concern with place). As will be shown, this predilection for spatial patterning has far-reaching implications for the understanding children’s well-being and the efficacy of policy interventions which aim to enhance it. The primary institution for supporting children’s welfare is the family, and in particular, the immediate family unit of parent/s and siblings. This should not to be denied or ignored by any attempt to elucidate geographies of welfare. Equally, it would be a naı¨ve analysis or policy strategy that did not accord a complementary or supplementary role to “environment” in shaping well-being. There are several grounds for paying attention to the geographies of child wellbeing. First and foremost, in our interdependent worlds, the sensibility of drawing

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on professional expertise is widely accepted (neighborhood as resource). Child welfare is promoted by the ready access to schools, health, and social services and those professionals and volunteers with an aptitude to enable children to enjoy, experience, and/or realize their potential in an array of sporting and leisure-time pursuits. Second, the role of neighborhood support in enhancing child well-being also pertains to the potential of the neighborhood environment to facilitate leisure and child development (neighborhood opportunities). For example, the ready availability of age-appropriate places to take children may assist estranged parents in making the most of what limited time they have available with their children who do not live with them. Neighborhood opportunities are often understood in terms of dedicated playspace and, to a lesser extent, the way in which the environment facilitates children’s independent mobility. However, a wider array of opportunities should be expected from neighborhoods, for example, adaptability of the built environment, places to facilitate sedentary leisure and reflection, access to friends, a manipulable natural environment, etc. Third, independent family units often must draw upon the support of a wider network of friends or extended family. Once again, well-functioning neighborhoods can facilitate this. Grandparents, for example, often fulfill an important role in caring for their grandchildren, enabling parents to participate more fully in the labor market. A well-designed neighborhood that facilitates children’s independent mobility could both lessen one of the pressures that shared care places on family life (transporting children), and promote healthenhancing behavior among children. Where the housing system does not facilitate living near to family (or friends), then a child-friendly transport system would be even more of a key ingredient of a well-making environment for children and their families. Fourth, more intensive and direct support is often required where the family unit, for whatever reason, is unable to ensure children’s welfare. For example, the often chaotic lives of drug-abusing parents necessitate the interventions of social services to support both the child and the wider family of which they are part. The “hidden hand” of support services is an integral part of the geographies of well-being, which must be as concerned with what people do, as with what the built and natural environment offer. Finally, it must also be acknowledged that, at any one time, many children are “looked after” or are in “alternative care.” Eurochild (2010) has estimated that as many as one million children in the European Union are currently living in institutional settings. Although a minority group, it would be unacceptable to reduce the quest to improve children’s well-being to those living only in private households. The quality and availability of institutional settings should be considered in any comprehensive account of children’s well-being across space. These observations suggest that the world beyond the family makes many contributions to support and enhance children’s welfare. Furthermore, a number of loosely related contemporary trends have coalesced to heighten the specific importance of geographies of well-being. These refer not to the geography of the underlying forces that shape well-being; rather, these refer to the heightened visibility of the outcome of these forces in the form of standardized comparison

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of outcomes across administrative entities. In short, the geographical indicator has risen to prominence in recent years. Although the genesis of this trend lies beyond children’s welfare, in this, it has found fertile ground. First, the emergence of evidence-based, or evidence-informed, policy has added weight to the value of pre- and post-intervention data. Evidencing impact is now an integral part of the policy process. Second, a related point is a wider concern for public accountability. For example, stakeholders – local and sector-specific interest groups – seek investment that furthers their interests and those dispensing public (and private) funds are often tasked with accounting for decisions to fund X instead of Y, and to demonstrate the impact of the funds they dispense. The need for such accountability is heightened when, as is often the case, funds available are insufficient to meet demand. Here, the challenge for both public and private bodies is to dispense funds to the most deserving of all of the deserving cases that seek them. Using data to demonstrate need – for example, highlighting areas with the highest level of deprivation, or identifying populations with the highest incidence of poor health – is commonplace. Third, there is a wider culture of evidence-led debate that extends beyond the narrow objective of securing project funding or justifying departmental spending. This is perhaps most strongly evident in the European Union with the Social Open Method of Coordination which does not set targets, but tasks member states to report performance and shares this “openly” among member states (Fraser and Marlier 2012). The desire not to be the poorest performer among peers is thought to be as effective a driver for improving standards as any obligation. It is also very much part of the core work of a wide range of interest groups, evidenced in their production of briefing papers and information sheets (e.g., Eurochild 2012). Finally, all of this is made possible by, and is a further catalyst for further production of, the growing availability of timely, geo-coded data. One further contextual trend should be noted. In the broad field of children’s welfare, much effort has been invested in measuring child poverty. For example, in the European Union, this led to the development of the Laeken suite of indicators to provide a comprehensive measurement of poverty (European Union 2009). Within nation states, there have also been moves to develop standard poverty indicators (e.g., Department of Work and Pensions 2003; UK Parliament 2012). Although these have the potential to conceive of poverty beyond material well-being, there has tended to be a greater focus on the single indicator of whether children live in a household that has less than 60 % of median household income (equivalized for household composition). This has been a comfortable indicator for those governments that have championed a work-first approach to tackling child poverty, that is, where the main anti-child poverty strategy is to increase parental employment. However, this reductionism in poverty measurement (and strategy) has increasingly concerned those responsible for promoting children’s welfare in the round (Sinclair and McKendrick 2009). Against the overly narrow focus on household income in studies of child poverty – and in the context of a growing concern with the spatial patterning of children’s welfare outcomes – there has emerged an alternative approach as many now seek to chart the macro-geographies of children’s well-being.

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10.2

283

Macro-geographies of Child Well-Being

Comparative indices of child well-being are seductive knowledge. Readers are inevitably drawn to the top end and the bottom end of a league table. Favorable results are warmly received and evidenced to validate work programs and policy strategies. Adverse results occasionally lead to the methodology being questioned, but almost always lead to searching questions being asked to account for what appears to be “poor performance.” There is no shortage of macro-scale comparative studies of children’s welfare. Although largely eschewing the league table format and fronting its reports with descriptive and analytical commentary on particular themes, UNICEF (2012) publishes The State of the World’s Children every year. The report ends with a compendium of key statistics on different aspects of child welfare, the range of which has increased through time, continuing to increase in recent years with the addition of statistical tables on “adolescence” and “disparities among richest and poorest households” in 2011, and “disparities across urban and rural areas” in 2012. Where available, statistics are presented for nation states and summary statistics are generated for world regions. A broad range of statistics are presented, some tightly focused on children (e.g., participation in secondary, primary, and preprimary schools), others describing conditions that impact both on children’s well-being and that of other groups (e.g., a range of indicators on women’s health). These statistical tables are introduced as “Economic and social statistics on the countries and territories of the world, with particular reference to children’s well-being” (UNICEF 2012, p. 81, emphasis added). The only indicator that is presented in league table format for nation states is the Under 5 Mortality Rate (U5MR), which is described as a “critical indicator of child well-being” (UNICEF 2012, p. 87) (For information, Somalia achieved the ignominy of rank 1 with a U5MR of 180 (per 1,000 children). Iceland, Lichenstein and San Marino shared rank 193 with a U5MR of 2 (per 1,000 children).), on the grounds that it measures the end result of the development process, it is the result of a wide variety of inputs, and its measurement qualities mean that results are representative of the nation as a whole (it is described as improbable that the U5MR of a wealthy minority will skew the nation’s result and disguise the wider reality of the majority). Indeed, UNICEF presents this as a “principal indicator” of child well-being which it uses as an “agreed method of measuring the level of child well-being and its rate of change” (UNICEF 2012, p. 125). Although The State of the World’s Children is primarily discursive and analytical, the allure of ranking places by well-being is too hard to resist. In a similar vein, the OECD (2009) falls short in its attempt to avoid the distraction of a league table format. In Doing Better for Children, their analysis of comparative child well-being across 30 OECD countries, there is a conscious attempt to avoid an overarching index (a summary league table ranking) on the grounds that it would “distract the focus toward discussion of the aggregation method, and away from more important practical issues of improving child wellbeing” (OECD 2009, p. 22). In avoiding a single summary ranking, the OECD opted to classify countries according to whether, relative to the OECD average, they

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performed significantly better, significantly worse, or about the average for each of six domains of child well-being (material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, risk behaviors, housing and environment, and quality of school life). However, the analysis also ranks each nation from best performing (rank 1) to worst performing (rank 30) for each domain. Readers’ attention is as much drawn to the big numbers (relative positioning) in the summary table as the coloring (classification of performance, relative to average). For example, the reader is naturally inclined to castigate the United States for a ranking of 23 for material well-being and 25 for educational well-being; but this should be tempered by the additional knowledge that is provided that the US performance is in the “about the average” band on both domains. The OECD should be praised for providing a classification to temper the focus on rankings, but the inherent danger of these rankings is all too apparent. In contrast, UNICEF/Innocenti (2007) and the UK Government (Bradshaw et al. 2009 for England) are among those who have embraced the league table approach, manipulating multidimensional indicator sets to generate league tables of child well-being. Many others have been generated in recent years (e.g., Michaelson et al. 2009; UNICEF 2010) and others are pending (TARKI Social Research Institute 2010 for the European Union). Table 10.1 summarizes the comparative macro-geographies of child wellbeing in “rich” countries that was produced by the Innocenti Research Centre in 2007 (UNICEF 2007). Although inevitably drawn to the extremities of the overview table (the top and bottom end of the table of countries, ordered by average ranking), the wealth of domain data offers a degree of depth to the analysis. For example, although child well-being in the UK is consistently worse than that in comparable nations, it should be noted that its performance on “health and safety” is less poor. Similarly, although reporting generally high levels of child well-being, it is striking that children in Sweden rank less favorably in terms of “family and peer relationships.” Indeed, the quality of “family and peer relationships” seems to be an issue that should be of wider concern across Scandinavia. The value of not reducing well-being to a single summary measure is readily apparent (Fig. 10.1). Bradshaw et al.’s (2009) work in England offers a cautionary note against a different type of overgeneralization. Although macro-geographical patterns in child well-being can be discerned from their analysis – there are more local areas with low child well-being in London and more areas with high child well-being in the wider South East of England – there are complexities that must also be acknowledged. In every region, there is a mix of local areas with the lowest and highest levels of child well-being (although the mix is different in each region). Similarly, although there is a hint of a national “regional geography” of child well-being (with the likelihood of identifying areas with low child well-being falling from north to south), London is an outlier that ruptures the neat pattern. Clearly, in addition to providing seductive knowledge, these macro-geographies of child well-being have the potential to provide useful knowledge.

9 16 8 20 17 18

13.0 13.7 13.8 14.5 18.0 18.2

7 14 20 17 21 12

Health and safety 2 1 4 3 6 9 8 5 19 16 11 13 18 15 10 18 21 19 13 12 17

Educational wellbeing 6 5 8 4 15 14 11 20 7 1 10 2 16 3 9 12 2 16 6 20 21

Family and peer relationships 3 15 9 17 8 4 10 1 7 5 13 18 11 14 19 14 15 16 18 20 21

Behaviors and risks 3 1 6 7 5 12 13 10 4 19 11 17 8 2 9 18 14 4 13 20

Subjective wellbeing 1 7 12 11 2 6 8 10 5 16 9 15 3 19 17

Geographies of Children’s Well-Being: in, of, and for Place

Source: UNICEF (2007)

Netherlands Sweden Denmark Finland Spain Switzerland Norway Italy Ireland Belgium Germany Canada Greece Poland Czech Republic France Portugal Austria Hungary United States United Kingdom

Material wellbeing 10 1 4 3 12 5 2 14 19 7 13 6 15 21 11

Average ranking 4.2 5.0 7.2 7.5 8.0 8.3 8.7 10.0 10.2 10.7 11.2 11.8 11.8 12.3 12.5

Table 10.1 Child well-being in 21 “rich” countries, 2007

10 285

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Fig. 10.1 Comparative child well-being in English regions, 2009 (Source: Bradshaw et al. (2009). Note: These data are regional counts of the number of local areas (Local Super Output Areas) within that region that are among the best 20 % in England (blue bar) and the worst 20 % in England (red bar) in the Local Index of Child Well-Being. There are 32,482 LSOAs in England, with an average of 1,500 residents in each)

Although it would be an error to equate useful with utilitarian knowledge, one of the common features of these contemporary macro-geographies of child well-being is that they are oriented toward policy. Indeed, the policy orientation of these indices is much heralded. One of the reasons underlying the selection of each indicator for the OECD is that they were “relatively amenable to policy choices” (2009, p. 21). Similarly, in reviewing the development of indicators to measure child well-being in the EU, Eurochild (2009, p. 5, emphasis added) contends that, “. . . indicators should also be employed to help shape policies and services which require that they are devised and used in ways that would extend their impact beyond simply building knowledge. Indicators of child well-being should be used in a way that contributes to improving the lives of children throughout the EU.” Understanding child well-being is not a primary knowledge goal; it is implicit, inadvertent, or assumed that child well-being will be better understood through charting the policy-oriented macro-geographies of child well-being. The primary objective is to identify good and bad outcomes for children (both in aggregate, and by domain), in order to encourage poorly performing administrations to enact improvement. This is not to suggest that these multidimensional indices are groundless or do not focus on matters which contribute to children’s well-being. On the contrary, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) provides the foundation for much of

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this work. Stated bluntly by Bradshaw et al. (2007, p. 134), “The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child offers a normative framework for the understanding of children’s well-being,” going on to explain how its four general principles provide a framework for the articulation of an analysis that is concerned with both well-being and well-becoming, that is, nondiscriminatory, in the best interests of the child, concern with survival and development, and respect for the views of the child. Even where the impact of the UNCRC is not articulated as precisely, there is often acknowledgement that it offers loose guidance. As the Innocenti work (2007, p. 3), observes, “Although heavily dependent on the available data, this assessment is also guided by a concept of child well-being that is in turn guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.” With a preference for policy-oriented indicators, a common grounding in the UNCRC and the consensus-building orientation of an international research community (Ben-Arieh and Frones 2007), it should come as no surprise that there is much commonality in both the individual indicators and the overarching domains that comprise the multidimensional measures of children’s well-being in place. Table 10.2 summarizes the domains that are used in four measures of child wellbeing (columns) and the types of indicators that are used to measure performance across these domains (rows). It is immediately apparent that there is much common thinking; material well-being, health, education, and risk feature in all indices, and “housing and environment” features in all but one. Furthermore, most of the indicators use data on children’s experiences to evidence well-being (e.g., average literacy achievement of 15-year-olds is used as one of the indicators for educational well-being in the OECD index). Estimates of children’s material well-being tend to be based on indicators at the level of the household with children (e.g., the proportion of children aged 0–15 in households claiming a range of welfare benefits is used in Bradshaw et al.’s index for local areas in the UK). Other types of indicator feature less often in these indices, which have been designed to capture the macrogeography of children’s well-being. For example, there are few cases of indicators that speak of the resources and opportunities that are available to children in the locality.

10.3

Capturing All of the Geographies of Child Well-Being?

10.3.1 Challenge of Measurement Setting aside, for now, more fundamental objections, the first challenge in capturing macro-geographies of well-being through multidimensional indicator sets is to devise robust methods. The full weight of the international research community has addressed the task of optimizing measurement. The general demands of utilizing effective indicators (those that are available, comparable, and timely) and appropriate data aggregation methods have been met. This is not to suggest that consensus has been achieved. Table 10.2 has already demonstrated subtle differences across projects. The publication of two papers, each of which utilized

Resources for children Resources for households with children Resources for localities Opportunities in localities Child experiences Neighbourhood experiences

Resources for children Resources for households with children Resources for localities Opportunities in localities Child experiences Neighbourhood experiences CHILD WELL BEING IN RICH COUNTRIES (ECONOMICALLY ADVANCED NATIONS)

CHILD POVERTY ANDCHILD WELL BEING IN THE EU

Resources for children Resources for households with children Resources for localities Opportunities in localities Child experiences Neighbourhood experiences

Resources for children Resources for households with children Resources for localities Opportunities in localities Child experiences Neighbourhood experiences COMPARATIVE CHILD WELL BEING IN OECD COUNTRIES

LOCAL INDEX OF CHILD WELL BEING (UK)

4

Income

Educational Well Being 2

Health & Safety

Environment

2

Crime

Crime

Quality of School Life

Quality of School Life

2

Quality of School Life

Quality of School Life

Family & Peer relationships

1

Social participation & family relationships

Family & Peer relationships

Family & Peer relationships

4

3

Housing

2

Housing

Local Environment

1

1

Crime

4

Crime

3

12

Behaviour & Risks

4

Exposure to risk and risk behaviour

3

4 1

Environment 1

Housing & Environment

Housing 2 1 1

2

3

4

Education

3

12

Health

8

Educational Well Being

Health & Safety

Risk Behaviours

*

6

2

At risk *

Education

1

Health

2

2 1

Labour market attachment

Material well being

* *

Material deprivation

Material well being 1 2

5

Material well being

Table 10.2 Domains, types and number of indicators used in four multidimensional indices of child well-being

4

Subjective well being

Subjective well being

Subjective well being

Subjective well being

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alternative algorithms to rework the UNICEF Innocenti data on child well-being in “rich nations” (UNICEF 2007), also evidences that differences of opinion persist (Dijkstra 2009; Heshmati et al. 2007). Differences of emphasis aside, the research community has risen to the general challenges of measurement. Similarly, child-specific measurement challenges have also been faced. Although weaknesses are acknowledged – data are not equally available for all groups of children, for example, less data are available for younger children (particularly data on educational outcomes); data are not often disaggregated by migrant and dis/ability status; and well-being data are often not available for those living in institutions – other issues have been addressed. There is a clear understanding of the importance of including data that addresses children’s lives as lived (well-being) and the foundations that are lain in childhood for a positive future (well becoming). More broadly speaking, this may be conceived as the need to embrace both a developmental and a child rights’ perspective. Also, it requires a focus on social ills, in addition to more positive qualities of children’s lives. Some comparative work already incorporates children’s own perceptions of their well-being (UNICEF 2007), while other studies have taken subjective well-being as their primary focus (Bradshaw et al. 2011), although data are more readily available on children’s outcomes and parental opinion/household situation and these data tend to feature more prominently than children’s perspectives at the current time. What tends to be accepted as a given is the underlying geography. The methodological concerns that might tax the geographer tend to be explicitly considered to a lesser degree by those responsible for producing multidimensional indicator sets for child well-being. The dangers of ecological fallacy (the attribution to individuals of behaviors and experiences based on where they live – Robinson 1950) and the modifiable area unit problem (the arbitrary specification of geographical units for data reporting which may obfuscate, rather than illuminate – Openshaw 1984) are not primary methodological concerns. In part, this is understandable, given that this work tends to have a policy or advocacy orientation and there is a necessity to work with, rather than question, the administrative units to which data refer. However, they remain challenges for interpretation, if not weaknesses in calculation.

10.3.2 Questioning Purpose As previously stated, the indices are framed as part of the policy process. The desirability of this is clear. However, the way in which this is pursued is not without problems. Stating a preference to include domains that are amendable to policy choices (and that each indicator enables performance to be assessed for these domains) inadvertently suggests that other aspects of well-being (those that are less amenable to policy choices) have been excluded. Independently of this, the indices express a preference for outcome measures (impact on children), as opposed to inputs (policy work that aims to improve outcomes). This has been achieved, as

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the preponderance of outcome indicators in indices of child well-being evidences (Table 10.2). These measurement preferences – for policy-relevant and outcomebased indicators – are understandable and consistent with the desire to use this knowledge to effect improvements in children’s well-being. However, there is an inherent inconsistency in this approach as a means to improve children’s overall (global) well-being. The tacit acknowledgement that the multidimensional indicator sets that are focused on outcomes and oriented toward policy are unable or unwilling to consider all of those factors that contribute to children’s well-being implies that their summary measure being should not be considered as an overall measure of child well-being. Rather, it would be more accurate to describe it as an overall measure of policy-focused child well-being. This would not necessarily undermine the inherent value of the aggregation. However, the complexity of the social world is such that it is difficult to attribute outcomes to a single cause. Expressed differently, and for example, the policy interventions that seek to reduce the number of children living in households with an income level well below the median are not the only factors that contribute to this goal being realized. Indeed, it is theoretically possible for an effective policy intervention to do no more the shore up and compensate for wider pressures that work against this goal being achieved. One concrete example would be the effectiveness of anti-child poverty strategies in tempering the increasing levels of child poverty in an economic downturn. Describing as “failure” any outcome that does not lead to improved performance may not only be misleading; it may be counterproductive, leading to the rejection of effective policy. The efficacy of a policy cannot be determined with reference only to crude data on outcomes. These observations are not made to support an argument in favor of moving away from either an outcomes focus, or a policy orientation, in the macrogeographies of child well-being. Rather, they are drawn in order that we are more modest in our knowledge claims, more proportionate in our assessment of the extent to which children’s well-being can be improved through policy, and open to possibilities for exploring other ways of understanding children’s well-being and its geographies.

10.3.3 Beyond Geography as Spatial Patterning The problems associated with developing the macro-geography of children’s wellbeing are not inconsiderable, but are surmountable. Much research endeavor is already being invested in methodological design and improvement. However, it should also be acknowledged that spatial patterning is not the only contribution that geography can make toward understanding children’s well-being. Geographers are not only concerned to document and map variations across space. Another useful geography of children’s well-being is to appraise places as landscapes and to “read” those landscapes in terms of the subconscious way in which they enhance or constrain well-being. Here, the focus may be as much on the

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representation of a place as a child-friendly environment, as on the actuality of whether that place enhances the quality of children’s lives. The extent to which there is an absence of signs forbidding ball games in spaces that might otherwise facilitate play, considering the quantity and quality of playgrounds when they are interpreted as symbols of children’s right to play and right to use of the neighborhood; the extent to which child-centered modes of transport, such as walking, cycling, or skateboarding, are marginalized or prioritized in transport design; the extent to which the built environment is designed in a way that facilitates all children’s active participation (e.g., sensitivity to the capacities of small children); the way in which children’s perspectives are routinely sought in neighborhood decision making – each of these is more than a practical example of how neighborhoods can be made more amenable to children. They are also indicative of children’s neighborhood status (the collective desire to promote child well-being) and can be “read” as such as a socio-spatial landscape. Other geographies might be less concerned with form or outcomes, and may be more concerned with the underlying socio-spatial processes that constitute and reconstitute place. Holloway and Valentine’s (2000) contention that place is porous – in which contexts (institutions, neighborhoods, etc.) draw upon external influences and blend them with existing local cultures to create new realities – is one such acknowledgement that places are dynamic and are a blending of the idiographic and the nomothetic. There is also a rich tradition of work that seeks to describe what places should offer children (as a means to enhance their well-being).

10.4

Qualities of a “Good Place” for Children

On one level, the macro-geography of children’s well-being defines a “good place” for children. Good places are those in which children are not hampered by low household income and poor housing; are ones in which they are able to achieve positive outcomes in health and education; and are ones in which they can avert risk, “negative” behaviors, and poor relationships. Given the outcomes focus and policy orientation of this work, there is a tendency to define “good places” not according to the public services (and household resources) that are available (inputs), but rather in terms of those with more children achieving successful outcomes. Our understanding of residential social geography (the ordering of space by cultural orientation, life stage, and socioeconomic status, e.g., Knox and Pinch 2009) leads us to question whether, so defined, “good places for children” are merely aggregations of children with already positive outcomes or, more fundamentally, are places which are positively enriching children’s lives. In contrast, there tends to be a focus on provision rather than outcome when “good places” are described in terms of the opportunities that they should afford children. This is not to suggest that children’s use of the neighborhood is overlooked (e.g., Hillman et al.’s seminal work on children’s mobility, published in 1990), or that knowledge of children’s use of the neighborhood is not used to inform provision

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(e.g., Cunningham and Jones’ (1994) model of the child-friendly neighborhood utilized evidence on the more limited home range of girls, compared to boys, to reach a minimum recommendation of distances from home to playspace). However, the primary focus of those concerned to describe neighborhood opportunities is what is provided, rather than what use is made of these provisions. Whole area blueprints and principles have been developed for child-friendly cities and neighborhoods (Cunningham and Jones 1994; Elsinger 2012), while commentators and campaigning organizations have developed thematic blueprints to specify minimum standards that would be acceptable in terms of mobility corridors (Kytta, 2004), playspace (Play Scotland 2012), and greenspace (Ironside Farrar 2005, Chap. 6). For others, a “good place” should be defined less in terms of the resources that are available to children, or the opportunities that are provided. Here, the main concern is that these are places that facilitate children’s meaningful participation (Gill 2008; Gleeson and Spike 2006; Hart 1997; Horelli 1998; Percy-Jones and Malone 2001). Working from within a child rights perspective and grounded in the UNCRC, primacy is given to children’s role in neighborhood life (UNICEF 1996); well-being cannot be gained if children have no role in shaping their lives. This thinking also underlies approaches to use subjective measures to measure children’s well-being in place (e.g., Crivello et al. 2009), or indeed, in studies that invite children to articulate what constitutes a child-friendly neighborhood (Nordstrom 2010). Resources, opportunities, and participation are already acknowledged as key ingredients of “good places” for children. Implicitly, there is an expectation that these will be afforded to all children, that is, that “good places” are inclusive, with appropriate offerings available regardless of age, gender, cultural background, dis/ ability, socioeconomic status, and the like.

10.5

Evaluating Places and Conceptualizing the Geography of Child Well-Being

10.5.1 Impact of Places on Children’s Well-Being This chapter opened with the contention that children’s well-being is shaped by where they live. Even if children have largely withdrawn from public space – perhaps in response to parental fears for their safety (Valentine and McKendrick 1997), or as a result of their own preference to pursue home-based leisure (Tandon et al. 2012) – the wider world impacts upon their quality of life, by virtue of not providing what it should. There are limitations in the extent to which the impact of neighborhoods on children can be generalized. It is entirely conceivable that while a place may enrich the well-being of one sibling, it may impair that of another, for example, the provision of a skate park to encourage children not to use the roads in a neighborhood with heavy vehicular traffic flow, may enhance the well-being of a sibling who skates, while doing nothing to address the problems faced by a sibling who cycles. Whether the focus is on a specific child, or a generalization on the overall impact of a place on a group of children (or all children), Fig. 10.2 offers a simple tool to

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Transforming

Enriching

Reinforcing

Impairing

Damaging

Transforming. Provides a realm that is transformative for the child, i.e. affording them opportunities and providing them with resources that are far beyond the reach of their family unit / home life. Enriching. Enhances child well-being, e.g. well-designed, child friendly neighbourhoods that encourage and support children to fully capitalise on the resources that they bring from the domestic realm Reinforcing. Reflects the well-being that the child experiences in the domestic realm, i.e. provides access to a level of opportunity and resource that is commensurate with that experienced in the familial / home setting Impairing. Adversely impacts on well-being, e.g. poorly designed neighbourhood for children that provides them with access to less opportunities and fewer resources than might typically be expected Damaging. Neighbourhood has a severely negative impact on the well-being of the child, e.g. public realm in war torn situation.

Fig. 10.2 The impact of places on the well-being of children (Source ¼ author)

describe the impact of a place on children’s well-being. Akin to Hart’s (1997) ladder of children’s participation, it acknowledges a spectrum of impact, in this instance from damaging through to transforming. It should be emphasized that this is a tool for describing the overall impact of places on children’s well-being (and not a tool to describe overall levels of children’s well-being). The distinction is important, as it focuses attention on what places can do (or actually do) to enhance children’s well-being. Unlike the macro-geographies of children’s well-being (which define “good places” as those in which children achieve good outcomes), it forces direct evaluation of contribution of place. It is possible that the contribution of places to children’s well-being in localities in which children attain good outcomes may do no more than reinforce advantageous situations that emanate from the home environment (rung 3), while other localities in which children attain, relatively, less favorable outcomes are compensating for disadvantageous home environments by enriching (rung 4) or transforming (rung 5) children’s lives.

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10.5.2 A Taxonomy of Neighborhood Quality and Child Well-Being Figure 10.2 sought to clarify the nature of the impact of places on children’s well-being: good (rungs 4 and 5), bad (rungs 1 and 2), or indifferent (rung 3). A complementary approach to describing the geography of child well-being is to describe places in terms of what they offer to children (Fig. 10.3). Although applicable to different place-types (streets, cities, nations, etc.), it is most straightforward to appreciate at the scale of the neighborhood. Earlier discussion of what places should offer children, based on the existing literature, suggested that places should comprise four offerings to enhance children’s well-being, that is, they should be (1) inclusive, presenting all children with equivalent experiences; (2) participative, affording children an active role in shaping their environment and choosing how that environment is utilized; (3) environments of opportunity, providing children with the spaces and facilities that enable them to enhance their well-being; and (4) be resourced with the key services that are essential to support their quality of life as lived, and to lay the foundations for well-becoming in the years ahead. There are 16 possible combinations of the presence or absence of these essential ingredients of a well-functioning place (Fig. 10.3), ranging from fourstar neighborhoods (possessing every quality) to no-star neighborhoods (lacking in all qualities). The value of such an approach is that it does not accept strengths in one area as compensating for weaknesses in another. It makes clear that neighborhoods of child well-being are those that take all qualities into consideration. The objectives of this chapter do not permit lengthy discussion of the mechanisms through which a neighborhood could be considered to be inclusive, or participative, etc., and clearly this is an issue that warrants more detailed consideration. However, the taxonomy establishes a standard to which all neighborhoods should strive.

10.5.3 Accounting for the Geography of Child Well-Being Tools to more precisely describe the way in which, and extent to which, places can effect child well-being force a more precise understanding of the issue. However, there are inherent dangers in sharpening focus. While there is merit in specialization, there is a risk in elevating the importance of the matter at hand to a level that it does not warrant. In the context of this chapter, accounting for neighborhood in children’s well-being can only be achieved if cognizance is taken of the wider realm of influence of which it is part. Figure 10.4 situates the contribution of neighborhood to children’s wellbeing. As asserted throughout this chapter, neighborhood is one of the key realms that contributes to children’s well-being. The understanding, developed in this chapter, of the neighborhood as an environment of opportunity and resource, which should enable participation for all children, is clearly articulated in the illustration.

Sufficient OPPORTUNITIES exist for all children and it is INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities exist for all children. However, Similarly, children are not given the LICENCE and do not have the RESOURCES to capitalise on the opportunities that exist.

Sufficient OPPORTUNITIES exist for all children and they are given the LICENCE to utilise them. It is INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities exist for all children. However, children do not have the RESOURCES to fully capitalise on these opportunities

Sufficient OPPORTUNITIES exist for all children and they are given the LICENCE to utilise them. However, it is not INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities do not exist for all children. Similarly, children do not have the RESOURCES to fully capitalise on these opportunities

Although children have adequate RESOURCES, there is a lack of OPPORTUNITIES and what is available is not equally open to all (INCLUSIVE). Furthermore, children are not given the LICENCE to capitalise on the limited opportunities that exist

Insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available for all children and what is available is not equally open to all (INCLUSIVE). Children do not have adequate RESOURCES and are not given the LICENCE to participate

Three star ∗∗∗

Two star ∗∗

One star ∗

No star

Although children are given the LICENCE to participate, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available, and those that are available is not equally open to all (INCLUSIVE). Furthermore, children do not have the RESOURCES to capitalise on the opportunities that exist

Sufficient OPPORTUNITIES exist for all children and children have the RESOURCES to capitalise on these. However, it is not INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities do not exist for all children. Similarly, children are not given the LICENCE to capitalise on the opportunities that exist.

Children have RESOURCES to exploit the OPPORTUNITIES that exist and it is INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities exist for all children. However, children are not given the LICENCE to fully participate

Although INCLUSIVE in character, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available. Furthermore, children are not given the LICENCE or RESOURCES to capitalise on the limited opportunities that exist

Children have RESOURCES to exploit what is available and are given the LICENCE to do so. However, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available for all children. Similarly, what is available is not equally open to all (INCLUSIVE).

Children have RESOURCES to exploit the OPPORTUNITIES that exist and the LICENCE to participate is open to all. However, it is not INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities do not exist for all children

Children have RESOURCES to exploit what is available and that which is available is open to all children (INCLUSIVE). However, there are, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES and children are not given the LICENCE to capitalise on the limited opportunities that exist

Children are given the LICENCE to capitalise on what is available and that which is available is open to all (INCLUSIVE). However, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available and children do not have the RESOURCES to capitalise on the opportunities that exist.

Geographies of Children’s Well-Being: in, of, and for Place

Fig. 10.3 Neighborhood quality and child well-being (Source ¼ author)

Although sufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available, those that are available is not equally open to all (INCLUSIVE). Furthermore, children are not given the LICENCE or RESOURCES to capitalise on the opportunities that exist

Children have RESOURCES to exploit what is available and are given the LICENCE to do so. It is INCLUSIVE in the sense that equivalent opportunities exist for all children. However, insufficient OPPORTUNITIES are available for all children

Children have RESOURCES to exploit the OPPORTUNITIES that exist. The LICENCE to participate is open to all and it is INCLUSIVE in the sense that opportunities exist for all children

Four star ∗∗∗∗

10 295

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World region/global Nation Region

Environment of opportunity Socio-economic situation

Local Resource Provision Participation

Dynamics of Family life

Parenting

Family

Inclusive

Neigbourhood

Child as active agent

Child Well Being

Fig. 10.4 Factors contributing to child well-being: a conceptual framework to situate place in context (No notes / Source ¼ author)

However, acknowledging the importance of neighborhood should not be overstated, or made at the expense of other factors. Family life (whether as a provider of resources, as a meaningful interaction with significant adults, or as a social entity of which the child is part) also has a key role to play in facilitating well-being for children. Family is considered to have a direct influence on children’s well-being (the orange diagonal line of influence that extends down to “child as active agent”). It also mediates the way in which children are able to fully capitalize on what the neighborhood has to offer (horizontal pink line of influence), for example, through

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the extent to which, and ways in which, parents allow their children to access neighborhood space. Two other points should be noted. Beyond the neighborhood, forces of influence at regional, national, and global (or world regional) scale bear down upon children’s well-being. Akin to Bronfenbrenner (1973), these forces may seem distant to the everyday realities of children’s lives, but they are pertinent to it nevertheless. These forces are sometimes far from abstract for everyday realities, as can be shown through the examples of the UNCRC in shaping how children are regarded by professionals (global), local service implications that may follow from the development of a well-being policy focus in Europe (world region), setting of national targets which shape the everyday work of children in schools (nation), and decisions on the allocation of municipal resources across local areas (region). Finally, the schemata acknowledges that children have an active role in shaping their own well-being. The realms of wider influence beyond the neighborhood, the way in which the family provides the foundations of well-being and the possibilities that are presented by the neighborhood are received and mediated by children. Although this is not presented as a neo-liberal individualistic model that attributes well-being to the individual (which tends to lead to a blaming of those who fail to achieve), any progressive understanding of the geography of children’s well-being must be open to possibility of children having an active role in negotiating or rationalizing provisions in order to determine their own well-being. On the other hand, evidence of some children achieving an adequate well-being despite an under-resourced neighborhood or an unsupportive family environment should not be used as an argument to dismiss the need to address deficiencies in these realms.

10.6

Conclusion: Better for Children, Better for All

This chapter concludes by returning to the title which suggested that children’s well-being might be understood to be in, of and for place. Macro-geographical studies are accumulating a knowledge base of the spatial patterning of children’s well-being. Here, the focus is on place as a receptor, an administrative convenience for the collation of evidence – it is the geography of well-being in place. The value of this knowledge is acknowledged, particularly as a means to appraise and influence policy and as a means to operationalize the laudable principles of the UNCRC. However, it is a limited geography of children’s well-being, which is exposed to problems of ecological fallacy and the modifiable areal unit problem. Geographers might be more motivated to develop a geography of children’s well-being of place, that is, one that focuses on the ways and extent to which where children live actively impairs or enhances their well-being. Macro-geographical studies provide a useful steer, but the analysis requires a drilling down to understand whether positive outcomes are the causal consequence of how neighborhoods work. To achieve the goal, somewhat paradoxically, requires an appreciation of the limits to which neighborhoods influence children’s well-being.

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However, it is also contended that the project of improving children’s well-being is to the collective benefit of the neighborhood and its users. Some may be uncomfortable with using children to achieve broader goals – such as the utilization of powerful images of starving children in order to elicit charitable donations to tackle impoverishment in fragile environments. It would also be an overstatement to suggest that everyone benefits from improving the way in which places enhance children’s well-being. However, there can be no doubt that reshaping our neighborhoods to better serve the interests of children would inadvertently address many of the neighborhood problems perceived and experienced by the wider populous, for example, de-motivation to use public space, the adverse health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle, the incivilities that arise from antisocial users and uses dominating public space, and the like are all challenged by a child-friendly neighborhood. In the final analysis, the geography of children’s well-being is much more than that – it is a project for place.

References Ben-Arieh, A., & Frones, I. (2007). Indicators of children’s well being – concepts, indices and usage. Social Indicators Research, 80, 1–4. Bradshaw, J., Hoelscher, P., & Richardson, D. (2007). An index of child well-being in the European Union. Social Indicators Research, 80, 133–177. Bradshaw, J., et al. (2009). Local index of child well-being. London: Department for Communities and Local Government. Bradshaw, J., Keung, A., Rees, G., & Goswami, H. (2011). Children’s subjective well-being: International comparative perspectives. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(4), 548–556. Burton, E. (2011). The importance of the built environment to children’s well-being: What do we know? Cities, Health and Well-Being, November, 1–3. Crivello, G., Camfield, L., & Woodhead, M. (2009). How can children tell us about their wellbeing? Exploring the potential of participatory research approaches within young lives. Social Indicators Research, 90, 51–72. Cunningham, C. J., & Jones, M. (1994). The child friendly neighbourhoods: Some questions and tentative answers from Australian research. International Play Journal, 2, 79–95. Department for Work and Pensions. (2003). Measuring child poverty: Final conclusions. London: HMSO. Dijkstra, T. (2009). Child well-being in rich countries: UNICEF’s ranking revisited, and new symmetric aggregating operators exemplified. Child Indicators Research, 2(3), 303–317. Elsinger, A. (2012). Agenda for child-friendly neighbourhood planning. Policy recommendations for European cities to support children and young people. Stuttgart: Cities for Children Foundation. Eurochild (2009). Indicators: an important policy tool for advancing child well-being. Eurochild Policy Briefing 05. Brussels: Eurochild. Eurochild (2010). Children in alternative care. National Surveys. 2nd Edition. Brussels: Eurochild. (http://www.eurochild.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Eurochild_Reports/ Eurochild%20Publication%20-%20Children%20in%20Alternative%20Care%20-%202nd% 20Edition%20January2010.pdf) Eurochild (2012). The 2012 National Reform Programmes and the National Social Reports from a Child Poverty and Child Well-Being Perspective. Brussels: Eurochild. European Union, Social Protection Committee. (2009). Child poverty and well-being in the EU. Current status and way forward. Brussels: European Union. Farrar, I. (2005). Minimum standards for open space. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.

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Frazer, H., & Marlier, E. (2012). Current situation in relation to child poverty and child wellbeing: EU policy context, key challenges ahead and ways forward. Independent background paper prepared for the Cypriot EU Presidency conference on investing in children: Preventing and tackling child poverty and social exclusion, promoting children’s well-being. Nicosia, Cyprus, 18–19 Oct 2012. Brussels: European Union. Gill, T. (2008). Space-oriented children’s policy: Creating child-friendly communities to improve children’s well-being. Children & Society, 22, 136–142. Gleeson, B., & Spike, N. (Eds.). (2006). Creating child friendly cities: Reinstating kids in the city. Abingdon: Routledge. Hart, R. (1979). Children’s experience of place. New York: Irvington. Hart, R. (1997). Children’s participation: The theory and practice of involving young citizens in community development and environmental care. London: Earthscan. Heshmati, A., Bajalan, C., & Tausch, A. (2007), Measurement and analysis of child well-being in, middle and high income countries. IZA Document Paper 3203. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor. Hillman, M., Adams, J., & Whitelegg, J. (1990). One false move: A study of children’s independent mobility. London: Policy Studies Institute. Hiscock, R., & Mitchell, R. (2011). What is needed to deliver places that provide good health to children? A report for Environmental determinants of public health in scotland (EDPHiS). A research project funded by the Scottish Government to support the “Good Places, Better Health” initiative. Edinburgh: EDPHiS. Holloway, S. L., & Valentine, G. (2000) Spatiality and the new social studies of childhood. Sociology: The Journal of the British Sociological Association, 34(4), 763–783. Horelli, L. (1998). Creating child-friendly environments. Case studies on children’s participation in three european countries. Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, 5(2), 225–239. Knox, P., & Pinch, S. (2009). Urban social geography. 6th Edition. Pearson. Harlow: England. Kytta, M. (2004). The extent of children’s independent mobility and the number of actualized affordances as criteria for child-friendly environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(2), 179–198. McKendrick, J. H. (2009). Constraints and opportunities in localities. In J. Qvortrup, W. Corsaro, & M. S. Honig (Eds.), The palgrave handbook of childhood studies (pp. 238–255). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Michaelson, J., Abdallah, S., Steuer, N., Thompson, S., & Marks, N. (2009). National accounts of well-being: Bringing real wealth onto the balance sheet. London: New Economics Foundation. Moore, R. C. (1986). Childhood’s domain: Play and place in childhood development. London: Croom Helm. Nordstrom, M. (2010). Children’s views on child-friendly environments in different geographical, cultural and social neighbourhoods. Urban Studies, 47(3), 514–528. OECD. (2009). Comparative child well-being across the OECD. In OECD (Ed.), Doing better for children (pp. 21–63). Paris: OECD. Openshaw, S. (1984). The modifiable areal unit problem. Norwich: Geo Books. Percy Jones, B., & Malone, K. (2001). Making children’s participation in neighbourhood settings relevant to the everyday lives of young people. PLA Notes, 42, 18–22. Robinson, W. S. (1950). Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals. Am Sociol Rev, 15(3), 351–357. Scotland, P. (2012). Getting it right for play: A toolkit to assess and improve local play opportunities. Edinburgh: Play Scotland. Sinclair, S., & McKendrick, J. H. (2009). Child poverty in Scotland. Taking the next steps, JRF Viewpoint 2365, York: JRF. (http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/poverty-children-scotlandviewpoint.pdf).

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TARKI Social Research Institute (2010). Child poverty and child well-being in the European Union. Report for the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Budapest: TARKI. Tandon, P. S., Zhou, C., Sallis, J. F., Cain, K. L., Frank, L. D., & Saelens, B. E. (2012). Home environment relatiosnhips with children’s physical activity, sedentary time and screen time, by socioeconomic status. International Journal of Benhavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 9, 88. UK Parliament (2012). Child Poverty Act 2012. London: HMSO. UNICEF. (1996). Towards child-friendly cities. New York: UNICEF. UNICEF (2007). Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries, Innocenti Report Card 7. Florence: UNICEF. UNICEF (2010). The children left behind. A league table of inequality of child well-being in the world’s rich countries. Innocenti Report Card 9. Florence: Innocenti Research Centre. UNICEF. (2012). The state of the world’s children 2012. New York: UNICEF. United Nations. (1989). UN convention on the rights of the child. New York: UN. Valentine, G., & McKendrick, J. H. (1997). Children’s outdoor play: Exploring contemporary public concerns. Geoforum, 28(2), 219–235. Ward, C. (1978/1990). The child in the city. London: Architectural Press.

Child Healthcare and Child Well-Being: From the Past to the Future

11

Christopher Greeley and Howard Dubowitz

Pediatry is the science of the young. The young are the future makers and owners of the world. The physical, intellectual, and moral conditions will decide whether the glove will become more Cossack or more Republican, more criminal or more righteous. For their education and training and capabilities, the. . . [pediatrician] as the representative of medical science and art should become responsible. Medicine is concerned with the new individual before he is born, while he is being born, and after. . .It is not enough, however, to work at the individual bedside and in the hospital. In the near or dim future, the pediatrician is to sit in and control school boards, health departments, and legislatures. He is the legitimate advisor to the judge and the jury, and a seat for the physician in the councils of the republic is what the people have a right to demand. Abraham Jacobi (1904)

11.1

The Emergence of Pediatrics

The societal state of the child has had a checkered but slowly positive path. Infants 2000 years ago could be abandoned (“exposed”) at birth, solely at the father’s discretion. Reasons for abandonment ranged from poverty to malformation. Infants were often sacrificed to appease vengeful gods. In 315 CE Constantine I was the first to forbid exposure of infants and in turn outlined in his Codex Theodosianus how, if a father could not care for his infant, the community was obligated to care

C. Greeley (*) Department of Pediatrics, Center for Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] H. Dubowitz Division of Child Protection & Center for Families, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 301 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_15, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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and provide for that child. The Middle Ages saw the rise of oblation (the permanent “donation” of a child to the church) and indentures (the legal contract with a guild to, for a fee, take in children and raise them as apprentices). In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Europe saw the rise of foundling homes, the precursors of the modern day children’s hospital. Foundling homes were designed as institutions where poor and marginalized families could “deposit” their infants and children (often through a lazy Susan-type doorway) if unable to care for them. With the advent of community structures to care for infants and children, there was a need for a professional class to attend to these children, and this task fell to physicians. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was an awakening among physicians that infants and children had particular needs, both medical and nonmedical, that required a specific, dedicated cadre of people. In 1769, a Scottish doctor, George Armstrong, established the first “dispensary for the infant poor” in London’s Red Lion Square. This is recognized as the first medical service solely directed towards the care of children. In 1852, the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children was founded in London as the hospital for sick children – the first hospital in the English-speaking world dedicated to the medical care of children. At this time in New York City, USA, there were similar advances. In 1853 a German physician, Dr. Abraham Jacobi, arrived in New York, fleeing political turmoil in his country. Dr. Jacobi introduced “pediatry,” the study of children to his new country. Up until then the medical care of children was taught by obstetricians. New York City’s Nursery and Child’s Hospital (1854) and the Boston Children’s Hospital (1869) were the first medical institutions in the USA solely for children (Stern and Markel 2007a). By 1860, Dr. Jacobi established the first children’s clinic and was given the title of “professor of infantile pathology and therapeutics.” Signaling the birth of pediatrics as a medical profession, in 1880 the American Medical Association Section on the Diseases of Children separated from the Section on the Diseases of Women and Children. The section began publishing the Archives of Pediatrics, the first US medical journal dedicated to children in 1884. The American Pediatric Society (APS) was formed in 1888 by specialists from the growing number of children’s hospitals. Dr. Jacobi was one of the founding members of the APS and its first president. In his inaugural address, Dr. Jacobi expressed a sentiment that is still believed by pediatricians today: “Pediatrics does not deal with miniature men and women, with reduced doses and the same classes of diseases in smaller bodies. . .” (Stern and Markel 2007b). Dr. Jacobi is held as the father of American pediatrics. The quotation introducing this chapter is from his 1904 history of pediatrics, “The History of Pediatrics and Its Relation to the Other Sciences” (Jacobi 1904). In this treatise Dr. Jacobi extols the importance of the pediatrician being engaged in the community. He felt that attending to the larger needs of the family, particularly the mother, is integral to caring for children. The foundations of caring for not only the child but the whole family and becoming engaged and a participant in the community were at the root of the pediatric profession. As the pediatrician’s role in the USA has evolved during the twentieth century away from treating disease to a more preventative approach,

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new challenges have emerged. As child survival became less of a concern, pediatricians were confronted with the “New Morbidity.”

11.2

The “New Morbidity”

Back in the 1800s, when pediatrics emerged as a medical specialty, the influence by “family attitudes, environment and socioeconomic class” on children’s health was well recognized (American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force 1991). Then, in the twentieth century, advances in public health, immunizations, antibiotics, and nutrition dramatically improved the health of many US children. This enabled increased attention to the quality of life for children with chronic conditions, including their psychosocial functioning. In addition, attention focused on “new” problems for children, such as divorce, teenage pregnancy, child abuse, and attention deficit disorder, and they were labeled the “New Morbidity” (Haggerty et al. 1993). This area of concern has grown to include problems such as obesity, impact on children by the media, school violence, firearms in the home, and drug and alcohol abuse. This overall development is reflected, for example, by the mortality of meningococcemia being replaced by that of teen suicide (American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2001). Despite recognition of the New Morbidity, medical training has been slow to adapt, and practice often does not adequately address these psychosocial problems. An American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement recommended several steps, including residency curricula on psychosocial problems, pediatricians working with mental health professionals, and pediatricians advocating for children’s mental healthcare needs (American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2001). Parents appear interested in help from child healthcare professionals (Kahn et al. 1999) and pediatricians too express interest in playing a greater role (Trowbridge et al. 2005). Another consideration is that the increasing number of child healthcare professionals and competition may well encourage pediatricians to become more engaged in addressing the New Morbidity (Pawluch 1996).

11.3

Biopsychosocial Model

George Libman Engel (1913–1999) was a psychiatrist concerned with the traditional narrow biomedical model of health and illness. Although the role of psychological and environmental influences had been recognized by the ancient Greeks, modern medicine appeared to him deliberately reductionist, increasingly focused on the molecular level. In this context, his seminal 1977 paper in science on a biopsychosocial model spawned great interest and many research endeavors (Engel 1977). This model postulates that biological, psychological (including thoughts, emotions, and behaviors), and social factors all significantly influence human functioning, health, and illness. For example, a low-income family living in

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substandard housing with mold and cockroaches may trigger asthma attacks in their young child. In addition, the burdens of poverty may contribute to the mother’s depression and alcohol abuse. In turn, she neglects to fill her child’s prescription, aggravating the asthma. While the frequent contribution of multiple and interacting influences on health may be long known, and many physicians may quickly acknowledge this, such thinking does not always translate to practice, research, and teaching. The old mind-body dualism often still pervades current thinking, although there has been progress with, for example, models of integrated primary care that include psychologists, social workers, and others (Dubowitz et al. 2009). Indeed, it is increasingly evident how closely intertwined these phenomena can be; one example is the connection between mood and the immune system (Anisman and Merali 1999). Thus, the biopsychosocial approach makes clear that optimizing the health, development, and safety of children requires truly collaborative, interdisciplinary work.

11.4

Ecological Theory of Human Development

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) defined an ecological framework for understanding normal human development. In his seminal work, he defined the ecological context of human development which “involves the scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives, as this process is affected by relations between these settings and by the larger contexts in which the settings are embedded (p. 21)” (Bronfenbrenner 1979). In this framework he emphasizes the importance of viewing the person not as a static vessel but as an ever-changing entity responding to environmental and internal cues. For Bronfenbrenner the external environment is made up of four nested concentric systems in which a person grows. The microsystem is a “pattern of activities, roles and interpersonal relations experienced by the developing person in a given setting with particular physical and material characteristics (p. 22)” (Bronfenbrenner 1979). The microsystem is the real-time, face-to-face activities a person directly experiences. The mesosystem is the “interrelations among two or more settings in which the developing person actively participates (such as, for a child, the relations among home, school, and neighborhood peer group. . .) (p. 25)” (Bronfenbrenner 1979). The mesosystem is the connected network of microsystems. The exosystem is “one or more settings that do not involve the developing persona as an active participant, but in which events occur that affect, or even are affected by, what happens in the setting containing the developing person (p. 25)” (Bronfenbrenner 1979). The exosystem is one step removed from the individual. This would include a parent’s place of employment or a sibling’s classroom. Lastly, the macrosystem is used to relate the cultural or societal forces which permeate all the other spheres of influence. This could include cultural norms, political policies, or economic forces.

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As the child grows and gains new experiences, each of these systems may change. A young infant is mostly dependent upon the direct care of its parents (microsystem); the larger network of “peers” (mesosystem) is of less importance. When that child attends school, the parents’ influence declines, relative to the increasing influence by peers. Bronfenbrenner refers to this as ecological transition. It is through a continuous series of ecological transitions that human development occurs.

11.5

Ecobiodevelopmental Framework

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently endorsed an ecobiodevelopmental (EBD) (Shonkoff et al. 2012) framework to better understand how childhood context and experiences have lifelong impact on children as they grow and develop. The EBD framework emphasizes three main themes (Shonkoff et al. 2012; Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). First, early experiences with significant stress “can undermine the development of those adaptive capacities and coping skills needed to deal with later challenges” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Second, the importance of unhealthy lifestyles, fragmented social networks, and unhealthy coping behaviors are often present in conjunction with early childhood stress. Lastly, there is the importance of protective factors (e.g., stable and safe relationships) in mitigating the impact of “toxic stress” on the child. The EBD framework (see Fig. 11.1) builds upon the ecological model and incorporates evidence generated through the 1990s and 2000s regarding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The Adverse Childhood Experiences study, (http://www.cdc.gov/ace/ index.htm, accessed January 2012) conducted between 1995 and 1997 with 17,000 members of a health plan in San Diego, being surveyed about their childhood experiences. These data were then linked to their health status decades later. The results clearly demonstrated that more adverse childhood experiences were associated with a greater risk of adult health problems such as suicide, smoking, alcohol and drug use, obesity, heart attack, and stroke, as well as earlier death. A proposed mechanism for how ACEs contribute to adult health outcomes is through cortisol and the stress response (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). There are three proposed stress responses a child can have: positive, tolerable, and toxic stress responses. The positive stress response is, in the face of moderate and tolerable stress, when a child copes with the stress, perhaps supported by a caring adult. This positive stress serves as a mechanism for learning and development. After dealing with the stressful event in healthy and moderated ways, they return to a normal internal homeostasis. A tolerable stress response occurs in the face of greater or more prolonged stress (e.g., death of a family member, divorce). This results in more intense and prolonged responses prior to returning to a baseline state. Again, parental support can help moderate the tolerable stress response and facilitate a return to normalcy. In a toxic stress response, the child is overwhelmed, often in the face of inadequate

Time and Commitment

Caregiver and Community Capacities

Ecology

Skills and Knowledge Appropriate Nutrition

Safe,Supportive Environments

Stable, Responsive Relationships

Foundations of Healthy Development

Physiological Adaptations or Disruptions

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Embedded During Sensitive Periods

GeneEnvironment Interaction

Biology of Health and Development Cumulative Over Time

Health and Development

Physical and Mental Health

Educational Achievement and Economic Productivity

Health-Related Behaviors

Outcomes in Lifelong Well-Being

Fig. 11.1 An ecobiodevelopmental (EBD) framework for early childhood policies and programs. (From Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health (2012))

Private Sector Actions

Community Development

Family Economic Stability

Early Intervention

Child Care and Early Education Financial, Psychological, and Institutional Resources Child Welfare

Public Health

Primary Health Care

Policy and Program Levers for Innovation

An Ecobiodevelopmental Framework for Early Childhood Policies and Programs

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parental support, resulting in a more pronounced and prolonged impact. This stress, as manifest by hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation and increased cortisol secretion, can permanently alter children’s neuroarchitecture (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2005).

11.6

Well Child Visits

According to the 2004 Institute of Medicine (a respected authority in the USA) report, Children’s Health, the Nation’s Wealth, child health is defined as “the extent to which individual children or groups of children are able to or enabled to (a) develop and realize their potential, (b) satisfy their needs, and (c) develop the capacities that allow them to interact successfully with their biological, physical and social environments” (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine 2004). The USA has long had a system of pediatric primary care that aims to achieve the above. This care is provided by pediatricians, as well as by family medicine (or general) physicians, pediatric nurse practitioners (i.e., nurses with advanced training), and physician assistants. The Well Child Check (WCC) is the scheduled visit as part of a General Health Maintenance framework outlined by the AAP in the Recommendations for Preventative Health Care (American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine 2000). There are 11 WCC visits, with an additional prenatal visit recommended, during the first 2 years of life. At each of these visits, the complete medical history is reviewed and a comprehensive physical examination of the child is performed. In addition, a variety of other topics are probed, including the child’s diet and activities, development and school performance, behavior and emotional and social functioning, as well as family relationships and possible stressors (e.g., parental substance abuse, intimate partner, or domestic violence). The schedule of the WCC has, since its inception, been partly tied to the immunization schedule (Schor 2004). After the first 3 years and until age 18, annual visits are recommended for routine health surveillance and promotion (Bright Futures 2002). In 2011, two-thirds of uninsured US children under 6 received all of their WCC, as compared to 90 % of those with medical insurance (Child Trends 2012). The AAP Guidelines for Health Supervision III (American Academy of Pediatrics 1997) and the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents help shape what happens during these visits. These materials are used by 74 % of pediatricians providing WCC (Periodic Survey 2003). In the USA, the vast majority of WCC visits are performed by physicians. In certain settings, advanced degree nurses provide WCC, but these usually have physician supervision in some manner. Pediatricians spend an average of 18.3 min per WCC for a child under 3; 54 % report this as adequate time for developmental assessments, but only 16 % feel they can appropriately address a family’s psychosocial needs (American Academy of Pediatrics 2001). Overall, pediatricians spend 22 % of their time providing WCC. For infants, WCC account for 57 % of their

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pediatric contact (Schor 2004). Given the many recommended components of a WCC and professionals’ time constraints, while most parents view their pediatrician very favorably, it is not surprising that parents, usually of low income, often feel dissatisfied with their care (Coker et al. 2009). The time constraints are likely related to the relatively low reimbursement for WCC. Professionals are being asked to provide more and more within the WCC, yet reimbursement remains limited. The EBD framework has three main domains for the pediatric health professional (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). First, the pediatrician should focus on healthy child development by promoting (1) a stable environment and relationships, (2) safe environments, and (3) appropriate nutrition. Stable relationships provide nurturing interactions with adults to enhance learning and help “develop adaptive capacities that promote well-regulated stress-response systems” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Safe environments should be “free from toxins and fear, allow active exploration without significant risk of harm” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Nutritional counseling should focus on “health-promoting food intake and eating habits” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Second, the pediatrician should promote the family’s and community’s capacity to promote health and prevent disease and disability. Lastly, the pediatrician should engage the public and in policy and programs which impact children and families. This includes “both legislative and administrative actions that affect systems responsible for primary health care, public health, child care and early education, child welfare, early intervention, family economic stability (including employment support for parents and cash assistance), community development (including sources of nutritious food), housing, and environmental protection” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Together with the growing complexity of the WCC, there remains some dissatisfaction by both practitioners and parents. In 2004, a survey of US pediatricians reported the average WCC was 17 min for infants and toddlers and 20 min for older adolescents (Periodic Survey #56 Pediatricians’ Provision of Preventive Care and Use of Health Supervision Guidelines 2003). Eighty-five percent reported that a lack of time was a significant barrier to providing the recommended content. Not surprisingly, the second most common barrier was inadequate reimbursement (58 %). In a recent national survey in the USA, over 94 % of parents reported at least one unmet need in “parenting guidance, education, and screening by pediatric clinician(s) in 1 or more of the content” areas (Bethell et al. 2004). Given these issues, there is a movement to reformulate how WCC is provided. Some of the efforts are directed towards practitioners (making them more efficient, delegating more tasks to related professionals and ancillary staff, reformulating the content of the WCC visit) and some are directed towards the “system” (improved reimbursement, restructured training programs) (Schor 2004; Kuo et al. 2006). A survey of other high-income nations finds many significant differences in how WCC is delivered (Kuo et al. 2006). For example, WCC is provided by

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non-pediatricians and, in many cases, nonphysicians. In most countries pediatricians provide few WCC services instead being consultants to general practitioners and nurses.

11.7

Bright Futures

Bright Futures is a federally funded initiative since 1990. It offers practice guidelines that aim “to improve the quality of health services for children through health promotion and disease prevention” (Bright Futures 2002). These guidelines provide a comprehensive yet flexible approach to pediatric care from birth through the 21st year. The premise of Bright Futures was to include a broader, public health perspective of children’s health by including community groups (e.g., schools, child care centers). Bright Futures aims to achieve these goals through five strategies (Bright Futures Goals 2002): 1. Establish and maintain partnerships with a wide variety of healthcare professional and public health organizations, families, states, corporations, foundations, and federal agencies to promote and advance the Bright Futures initiative in diverse settings. 2. Foster the adoption of the Bright Futures approach by identifying promising practice models, disseminate those models to child and adolescent health professionals and key stakeholder organizations, and provide technical assistance. 3. Provide training, continued education, and assistance on Bright Futures child health promotion and prevention content and philosophy to health professionals, families, states, communities, and other partners. 4. Build Bright Futures outreach efforts, such as the Bright Futures newsletter and Web site, which promote the Bright Futures initiative. 5. Update and maintain key Bright Futures tools and guidelines.

11.8

Healthy Steps

Another strategy for pediatric primary care is the Healthy Steps (HS) framework, initiated in 1994 and funded by a private foundation (http://www.healthysteps.org/, accessed December 2011). HS aims to deliver “Enhanced Well Child Care” – “a set of coordinated practices and activities that expand the focus of primary care for young children to include greater emphasis on behavior and development” (http://www.healthysteps.org/healthysteps/homepage.nsf/All/WELL-CHILD.pdf/$ file/WELL-CHILD.pdf, accessed December 2011). The Enhanced Well Child Care visit is provided jointly or sequentially by the pediatric clinician and the HS specialist (HSS). The most important component is the HSS, who provides a link between medical professionals and the family. The HSS has a background in child development,

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nursing, or social work and provides community-based support for the family. One crucial activity involves home visitation services. Another key strategy in the HS model is the use of “teachable moments.” This is a technique a pediatric practitioner can use to providing parenting or health guidance in response to parental concerns and questions. Currently there are 47 HS sites in the USA.

11.9

Medical Insurance for Children

In 2010, in the United States nearly 10 % or more than seven million children were not covered by medical insurance (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2011). Very low-income families can get medical insurance for their children through Medicaid, jointly funded by the federal government and the states. Since 1997, the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has expanded Medicaid to include more families who did not qualify for Medicaid. Having health insurance, however, does not guarantee access. Many medical professionals do not participate in Medicaid, largely because its reimbursement rates are relatively low. Thirty-two of the 33 wealthiest countries provide universal healthcare; the United States is the sole such country without this coverage (World Health Organization). Norway was first with a universal healthcare system, since 1912. The most recent adopter was Israel in 1995, with the adoption of the National Health Insurance Law. The United States has struggled with a comprehensive strategy to cover its children, much less all of her citizens. Short of universal healthcare coverage for children, other strategies have been proposed to increase coverage (Berman 2007). Since 2006, the state of Massachusetts Health Reform Plan covered all children as well as uninsured low-income adults (Health Care Access and Affordability Conference Committee Report 2006). While the recently passed Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) does not provide universal coverage, it will expand coverage for children as it is gradually implemented (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2011). Addressing the future of pediatric care in the USA, a recent Institute of Medicine report (Institute of Medicine 2011) endorses the importance of a “whole child” approach to healthcare. It states there is clear “impact of physical and social environments (e.g., toxic exposures, safe neighborhoods, or crowded housing), behaviors (e.g., diet or the use of alcohol or drugs), and relationships (e.g., parent–child attachment) on the health status of children and adolescents and their use of health care services.” The report emphasizes that much of children’s well-being is not “medical.” The importance of social and resource disparities is highlighted as a major contributor to adverse health outcomes. This fits with the ecological model proposed by Bronfenbrenner and Belsky; health can be placed into a similar contextual framework. An individual’s health is dependent upon concentric influences from individual choices and the quality of medical care available to immediate working and living condition and ultimately

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Economic and social opportunities and resources

Living and working conditions in homes and communities

Medical care

Personal behavior

HEALTH

Fig. 11.2 Upstream and downstream influences on health (From Braverman et al. (2011))

larger economic and social forces. Braverman et al. (2011) proposed such a framework (Fig. 11.2). The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America recognized the importance of a comprehensive, contextualized approach to children’s health – “a child’s health is powerfully shaped by the environment in which he or she lives, learns and plays. Both family and community matter and private and public policies at the local, state and national level influence a child’s opportunity to be healthy.” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America 2008) In Reaching for a Healthier Life (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012), the MacArthur Foundation describes society as a ladder. They argue that each rung on the ladder is a person’s access to “resources that determine whether people can live a good life – prosperous, healthy, and secure – or a life plagued by difficulties – insufficient income, poor health, and vulnerability. People on the top are the best educated, have the most respected jobs, ample savings, and comfortable housing” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). Those on lower rungs struggle to get basic resources. This inequality is reflected in many negative outcomes to a person or population. The ladder metaphor is reflected in public health as the social gradient of health (Lynch and Kaplan 2000). Indeed, it is humbling to note that these recent pronouncements echo Jacobi’s words from over a century ago. And, the USA remains quite far from achieving that vision.

11.10 The Road Ahead To be more responsive to the New Morbidity, pediatric primary care needs to undergo some fundamental transformation. First, there is a need for training

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programs at all levels to help health professionals be competent and comfortable in playing this role. There is a need for leadership to guide interested professionals in engaging in family, community, and societal influences on children’s health and well-being. For example, the AAP urges that “the boundaries of pediatric concern must move beyond the acute medical care of children and expand into the larger ecology of the community, state, and society” (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012). There are six main areas that the AAP recommends pediatricians target (Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health 2012): 1. Education focused on parents, foster parents, child care providers, and preschool teachers to increase awareness of the adverse and long-term consequences of toxic stress, in early childhood investment to develop creative, new strategies for home-, school-, and center-based services to reduce toxic stress and to strengthen the relationships that buffer children from adversity 2. Investment in community-based mentoring activities (e.g., after-school programs, gymnastics, martial arts programs) that provide supportive relationships for vulnerable children that help them learn to cope with adversity 3. Investment in early intervention programs that assist vulnerable young children and families 4. Professional development for judges and other key participants in the juvenile court and foster care systems about the biology of adversity and its implications for case management, child custody, and foster care of maltreated children 5. Collaboration with social workers and mental health and other professionals to integrate effective services for the most vulnerable children and their families This framework requires a shift in the usual role of the pediatric health professional. By becoming more involved in child, family, and community well-being, some changes in practice are needed: 1. Children will have more of their conventional medical services (WCC, immunizations, growth and development screenings) provided by other professional or ancillary staff. 2. Systems of training and mentoring of child healthcare professionals in these new domains need to be designed and implemented. Reimbursement for WCC services needs to be more in-line with the quality and value of the visit. Child healthcare professionals will no longer be solely reimbursed for tasks performed in the office but will be reimbursed for less “conventional” services (curriculum development for schools, counseling of parents, etc.). These newer duties will have to be integrated into a larger reimbursement strategy which to be coordinated with government, local, or insurance entities. 3. Broad, community-wide, health, and well-being strategies need to be developed and implemented. These need to recognize any specific cultural needs of a community.

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The profession of pediatric medical care continues to evolve. The profession should continue to embrace “healthcare” in a broader context, not just medical care. As this occurs, there are some significant challenges to the evolution of pediatric professional care away from the conventional medical (office-based) model to a more comprehensive well-being approach. First, changing a paradigm of professional practice (in any domain) is difficult. Many practitioners have embraced and are familiar with the current office-based model, and it will require tremendous effort to alter their practice. This paradigm shift will occur over decades. Second, any changes in the practice of pediatric medicine will have to be integrated into the advanced training programs, not just for physicians but for all level of practitioners. As new practices are evolving, techniques and protocols on how to train new physicians in the new mode of practice will have to be developed or updated. As physicians modify their approach and roles in child health and well-being, this will impact the roles and responsibilities for the entire spectrum of professionals who are part of the larger systems of care. Additionally, pediatricians who are currently in practice will require education regarding local and regional services in their community. Many pediatric medical practitioners are unaware of community resources or processes. For them to be more engaged, they will be required to be “out there” more (i.e., more community-based). Third, the new pediatric practice will require a restructuring of the financial reimbursement models. The current fee-for-service practice will not be sustainable as the new professional activities are commonly not adequately captured in the current insurance structures. This could present an opportunity for fostering the changes to the current practice. Often practice is shaped, or at least influenced, by financial pressures. If local, state/regional, or federal resources could offset decreased insurance reimbursement, pediatric professionals would more likely embrace changes to their practice. Lastly, any changes to the practice of pediatric medicine to a more wellbeing focused profession (with all of the ripple effects that would have) will require significant planning and coordination. For a comprehensive tiered system of collaboration to be successful, it cannot be patchwork or ad hoc. As the profession changes, the community of child serving professionals must change with it. In summary, the pediatric medical profession was birthed as comprehensive, community-based, and well-being focused. The pediatrician remains a trusted counsel to families about the health of their children. The current practice of office-based pediatric medical care has restricted the provider’s ability to “meet the family” in their community. As there is a greater understanding of the new “New Morbidity” confronting today’s children and families, pediatric medical practice will be confronted with its own challenges. While these challenges are not insurmountable, they will require a strong commitment and much work. There is now a tremendous opportunity to usher in a new day for the field and accomplish Jacobi’s vision.

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References American Academy of Pediatrics. (1997). Guidelines for health supervision (Vol. III). Elk Grove Village: American Academy of Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics. (2001). Periodic survey of fellows (Vol. 46). Elk Grove Village: American Academy of Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force. (1991). Report on the future role of the pediatrician in the delivery of health care. Pediatrics, 87, 401–409. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine. (2000). Recommendations for preventive pediatric health care. Elk Grove Village: American Academy of Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2001). The new morbidity revisited: A renewed commitment to the psychosocial aspects of pediatric care. Pediatrics, 108, 1227–1230. Anisman, H., & Merali, Z. (1999). Anhedonic and anxiogenic effects of cytokine exposure. Advances in Exerimenal Medical Biology, 461, 199–233. Berman, S. (2007). Universal coverage for children: Alternatives, key issues, and political opportunities. Health Affairs, 26(2), 394–404. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/26/2/ 394.full. Accessed 11 Nov 2012. Bethell, C., Peck Reuland, C. H., Halfon, N., & Schor, E. L. (2004). Measuring the quality of preventive and developmental services for young children: National estimates and patterns of clinicians’ performance. Pediatrics, 113(Suppl. 5), 1973–1983. Braverman, P., Egerter, S., & Williams, D. (2011). The social determinants of health: Coming of age. Annual Review of Public Health, 32, 381–398. Bright Futures Goals. (2002). http://brightfutures.aap.org/goals.html. Accessed Dec 2011. Bright Futures. (2002a). http://brightfutures.aap.org/about.html. Accessed Dec 2011. Bright Futures. (2002b). http://brightfutures.aap.org/pdfs/AAPBright Futures Periodicity Sched 101107.pdf. Accessed 12 Dec 2012. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Child Trends. (2012). Well-child visits. Retrieved from www.childtrendsdatabank.org/alphalist? q¼node/85. Accessed 20 Nov 2012. Coker, T. R., Chung, P. J., Cowgill, B. O., et al. (2009). Low-income parents’ views on the redesign of well-child care. Pediatrics, 124(1), 194–204. Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2012). Early childhood adversity, toxic stress, and the role of the pediatrician: Translating developmental science into lifelong health. Pediatrics, 139(1), 224–231. Dubowitz, H., Feigelman, S., Lane, W., & Kim, J. (2009). Pediatric primary care to help prevent child maltreatment: The Safe Environment for Every Kid (SEEK) model. Pediatrics, 123(3), 858–864. Engel, G. E. (1977). The need for a new medical model. Science, 196, 129–136. Haggerty, R. J., Roghmann, K. J., & Pless, I. B. (1993). Child health and the community (2nd ed.). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Health Care Access and Affordability: Conference Committee Report. (2006). http://www.mass. gov/legis/summary.pdf. Accessed 12 Nov 2011. Institute of Medicine. (2011). Child and adolescent health and health care quality: Measuring what matters. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Jacobi, A. (1904). The history of pediatrics and its relation to other sciences and arts. Archives of Pediatrics, 21(11), 801–833. Kahn, R. D., Wide, P. H., Finkelstein, J. A., et al. (1999). The scope of unmet maternal health needs in pediatric settings. Pediatrics, 103(3), 576–581. Kuo, A. A., Inkelas, M., Lotstein, D. S., et al. (2006). Rethinking well-child care in the United States: An international comparison. Pediatrics, 118(4), 1692–1702.

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Lynch, J., & Kaplan, G. (2000). Socioeconomic position. In L. Berkman & I. Kawachi (Eds.), Social epidemiology (pp. 13–35). New York: Oxford University Press. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2004). Children’s health, the nation’s wealth: Assessing and improving child health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2005). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain: Working paper #3. http://developingchild.harvard.edu/ resources/reports_and_working_papers/. Accessed 10 Nov 2011. Pawluch, D. A. (1996). Profession in transition. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Periodic Survey #56 Pediatricians’ Provision of Preventive Care and Use of Health Supervision Guidelines. (2003). http://www.aap.org/en-us/professional-resources/Research/ Pages/PS56_Executive_Summary_PediatriciansProvisionofPreventiveCareandUseofHealth SupervisionGuidelines.aspx. Accessed 10 Nov 2012. Periodic Survey #56 Pediatricians’ Provision of Preventive Care and Use of Health Supervision Guidelines. http://www.aap.org/en-us/professional-resources/Research/Pages/PS56_Executive_ Summary_PediatriciansProvisionofPreventiveCareandUseofHealthSupervisionGuidelines.aspx. Accessed Dec 2011. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America. (2008). America’s health starts with healthy children: How do states compare? http://www.commissiononhealth. org/Report.aspx?Publication¼57823. Accessed Dec 2011 Schor, E. (2004). Rethinking well-childcare. Pediatrics, 114(1), 210–216. Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., et al. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), 232–246. Stern, A. M., & Markel, H. (2007a). Introduction. In A. M. Stern & H. Markel (Eds.), From formative years: Children’s health in the United States 1880–2000 (p. 3). Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. Stern, A. M., & Markel, H. (2007b). Introduction. In A. M. Stern & H. Markel (Eds.), From formative years: Children’s health in the United States 1880–2000 (p. 7). Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. Trowbridge, M. J., Sege, R. D., Olson, L., O’Connor, K., Flaherty, E., & Spivak, H. (2005). Intentional injury management and prevention in pediatric practice: Results from 1998 and 2003 American Academy of Pediatrics Periodic Surveys. Pediatrics, 116(4), 996–1000. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2011). http://www.healthcare.gov/law/full/ index.html. Accessed 12 Nov 2012. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2011). Overview of the uninsured in the United States: A summary of the 2011 current population survey. http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/ 2011/CPSHealthIns2011/ib.shtml. Accessed 10 Nov 2012. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/health_financing/en/. Accessed 11 Nov 2012.

Public Health Aspects of Child Well-Being

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Sally Brinkman and Fiona Stanley

12.1

Introduction

There is a dramatically increasing body of evidence showing that the pathways to adult disease start in utero and early childhood. The main concerns of those working in public health are the common, chronic, and burdensome adult diseases. While there may still be some residual tension between the “traditional” public health groups, who believe that the most important pathways involve adult lifestyle exposures (traditionally substance abuse, poor diet, and low levels of exercise), there is increasing realization that the opportunities for prevention and public health interventions will be more instrumental the more we understand the early pathways to disease (Lynch and Davey-Smith 2005). Those interested in the social determinants of public health will also realize that a combination of exposures and social circumstances during childhood crucially influences the whole life course (Li et al. 2009). To effectively improve public health from pregnancy to old age, we need professionals working in child development, maternal child health, and public health to work better together with an understanding of the genetic and environmental interactions during early child development. This chapter initially provides some background to the influence of public health on child health and well-being and then argues for the need for a common instrument to measure and compare child wellbeing as a fundamental requisite to providing the evidence base to facilitate modern public health approaches.

S. Brinkman (*) • F. Stanley Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 317 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_16, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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Background: How Public Health Has Contributed to Our Understanding of Child Well-Being

The essence of public health is to prevent disease and to enhance health and quality of life within populations. It uses a range of population measures from legislation (e.g., to put fluoride in water supplies, to mandate folate fortification in food, enforce seat belts, or to increase the costs of unhealthy exposures such as tobacco) to health promotion campaigns (e.g., to increase immunization, avoid harmful exposures, avoid obesity, and to exercise regularly). Primary health care in many countries has also had a significant role in providing individual screening for disease and health promotion.

12.3

The Contemporary/Mainstream Public Health’s Relationship to Child Well-Being

Since the mid-twentieth century, biomedical and individual lifestyle theories to disease causation have dominated, influencing attitudes to child public health thinking. Such thinking has been summarized to include three views: (1) that the real causes of disease comprise biophysical agents, genes, and risk factors with exposures largely the consequence of individual characteristics and behaviors; (2) these real causes of disease in individuals are enough to explain population rates of disease; and (3) that theorizing about disease occurrence is equivalent to theorizing about disease causation at the individual and biological level (Kreiger 2011). What such thinking ignores are the considerable pathways that are now being understood around the social and emotional aspects of child development, well-being, and how they relate to overall public health. We need to embrace all this thinking to achieve the best approaches to improving health outcomes. The following section details some of the most significant biomedical and individual lifestyle public health interventions that continue to shape the health of children across the world.

12.3.1 Hygiene In children, diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections are the major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Diarrhea has also been implicated as a cause of poor growth (Humphrey 2009). Access to clean water, hand washing with soap, and fresh uncontaminated food all significantly reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease. The Lancet Maternal and Child Under Nutrition Series estimated that sanitation and hygiene interventions implemented with 99 % coverage would reduce diarrhea incidence by approximately 30 % (Bhutta et al. 2008). A review of recent evaluations of non-vaccine interventions for the prevention of childhood diarrhea in developing countries both confirmed the importance of standard strategies (e.g., breast-feeding, clean water supply, and sanitation

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improvements) and suggested refinements in approaches to personal and domestic hygiene, weaning education, and food hygiene (Huttly et al. 1997). Although mainly considered an issue in developing countries, there are population groups such as Australian Aboriginal children living in remote communities that are still experiencing a high burden of common infectious diseases due to poor hygiene and unsanitary living conditions (McDonald et al. 2008).

12.3.2 Immunization Apart from the provision of clean water and hygiene practices, vaccines have been more effective, than any other public health measure, particularly in children (Pollard 2007). Improved immunization programs and the development of new vaccines continue to provide opportunities to improve and sustain the health of our children. Although immunization has always been considered one of the greatest and most well-known success stories of public health, there are still challenges in communicating the benefits of immunization to all populations and in particular the importance of delivering vaccines to those in greatest need for the benefit of not just those individuals but for the entire population (Pollard 2007). For example, in 1980 only 20 % of children worldwide had received three doses of DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) vaccine, but this had risen to 78 % by 2004 (Pollard 2007). While funding for vaccines is unprecedented, particularly now in developing countries, there are, however, concerns over the sustainability of funding. Children in the hardest-to-reach and poorest communities are still dying of preventable diseases such as diphtheria, polio, measles, rotavirus, tetanus, and pertussis (Pollard 2007). Unfortunately measles is still the fifth most common cause of death in children aged 0–14 years of age (Lopez et al. 2006).

12.3.3 Sexual Health HIV/AIDS is the 6th most common cause of death among children in developing countries (Lopez et al. 2006). In addition to this, there are more than 15 million children in the world who have been orphaned due to the death of their parents from HIV/AIDS. Almost all children with HIV/AIDS have the disease through “vertical” transmission from their mother at birth or immediately afterwards through breastfeeding. This “vertical” transmission can almost be totally eliminated if the mother has access to antiretroviral therapy (Blair et al. 2010). There are however, concerns regarding the increased and mass use of antiretrovirals, including poor implementation in many developing countries, where issues such as interruptions in drug supplies can lead to limited health gains for the individuals and an increased likelihood of transmission. Many programs rely on the cheapest possible drug, leading to toxicity and potentially drug resistance (Jamison et al. 2006). As always, public health prevention via increased use of condoms and education about STDs are still the key methods to reduce HIV transmission.

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12.3.4 Nutrition/Obesity Babies of mothers who have poor nutrition during pregnancy have an increased likelihood that their children will be of low birth weight, have congenital abnormalities, and have higher risk of mortality after birth. Folate has now been added to cereals and breads in many countries as a classic population-wide public health approach to prevent spina bifida and other serious birth defects (Stanley and Maberley 2006). Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy can lead to low bone density, increased risk of infections, and an increased risk of neonatal convulsions in the child, and there is now a considerable debate about the longerterm negative impact of vitamin D deficiency on children (Wagner et al. 2012). Iodine salts are still provided as nutrient supplements globally to prevent neurological deficits (Pharoah et al. 2012). Of late, this issue seems to be reemerging in subpopulation groups in the UK (Hetzel 2012; Vanderpump 2012). The addition of fluoride to water to prevent dental caries in children and adults is another classic population-wide nutritional intervention, which has had a dramatic impact on child health and well-being. The extent of the advantages of breast-feeding have been debated; however, in general it is agreed that breast-feeding is associated with reduced respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, a reduced risk of sudden infant death syndrome and asthma, and a reduced risk of childhood obesity and of heart disease later in life (Blair et al. 2010). It is also acknowledged that breast-feeding increases the likelihood of a positive attachment between the mother and child. In developing countries, the promotion of breast-feeding has shown to reduce diarrhea-related morbidity by 8–20 % and to reduce mortality up to 6 months of age by 24–27 % (Huttly et al. 1997). Much of this reduction can be attributed to the prevention of infection due to bad water (used when preparing formula) rather than to specifically the positive properties of breast milk (Huttly et al. 1997). Educational campaigns to improve the weaning practices by mothers have also shown positive results, cutting the mortality rate by 2–12 % for children under 5 years of age (Taylor and Greenough 1989). Child underweight or stunting causes about 20 % of all mortality of children younger than 5 years of age and leads to long-term cognitive deficits, poorer performance in school, fewer years of completed schooling, and lower adult economic productivity (Victora et al. 2008). Of the 555 million preschool children in developing countries, it is estimated that 32 % are stunted and 20 % are underweight (Black et al. 2008). These data illustrate a clear link between child health, well-being, and total population health in these countries. The challenges for public health services to alleviate poverty and inequalities, are that the sustainable solutions will come from social and economic strategies – and such strategies are outside the usual scope of traditional public health. In developed countries the concern is primarily the opposite, with steadily increasing prevalence of overweight and obese children. Such an increase in overweight and obesity has implications for future population health and wellbeing via increases in diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, as well as the more

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immediate individual negative consequences for self-esteem and peer relationships during childhood (Blair et al. 2010). Many public health practitioners have suggested that societal influences like the perception of safety for children and the reduction of the “backyard” and safe parks have all lead to children spending more time indoors, with increasing amounts of “screen time” (Hands et al. 2011). Children are less likely to ride their bikes or walk to school, because parents are either frightened to let them go alone or do not have the time to walk or ride with them, so many are now being dropped off at the school’s front gate. School health promotion strategies are frequently targeting children to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption and increase physical activity while trying to reduce exposure to saturated fats and high sugar content food through school canteens and educational campaigns (Branca et al. 2007). However, such behavior change interventions cannot operate in isolation from the broader socioeconomic context and the increasingly obesogenic environment (Waters et al. 2011). For example, there is some evidence that the increase in women working is influencing some of the negative dietary trends (Li et al. 2011). The available knowledge base on which to develop appropriate public health interventions to reduce the risk of obesity across the whole populations still remains limited. The impact of interventions on preventing obesity and the extent to which they work equitably remains poorly understood (Waters et al. 2011).

12.3.5 Substance Abuse Maternal smoking has been shown to have a significant influence on the fetus and is associated with a range of poor outcomes such as low birth weight, preterm birth, and later childhood respiratory disease. Parental smoking after birth has also shown to increase the risk of otitis media and respiratory tract infections (Jacoby et al. 2008; Moore et al. 2010). Antismoking public health interventions have targeted women during pregnancy to quit smoking for the benefit of both themselves and their unborn baby; however, controlled trials have shown that such health promotion programs are mainly ineffective (Whitworth and Dowswell 2009). The impact of substance abuse (alcohol particularly, but also drug abuse) on the health and well-being of children is profoundly negative. This relates not only to pregnancy-related exposures with resulting fetal alcohol syndrome but to almost all poor childhood outcomes including child abuse and neglect as well as physical conditions (O’Leary et al. 2010). Children born to and raised by parents who abuse substances commence their lives in high-risk environments and the impact can be lifelong. While the data on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder are not complete and data on substance abuse even harder to quantify and study, we believe that these exposures may now be the most important preventable causes of intellectual disability and developmental disorders worldwide (May et al. 2009). As noted above, individual lifestyle and biomedical approaches to public health have been common over the last century. The major challenge is how to get people to change their behaviors for the betterment of their future health. Such approaches

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are, however, predicated on the basis that behaviors and habits are discrete and independently modifiable and that individuals can voluntarily and independently choose to modify their behavior. As mentioned earlier, such individualistic models ignore the influence of societal, familial, cultural, and wider population and community attributes and contexts. In contrast, modern public health appreciates the complexity of disease causation, as outlined below.

12.4

Modern Public Health’s Relationship to Child Well-Being

The two most important new developments in public health which have impacted most on research and thinking in child well-being and public health have been the movements around the social determinants of health and the developmental origins of health and disease.

12.4.1 Life Course Approach: Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and Epigenetics DOHaD commenced with studies which showed that low birth weight was associated with coronary heart disease (CHD), type 2 diabetes, and hypertension and that these effects of low birth weight were increased by slow infant growth and rapid weight gain in childhood (Barker et al. 2002). They coined the term “fetal programming” to explain these pathways. Moreover, the relationship between childhood characteristics and later disease was found to persist even when controlling for factors previously thought to mediate the relationship, such as adult smoking and obesity (Fuller-Thomson et al. 2010). Fundamentally the DOHaD and epigenetic approaches take the view that throughout development there are strong and time-related interactions between biological and genetic characteristics and environmental influences which influence disease status throughout life. This approach, termed epigenetics, moves away from the debate between nature versus nurture, instead strongly suggesting that nature and nurture interact at critical time periods, from conception through to old age to influence all of life disease risks, health, and well-being. The ability of environments to influence the impact of genes during development is still poorly understood in relation to human disease. Epigenetics is likely to prove of immense importance to our understanding of how fetal and child development occurs, but it will require some healthy scientific debates across disciplines and methodologies (Ebrahim 2012; Waterland and Michels 2007).

12.4.2 Social Determinants of Health The “social determinants of health” approach takes the view that societal influences have a significant influence on health and health inequalities. That there is a strong

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relationship between the way people live in societies and their physical and mental health is logical and crucial for us to appreciate if we are to develop the most effective strategies for sustainable public health interventions. The major contributions to this whole area which strongly make the case for societal interventions come from Marmot (2010) and Hertzman (Hertzman 1994; Hertzman and Boyce 2010). In 2005, the World Health Organization established a Social Determinants of Health Commission which was chaired by Marmot and the “Early Child Development Knowledge Network” set up under this Commission was led by Hertzman (Hertzman et al. 2010; Irwin et al. 2007). The push for greater understanding around the social determinants as a buffer to the prodigious individualistic biomedical paradigms was at its height in the mid- to late 1990s and continues to struggle for appropriate recognition and policy influence today. Consequently, in this chapter, we have spoken about the social determinant approach to child public health as a modern public health approach, despite the fact that it has been known for centuries that poverty affects health and development and that systemic interventions are required to address inequality – that is, the blame and responsibility cannot just fall to the individual as a solution. The following quote comes from a series of free public lectures in London that were later published in a book meant for the people and public administrators back in 1881: The deaths which occur in this country are fully a third more numerous than they would be if our existing knowledge of the chief causes of disease were reasonably applied throughout the country; that of deaths which, in this sense, may be called preventable . . . then there is the fact that this terrible continuing tax on human life and welfare, falls with immense overproportion upon the most helpless classes of the community; upon the poor; the ignorant; the subordinate; the immature; upon classes which, in great part through want of knowledge, and in great part because of their dependent position, cannot remonstrate for themselves against the miseries thus brought upon them. And have, in this circumstance, the strongest claim of all claims on a legislature which can justly measure and can abate their sufferings. (Smart 1881)

It is not enough for researchers to just continue to show that social conditions and economic inequality have potent consequences for health, development, and well-being. What is required is a better understanding of how these social and economic influences “get under the skin” and what we can do about them from a population-wide and policy perspective. Understanding the multiple determinants of health and how they interplay, as well as the complexity of mediating factors that may influence the relationships between the causes of ill-health and health status, is the new public health. For modern epidemiologists, the step away from solely individual causation approaches to a population-level understanding of disease distribution can be attributed to Geoffrey Rose. In 1985, Rose originally published “Sick Individuals and Sick Populations” where he exemplified that the more widespread a cause across a population, the less it explains the distribution of disease, and therefore he argued that a population strategy of prevention is required where the risk is widely diffused through the whole population (Rose 2001). The recent terminology of progressive or proportionate universality takes Rose’s work a step further and aims

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to support policy makers in their understanding of the requirements for both universal and targeted strategies by addressing the barriers that people face to gain access to the services and supports offered across the whole socioeconomic spectrum in a way that is proportionate to the underlying levels of inequality (Marmot 2010). As will be argued later in this chapter, such insights are only revealed with population-wide monitoring and surveillance data. Another recent paradigm trying to support policy makers and preventative public/population health strategies is the concept of biological embedding (Hertzman and Wiens 1996), which aims to explain how the social environment gets “under the skin.” The hypothesis is explained as “systematic differences in the qualities of emotional, social, intellectual, and physical circumstances are found in different socio-economic, psychosocial, and developmental environments. From the time of conception through the first several years of life and at a diminished pace thereafter, these differences will affect the development of the brain and the central nervous system, and will, in turn have systematic effects on cognitive, social, emotional and behavioural development” (Hertzman and Frank 2006). Biological embedding, as such, brings much of modern public health together – social determinants of health, eco and environmental influences, an understanding of the broader context in which children are raised, and a life-course perspective together. The various contributors to the social determinant models are outside health services and include such things as working conditions, employment, housing, education, community environments, urban design, public transport, equality of opportunities, and positive cultural environments. The social determinants and DOHaD thinking come together as we realize that many of the ways in which fetal programming embed are a result of the very adverse social environments listed above. It is exciting to think that if all these different areas of public health, child development, and social researchers could work together – including those interested in environmental exposures (such as lead, mercury, iodine deficiency, alcohol, smoking, other drugs) – we could bring holistic, sustainable, and effective solutions to the myriad of problems which damage child health and well-being. In many ways such efforts mirror the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child which was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

12.5

Status of Indicators of Child Well-Being in Public Health

Current basic health and education statistics collected to compare the progress of countries commonly include rates of infant, maternal, and child mortality; breastfeeding; immunization; and primary school enrolments and attendance (UNICEF 2010). Notwithstanding the significance of these vital statistics, those in public health should also be seeking indicators that not only determine whether children are surviving, or if children are attending school, but how well populations of children are developing. This is now recognized by organizations such as OECD, the World Bank, and UNICEF who are promoting the use of internationally comparable instruments to measure child development. It is understood that such

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instruments should foster global understanding while providing the evidence for local through to international policy development. The UNICEF report cards written in collaboration with the Innocenti Research Centre attempt to compare measures of child and youth well-being across several domains for the wealthier countries of the world (e.g., countries that are members of the OECD) (UNICEF 2007). They include material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and subjective well-being. The data included come from a range of sources and provide considerable and variable methodological challenges. For example, comparisons across these countries with indicators such as mortality and low birth weight are more robust than those relating to how youth view themselves and their place in society. The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) published a similar set of indicators comparing the best in the world for each indicator with the rates for all Australian children, whether they had improved or worsened over time, and a separate analysis for our Aboriginal children (known to be the most marginalized and impoverished in the nation) (http://www.aracy.org.au/index.cfm? pageName¼report_card_overview). The most interesting aspect of such report cards is how much variation there is in many well-being indicators across countries with similar incomes. That is, there is no clear gradient between national wealth as measured by GDP or GDP per capita; in fact the most wealthy countries in the OECD (USA and UK) are ranked the lowest on most measures of child well-being. This suggests that factors other than crude estimations of available financial resources are more powerful for child well-being. In fact, it may well be the policies, practices, or values in countries that account for the variation in child well-being when countries with similar incomes and capacity are contrasted. The implications for guiding public policy are obvious. Measuring child well-being across nations and understanding the major drivers of good outcomes may result in much more effective public health in all countries. Do those countries that invest more in upstream activities, for example, to reduce poverty (such as taxing the wealthy to fund family support and child care for the poor), do better in these rankings than those countries who tend to put more funding into downstream activities? It is of interest that while the USA has the lowest neonatal mortality rates in very preterm infants, it has very high (and increasing) rates of preterm births, with the result that overall infant mortality is higher in the USA than in any other developed country (OECD). There is some evidence that those working in the development and implementation of public policy in relation to children and young people are influenced by these well-publicized and regularly published international comparisons. Advocacy groups use these data to “shame” their country’s responses to child and youth issues by highlighting how poorly they are performing in comparison to, for example, Norway who ranks highly in almost all measures of child well-being. The measurement of child development is additionally important considering the implications for monitoring that are highlighted by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Bernard van Leer Foundation 2006; UNICEF 2009). In 2009, 194 UN members signed up to the Convention, representing all states

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except for the United States of America and Somalia. Each of the countries who ratified the convention are responsible for providing children with the opportunities necessary to develop physical, cognitive, social, and emotional capacities in early life (Convention on the Rights of the Child et al. 1989). In August 2010, the United Nations’ Secretary General delivered a report on the status of the Convention of the Rights of the Child to the United Nations’ General Assembly. At the conclusion of the report, the Secretary General encourages states to (a) Establish a framework of laws, policies and programmes ensuring that the rights of the child are implemented within a continuum of care (maternal, newborn, child health), education and protection throughout the early years of life, including: (i) Developing a plan for the realization of children’s rights in early childhood that is comprehensive in scope, is supported by operational strategies with clear goals, timelines and adequate resources, and is aimed at ensuring the development of the child’s fullest potential, protecting young children from all forms of violence, abuse and exploitation, and maximizing opportunities for their voice to be heard in all matters that affect them. These strategies should involve all levels of government and include civil society partners; (ii) Supporting research, monitoring, and evaluation studies on young children’s rights, development and well being, including the identification of indicators that are universally accepted, locally relevant and easily applied;. . .. (United Nations 2010)

The implications of this report are clear; however, unlike mortality rates, the measurement of child development is influenced by culture, language, and theory, and thus its concept can vary across place, culture, language, and research tradition, making international comparability difficult (Hambleton et al. 2005). The definition of death and birth are more consistent across countries, but progressing towards indicators like breast-feeding requires strict adherence to definitions. Assessments such as psychological, educational, and developmental tests are even more complex and require significant consideration particularly prior to making any cross-country or even within-country comparisons. Early childhood development (ECD) is generally defined as the holistic development of children from conception. Development is defined as the process of change in which the child comes to master increasingly complex levels of moving, thinking, feeling, and interacting with people and objects in their environment. There are various aspects of development, and these are called developmental domains such as physical, social, emotional, language, and cognitive development. Epidemiology also uses such domains to measure child well-being. Children develop at different rates on each of the developmental domains. For example, babies generally begin to crawl from 6 to 10 months of age. This age range is considered within the normal developmental range for this ability. Irrespective of when during this entire period a child starts crawling, the child is considered on course for healthy development. The rates and patterns of development during the early years are highly variable, and not all children who are doing well are doing the same thing at the same time. However, the classification of developmental delay occurs when children have not reached these developmental milestones within the expected time period. For example, if the normal range for

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learning to walk is between 9 and 15 months, a 20-month-old child that is not starting to walk would be considered developmentally delayed. The most common instruments in the field of child development are individual diagnostic instruments to identify developmental delay. These instruments are usually unidimensional and have a binary outcome (i.e., pass or fail on that milestone). The dimension of child well-being, as opposed to developmental delay, allows for the measurement of both the positive and negative aspects of how a child is developing and allows for a holistic approach to the child (i.e., social, emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being). Such measures also have the potential to place a child on a developmental trajectory rather than simply a bimodal pass/fail outcome. However, there is little agreement in the literature as to how to measure child well-being and many of the current instruments only measure one dimension of child well-being and/or take a deficit approach.

12.6

Why Do We Want to Measure Child Well-Being in Public Health?

There are numerous reasons to measure child well-being and these have been discussed before by others (Young 2007; McCain et al. 2007). We would suggest from a public or population health point of view there are eight main motivations. 1. Monitoring the state of early child development at the level of the population As now ratified by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, countries are required to monitor how well children are developing within and across their population. Monitoring the state of early child development impacts children and families by (1) raising the profile of the issue, (2) advocating strongly for children and families, and (3) providing a base level of information around which to mobilize action. Public access to the results of monitoring means that civil servants, nongovernment organizations, aid agencies, and the media alike are able to use the results to advocate for children and families. In essence, publication of results promotes recognition of and action to address new policy issues. 2. Evaluate and monitor change in child well-being over time The monitoring of child development/well-being over time enables communities and populations to determine if they are making any improvements. Only by monitoring over time can policy makers and service providers determine if they are making a difference to the new generations of children born every year. If improvements are made across societies and population groups to help support families, we would hope to see improvements in well-being over successive cohorts of children. 3. Identification of resilience in communities that support child well-being Population measurement (such as a census) of child development enables the relative comparison of communities. Comparing how communities do in comparison to each other leads to the question why? That is, why are some communities doing better than others and what are the strengths and weaknesses that help support

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families and children in some communities better than others? And of particular interest is what are the characteristics that explain why some high-risk communities are doing unexpectedly well in terms of child development? These questions can only be asked and investigated with population-wide data. 4. Understanding the state of child well-being in special populations Within each country there are special population groups, such as Aboriginal, specific migrant population groupings, and maybe populations defined by geography, language background, or economic circumstances. Child development and well-being like most health outcomes tend to vary across such population groupings. Quantification of the relative and absolute difference across these groupings, as well as the variation in results within the special populations of interest, can reveal patterns of child well-being that lead to a better understanding of the determinants of child well-being and inform public policies (health and other) for these groups. 5. Anchor developmental trajectories to help evaluate early childhood public health policies, interventions, and programs Instruments that are able to measure child development or well-being, as opposed to developmental delay, are able to place individual children on a developmental scale. As such it is easier to anchor a child’s developmental trajectory making it easier to assess how these children continue to develop over time. Such scales improve our ability to evaluate public health policies, interventions, and programs through traditional research designs such as randomized controlled trials and longitudinal cohort studies. Furthermore, findings from longitudinal studies are able to provide evidence for forecasting models. Thus, a combination of population-wide cross-sectional monitoring linked with longitudinal studies allows policy makers to evaluate their policies, interventions, and programs by forecasting and assessing the implications for future human capital on the basis of child development. 6. Inform community development strategies and public policy It is vitally important that governments and service providers base policy making, service planning, and community development strategies on evidence (i.e., evidence-based). Population monitoring provides evidence, which can help increase the recognition of a policy issue. The extent and nature of the problems can be quantified to inform the policy actions required. A UNICEF report on evidencebased policy stated that “measuring the impact of a policy intervention is more demanding of methodology and of information than is monitoring policy implementation. Incorporating an explicit mechanism for evaluating policy impact into the design of a policy is a key step to ensure its evaluability.” (UNICEF 2008). 7. Understanding culture To better understand and unpack the influence of culture, research studies comparing migrant populations to the population of “home origin” are also becoming more common with the use of internationally comparable population measures. Doing so enables better understanding about how cultural practices impact both positively and negatively on child well-being.

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8. International comparison Although many people do not necessarily approve of rankings or league tables, as mentioned earlier, international comparisons can act as an advocacy tool and provide a strong catalyst for action. Political leaders do not like to see their countries ranking fall or perform poorly against other “like” countries. International comparison can also lead to a better understanding of how macro-level policies can impact upon families and children. For instance, child care assistance, maternity/ paternity leave entitlements, minimum wage standards, and the like, which tend to be nationwide policies, can be better evaluated when internationally comparable measures are utilized over time. Essentially the reasons for monitoring child development are to increase understanding of the early determinants of children’s health and development – an understanding which will, in turn, inform the organizational, structural, and environmental changes that are needed to build better support for children and their families. This knowledge will inform effective preventive strategies to improve population health throughout life. To make such improvements, across and within countries, requires firstly an understanding of the complexity of the patterns of child development across various population groupings and secondly use of that understanding to inform a mix of universal and targeted strategies, interventions, and policy decisions. The quotes below from UNICEF offer an excellent summary of this section. The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children - their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born. (UNICEF 2007) Measurement serves as the hand-rail of policy, keeping efforts on track towards goals, encourages sustained attention, gives early warning signs of success or failure, fuels advocacy, ensures accountability, and helps decision making in relation to the most effective allocation of resources. (UNICEF 2007)

12.7

The Challenges of Measuring Child Well-Being for Public Health Research

To date, the vast majority of population-based early childhood research has been conducted in a relatively small number of economically affluent nations, leaving vast gaps in knowledge about the state of early child development in more economically marginalized regions. Such child development and well-being data, if it were available, would preferably be consistent and comparable. Consistency would enable comparisons between and within countries across time, gender, age, sociodemographic groups, and rural to urban geographical areas. Currently, late childhood is the focus of the majority of surveys (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD), Health Behavior in SchoolAged Children (HBSC), Program for International School Assessment (PISA),

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Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)); beyond traditional health or education data, there is, however, very little survey and time-series data on early childhood (ages 0–5) or middle childhood (ages 6–11). The development of a broader set of indicators on child well-being and development will allow for a more detailed analysis of the well-being of particular groups of children and ultimately stimulate national and international debates and policy responses that are in the best interests of children and enable all children to realize their full potential (UNICEF 2007). Conversely, a present lack of data and the current unequal distribution of data collection pose challenges for increasing the global awareness of the importance of early child development and well-being in shaping future human capital and participation in the economy and in civil society. Although the need for such instruments and indicators is clear, the challenge to adapt and validate instruments so that country comparisons can be reliably made is not easy. A growing body of literature on the theoretical underpinnings of approaches to cross-cultural adaptations (Herdman et al. 1997, 1998) indicates the complexity of the process. Unfortunately research has not advanced to a stage where there exists a library of instruments, from which people can select an instrument and then apply it locally knowing that the instrument is valid and reliable for their particular country and context and thus be confident in making conclusions on the results observed. The process of validating an instrument requires a series of steps to be taken before a sufficient level of confidence can be placed in the tool and, subsequently, inferences can be made about the children based on the scores or results from the instrument. What we know depends on how we know it. Improper validation can lead to measurement errors, such as accepting findings that may not be true or rejecting differences that may indeed be true but do not fit the fashion or modern theoretical understanding. The methodological challenges to adapt and validate test instruments for country comparison led to the formation of the International Test Commission (ITC). The ITC, although formed for psychological and educational assessment, provides guidelines that can be equally applied to the field of child well-being. The Guidelines (International Test Commission (ITC) (ITC) 2000) stipulate the various steps that should be taken before instruments can be used to reliably compare results across countries and cultures. The most recent version (2010) of the ITC Guidelines for translating and adapting tests can be downloaded freely and covers the following categories: context, test development and adaptation, administration, and documentation/score interpretation. In total there are 22 guidelines that apply whenever moving a test from one cultural setting to another (either within or across countries) (http://www.intestcom.org/upload/sitefiles/40.pdf). Although this chapter is not long enough to delve completely into culture, it is important to note from a public health approach the aspects of culture that are very important to consider. But firstly what is culture anyway? “Is culture an ineffable emergent quality greater than the sum of its parts, or is culture an aggregation of variables that is equal to their sum? This question is of more than passing interest to developmental scientists. It is a crucial conceptual foundation that informs how culture can or should be measured in cross-cultural developmental science research.

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Are cultural similarities and differences somehow intrinsic and unmeasurable, or can they be categorised and quantified? Furthermore, cultures are composed of people. How do the two relate” (Bornstein 2010, p. 37). Invalid measures can either inflate or hide true differences in child well-being or development that might actually be the result of cultural differences. What may be a reliable measure of well-being in one culture may not work for others. Crosscultural equivalence is difficult in terms of child well-being as the equivalence of the concepts that define the dimensions of well-being may not be consistent. It may be useful for researchers interested in measuring child well-being to make a distinction between emotional states that vary in intensity and individual differences in well-being from a health perspective that should be more stable over time. Child health researchers can learn from the literature around the development of personality trait indicators to aid the making of such distinctions. Essentially the difficulty is to create measures that can reliably show differential child development across countries so that it becomes possible to then investigate how cultural practices and norms may impact on child development; that is, culture should not be part of the measured aspect of development (dependent variable), instead it should be captured in the measured aspect of the independent variables. From a public policy point of view, public health has a significant role in trying to change those prevailing negative dominant structures that prevent or curtail children realizing their developmental potential. With the knowledge that both poverty and inequality are damaging conditions for child well-being, social policy and cultural change is required to redress the power formations, social arrangements, values, and practices that hold children back. Thus, from a public health perspective, it is important to investigate how culture influences behavior and care giving practices and how these may influence child development and well-being in both a positive and negative way. Additionally public health interventions need to be informed by the attitudes, beliefs, and practices that are influenced by culture. An understanding of culture is important in order to enhance the efficacy with which public health messages are communicated. From a systems public health perspective, culture influences how health-care settings and systems are developed and the paradigms in which healthcare professionals are trained. Thus, in a workforce and systems approach, public health has a role in raising the awareness of the importance of culture. For further readings around these points, we suggest Kleinman (1981), Kreuter and McClure (2004). Indicators of child development and well-being need to be able to help inform understanding about how children’s outcomes vary by social and economic conditions. Eckersley (2006) argues that cultural characteristics such as materialism or individualism can have an important impact on a person’s self-control and levels of social support. Typically aligned with Western cultures, materialism is associated with dissatisfaction (rather than happiness), depression, anxiety, anger, isolation, and alienation resulting in the human needs for security, safety, and connectedness being unmet in materialistic cultures. Eckersley contends that individualism and materialism affect well-being through their influence on values. Values, being

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a core component of culture, provide a framework for deciding what is important, true, right, and good (Eckersley 2006). Such values bring order and meaning to people’s lives and provide a framework to guide child-rearing practices. Culture can clearly have both positive and negative influences on children. Where there exist potentially negative aspects of cultural practices, at times political correctness and the fear of challenging cultural practices may have a deleterious effect on the development of public health interventions. Sutton provides some challenging thoughts on this matter in his book aptly titled the “Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of liberal consensus.” Sutton states. . . . the kind of deep cultural changes that may assist a real move out of profound disadvantage are not well understood, not just in official policy-making circles, but more generally, and in my own grasp of the situation as much as anyone else’s. It is easier for an anthropologist to suggest why it is that certain past cultural shifts have been effective in improving a peoples quality of life, than to suggest future shifts that people might consider trying to manipulate so as to have a better existence. One of the obstacles to effective debate is the present context is that so many people are still in denial over the need for cultural change. (Sutton 2009, p. 69)

These insights into the importance of culture and the recognition of the complex interplay between culture and history, religion, politics, economics, and the status of women, children, ethnic, and indigenous groups are fundamental to understanding the health of populations. As such, the development of indicators to measure child well-being and development needs to be robust enough to actually decipher true differences in child development across all of the subpopulation categories. Only then will it be possible to unpack this complex interplay to determine the facilitators and barriers to positive child health and well-being. Those in the field who are aware of the methodological issues will be better able to critically evaluate research findings and in turn may help foster the development of improved methods and thus advances in knowledge.

12.8

Research Designs in Public Health

It would be remiss to write a chapter on public health and not have a section dedicated to research design. Research design is fundamentally linked to the discipline of public health through the field of epidemiology. Often overlooked, however, is that the generalizability of results, no matter what research design is chosen, can be cleverly enhanced through the choice of a common indicator. In developmental science, longitudinal studies and cross-sectional designs dominate. In traditional developmental science, the task in longitudinal studies is to find meaningful associations between age changes and changes in specific outcome behaviors or abilities of interest. Cross-sectional studies, on the other hand, aim to discover age group differences in particular behaviors or abilities. Put rather crudely developmental scientists aim to understand how children develop.

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In contrast, public health, as a discipline, aims to prevent disease and disability. As such, public health is interested in contextual factors that may be modifiable during early childhood to help improve future human well-being. Thus, the interest in the field of developmental science by public health practitioners has a different intent compared to the pure developmental scientist. As such, in the discipline of public health and epidemiology, longitudinal (or cohort) studies are generally utilized to model the impact and influence of contextual factors on human development – contextual factors being those factors outside of the body that potentially affect or are affected by the individual and his/her growth. For example, context clearly includes factors such as family/home environment, physical and chemical exposures, community and social services, schools, and peer groups. Epidemiologists typically analyze the influence of risk factors on poor developmental outcomes. Part of the distinction can also be made by observational or experimental studies. In pure developmental science, observational studies dominate. These are studies where nature is allowed to take its course. The investigator measures but does not intervene in any way. Such studies can be descriptive or analytical. In public heath both observational and experimental studies dominate. Experimental studies involve an active attempt to change an outcome – in our circumstance, an active attempt to improve child development and well-being through either treatment/ intervention, change in behavior, or say exposure to a program. A particular type of experimental longitudinal research design is the randomized controlled trial (RCT). The RCT is the most advanced/best quality research design and is the type of longitudinal study that provides the greatest potential to infer causation which becomes additionally important when designing impact evaluation studies. RCTs were traditionally designed to determine the efficacy and effectiveness of drugs; however, they are now also used to determine the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions. Of particular relevance to child development is the pragmatic randomized controlled trial where an RCT is designed and implemented in “real life” rather than in an excessively controlled set of situations. Pragmatic trials (Zwarenstein et al. 2008) tend to have higher “generalizability”; that is, the results are applicable to usual settings. For example, in order to evaluate a new schedule of care delivered by child health nurses across various communities, a pragmatic trial design would be the most appropriate. Unfortunately, in the field of early child development, such trials are extremely rare, primarily due to expense and the significant commitment required from service providers and funders to randomize (hence to deny half the study subjects the intervention at least temporarily) and be prepared to wait (in some circumstances many years) for the research findings to show impact. Cross-sectional studies are generally used in epidemiology/public health to determine the prevalence of disease or disability. They can be used to investigate associations between context and development but are limited in determining causality. Cross-sectional studies tend to be survey samples and are generally useful to investigate or categorize common conditions; they often compare cases and

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controls for the risk factors of interest and attempt to control for confounding factors. When a cross-sectional survey is done across an entire population, then this is called a census. Such cross-sectional surveys or censuses that are repeated over time form a system of monitoring or surveillance. Repetition of cross-sectional data collections enables monitoring of change or trends across communities, population subgroups, and populations as a whole. Monitoring and surveillance is a fundamental role of public health. Determining pathways and the mechanisms of causation are also important for public health. Longitudinal studies are, however, expensive, tend to be burdensome on the families involved, suffer from loss to follow-up, and tend to underrepresent minority groups and those families from the tails of the socioeconomic distribution (i.e., the wealthy and the poor). Cross-sectional surveys, although aiming to be representative, also tend to suffer from failing to recruit families from the tails of the socioeconomic distribution and suffer from recall bias of exposures. Unless the researchers take a strategy of oversampling minority groups, survey results are frequently not generalizable across populations. Census collections benefit from being representative, enable the comparison of subpopulations, and provide the opportunity to explore the patterns and distributions of health. Repeated over time there is the added advantage of being able to monitor trends in health. However, without the longitudinal aspect (i.e., following the same child/person over time), it is not possible to determine the pathways to health/ill-health. The recognition of these problems has led many researchers in public health to use linked population data sets. Data linkage essentially finds connections between different pieces of information that are thought to belong to the same person or between events that occurred at the same place or happened at or about the same time. Consistent measures of early child development can be linked to other measurements of health, educational, and behavioral outcomes over the life course. It is possible to construct crosswalks between health, early child development, and education databases that integrate population-wide, person-specific data at national, jurisdictional, and community levels. As such it is possible to create a historical perspective of developmental trajectories for an entire population of children. Linking early child development outcome data with education, health, and social service administrative databases is key to shedding new light on the complex interplay of risk and protective factors over the life course. The real value from linkage comes if data on child well-being indicators are available for the total population, which provides the ability to generalize to the whole population, allowing unbiased assessments, and makes possible the study of subpopulations. For those interested in data linkage, a description of how data linkage is achieved while maintaining the privacy of individuals is explained by the following video link: https://www.santdatalink.org.au/animation. From a research perspective, a good summary of the comparison between longitudinal studies versus populationbased linked data systems is provided by Roos et al. (2008). Additionally, Jutte et al. (2011) recently published a review of data linkage as a tool for public health. The primary centers for establishing population comprehensive linked data systems include the Oxford Record Linkage Study in England, the Scottish

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Record Linkage System, Statistics Norway, the MigMed2 database in Sweden, the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research in British Columbia, and the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences in Ontario. In Australia, the Western Australian (WA) experience in data linkage commenced in the academic sector in the 1970s. From the 1980s, the WA Maternal and Child Health Research Database contained linked data on all births (antenatal, intrapartum, and neonatal information on the mother and child) with hospitalizations, birth defects, and other disabilities (from total population registers) (Stanley et al. 1997). By 2002, all health-related data linkage was undertaken within the centralized WA Data Linkage System (WADLS) jointly managed by the academic and public sector, with strong ethical oversight. Since 1995 the WADLS has been able to progressively build linkages between the state’s administrative population-wide data collections related to the health and well-being of children, adults, and families. Over the last 10 years, this staged development has also seen the WADLS expand to include links to national and local health and welfare data sets, genealogical links, and spatial references for mapping applications (Holman et al. 2008). Elsewhere we have suggested that such data can influence the joined-up policy responses needed for child well-being, for which this chapter is also advocating (Stanley et al. 2011). Australia is now progressing towards national data linkage activities with statebased “nodes” (such as the WADLS) working together under a national network (the Population Health Research Network), which will allow researchers to access state and across jurisdictional boundary data that is non-identified. The systems will improve Australia’s ability to monitor health and well-being using data already collected by social services including primarily health but also education, and family and community services. The systems are able to identify trends in health and development and provide the evidence to develop proactive health and welfare policy. The Australian Population Health Research Network along with the statebased nodes will provide the world’s most comprehensive population health database to monitor and study health and well-being. Integration from each approach (longitudinal, pragmatic randomized controlled trials, cross-sectional, and population census monitoring added to population-wide data linkage systems) can significantly enhance our ability to understand child development and inform public health strategies to improve future human capital. This understanding is further enhanced when consistent indicators are used in both longitudinal studies and cross-sectional and/administrative data collections. For example, data from longitudinal studies can be used to then extrapolate by the use of forecasting models to the entire population if the same instrument is used. If the same indicator is used over time to monitor trends or across populations, then further comparisons and knowledge are uncovered. Linking cohort studies and cross-sectional surveys to population-linked data where each is using the same indicator of child well-being enables more complete follow-up and generalizability. Despite the knowledge of the benefits of a consistent and standardized measure, there is currently no single internationally recognized measure of early child

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development. However, the report of the United Nations’ Secretary General in late 2010 names three examples of child development/well-being indicators that are currently rising to the fore: In order to better monitor children’s right to develop to their full potential, an internationally agreed set of core indicators needs to be established and reported upon regularly. Several instruments have been promoted to close this information gap. They include Save the Children’s Child Development Index and the Early Development Instrument promoted by the World Bank. UNICEF has developed an Early Childhood Development Index to be used as part of the multiple indicator cluster survey and other household surveys. The Early Childhood Development Index will further enhance effective data collection to monitor the full implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as any other internationally agreed instruments, to ensure full realization of child rights in early childhood. (United Nations 2010, Sect. 22)

Due to the experience of the present authors, this chapter will concentrate on two of these three indicators as examples of ways to move forward – the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Early Child Development Module (which includes the Early Child Development Index) and the Early Development Index (EDI).

12.9

The MICS Early Child Development Module

In a bid to improve international comparability of child well-being, UNICEF took the lead to fund and coordinate the development of an Early Childhood Module that now forms part of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Household Survey (MICS). MICS is conducted across the world and as such the results of this work now serve as one potential for an international comparative measure for early child development. In 2007, UNICEF commissioned a review of tests, measures, and items used to establish the developmental status of children aged 0–6 years, with specific focus on those instruments tested cross-culturally (Zill and Ziv 2007). This review recommended five, equally weighted developmental domains (motor, language, cognitive, social-emotional, and approaches to learning) to form the basis for the module. In early 2008, a validation study of the items recommended by Zill and Ziv was commissioned, with the goal of producing a reliable and feasible set of items to be used in the MICS; however, the age under consideration was truncated to cover ages 3–6 years: the preschool years. The validation study was conducted in two countries: Jordan and the Philippines, in close collaboration with local UNICEF offices (Janus et al. 2008b). The design of the study involved collecting base data on approximately 900 children in each of the two countries. The sample was evenly distributed to equally represent boys and girls between 3 and 6 in yearly interval groups. Urban and rural regions of each country were also represented. A subsample of the total sample was used to allow for additional validity testing: test-retest (repeated application of the questions after a short time interval), and inter-rater components (two parents, if possible, or parent and preschool teacher).

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A variety of data collection methods were used to assess content and concurrent validity. Several questionnaires and parent interviews with established international validity or validity in the studied countries were reviewed to enable addition of items. These were later used for comparison and item reliability assessments. It was believed that the finalized module could include a combination of parent reports and direct observations, and therefore a number of simple gross and fine motor tasks were added, as well as a direct, gamelike, assessment of executive functioning. All items used in the study were translated into the appropriate languages. In the preparatory phases of the study, initial content validity assessments with local early childhood educators and experts were conducted. Recommended changes and/or modifications were back translated into English for review by the project team. The differences were discussed to consensus, and all finalized items were incorporated into the standard MICS format. The finalized instrumentation to be tested included the set of questions recommended by Zill and Ziv (2007), along with the Early Development Instrument (Janus and Offord 2007), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman 2001), and selected questions from a questionnaire developed for the Philippines (King, n.d.). In addition to these parental interview questions, a couple of task-based child assessments were utilized including items like “draw a circle,” “can you stand on one foot?” and a direct test of executive cognitive functioning (Zelazo 2006). The sociodemographic and contextual information was collected with items from selected modules from the standard MICS inventory. A series of psychometric, reliability, and validity testing along with factor analyses were applied to the collected data to detect the underlying factors and item integrity. This series of analytical techniques successfully identified a small number of factors that explained most of the variance observed. Each of the resultant factors was then tested for internal consistency and the findings establish a set of indicators for each developmental domain and within these a series of subdomains. A long (48-item) and a short (18-item) version covering six developmental domains – language, cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and approaches to learning – were developed (Janus et al. 2008b). While the resulting sets of items were validated against the direct assessment measures, it was clear that using such assessment on a wide-scale basis in the MICS would not be feasible. Information on the implementation challenges contributed to the writing of an associated field guide now associated with the MICS module (Janus et al. 2008a). The 48-item and 18-item versions were proposed to the UNICEF Early Childhood Development Unit and discussed with a broad group of experts, who brought forward concerns over the length of administration and difficulty of some items, especially in the 48-item version. The 18-item draft of the Early Child Development Index (ECDI) was, therefore, chosen to be tested in 2009 in Mombasa, Kenya. Following this, further revisions were undertaken with simplicity and nonambiguity in mind. Items which elicited the most negative feedback because of the difficulty of underlying concept were eliminated. The number of items contributing to the ECD Index was then reduced to 10. All questions allow only for binary responses, yes or no. The original language and cognitive domains have been

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collapsed into one, now consisting of three items, and the social and emotional domains have been collapsed into one, now consisting of three items. Two remaining domains – physical and approaches to learning – consist of two items each (Janus et al. 2008b). The resulting Early Child Development Index (ECDI) is a holistic simple indicator, within the framework of a MICS module, with adequate sensitivity to external variables, the basic reliability and sensitivity, as well as capacity to inform. The index is calculated for the whole set of items as well as for each domain, indicating the percentage of children aged 3 and 4 years who are developmentally on target in language-cognitive, physical, socio-emotional, and approaches to learning domains, as well as overall development. The ECDI now functions as a part of the Under-5 Child Development MICS Module, which includes questions on breast-feeding, availability and child’s access to toys and reading materials, participation in preschool programs, parent–child interactions, and child being left alone. All the aspects measured in the module contribute to a better understanding of the context of the lives of young children. As more countries implement the MICS Early Child Development Module, a comparative picture of developmental outcomes (children “on target”) in the context of other variables, including maternal health, family wealth, and dwelling characteristics, will emerge and assist in better understanding of the early years in the developing countries, going beyond the statistics of survival and disease (Janus et al. 2008b).

12.10 The Early Development Index (EDI) Transition to school is seen as one of the best stages in a child’s life to measure their development and well-being. Research has established that high-risk children can be prepared for initial success at school through early childhood education, family support, pediatric and allied health-care interventions, and child health programs. When children come to school with the skills, competencies, and developmental capacity to take advantage of the education system, coupled with a high quality education system, the initial positive effects persist into adolescence and adulthood. The Early Development Index (EDI) is a population measure of children’s development. The index is a holistic measure covering five developmental domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge (Janus and Offord 2007). In general teachers complete the instrument for all children in their class on the basis of their own observations and reflections of the children. It is generally used across the population of children attending their first year of full-time schooling. The purpose of the EDI is not to identify individual children for treatment but is a population measure to provide an evidence base to inform and evaluate both universal prevention strategies and interventions targeted to specific geographic or population groups. As such, the EDI data is made publically available via community maps, community profiles, and jurisdiction or

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national reports, with the information intended to inform strategies that can be applied to improve child well-being. As mentioned in the introduction, the measurement properties of instruments are rarely comprehensively assessed across countries and generally lack strong evidence of international validity and reliability. The particular suitability of an instrument like the EDI to measure holistic child development presents an opportunity for international organizations to build a comparative international indicator (Janus et al. 2011). To aid the international comparability of the EDI, a set of minimum guidelines outlining the steps to be undertaken prior to claiming that the EDI is a valid instrument within a country has been developed by the author of the EDI (Janus and Offord 2007). These guidelines are consistent with the International Test Commission Guidelines for Test Adaptation (Hambleton et al. 2005) and adhere to a universalist approach (Herdman et al. 1998), making no a priori assumptions about comparability. In concordance with these various guidelines, the EDI needs to be validated and tested for reliability within each country prior to being able to compare across countries. With its continued success, the EDI is now being adapted for use around the world with 20 countries (both developed and undeveloped) utilizing the instrument. The instrument’s use is being supported by governments and the World Bank, UNICEF, and the Bernard van Leer Foundation. As each country undertakes the adaptation process, the reliability and validity of the instrument continues to build. With this, the research potential to investigate the complexities of child development across cultures, populations, and societies also continues to grow. Although it is very early days, the following graph has been compiled as an example of our aspirations for the EDI (Fig. 12.1). The results in this graph may well be difficult to compare. For instance, the data have been collected in different ways. In the Philippines, Jordan, and Indonesia, the parents were asked the questions by an interviewer (i.e., within a household survey). In all other countries the teachers were the respondents completing the instrument for each child in their class. In Australia the data represent an entire population cross section (a census). In Canada the information presented is the Canadian normative sample representative of Canada as a whole. The information collected in Mexico is a population census across a region within the country. In both the Philippines and Jordan, the sample was a representative survey. In all other circumstances, the sample collection was to evaluate early childhood interventions and cannot be considered representative. As such, although the instrument is essentially the same, the modes of data collection and design of the study collecting the information jeopardize the comparability. In each country, we have undertaken, as reasonably practical within budget constraints and local capacity, the required steps to validate the instrument to the local settings. However, given the limitations it is still interesting to note the large differences in results across countries and just such a graph mobilizes people to start to ask the question about why there are such differences. No doubt some variation will be measurement error; some will be due to lack of representative country samples. However, given that children from the poorest communities across Indonesia

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appear to be doing considerably better than children in Australia and Canada on the communication skills and general knowledge domain as well as the social competence domain begs us to ask why. What are the social and cultural aspects that support children in these villages (a community raises a child?) versus communities across Australia and Canada? The explanation of the differential between language and cognitive development may be more easily explained. The questions that comprise this domain include aspects of formal reading and writing skills which considering the literacy levels of caregivers and access to books and pens in some of the villages in Indonesia contrast significantly with the experiences and resources of children in Australia and Canada. A question may well be raised – but what is most important for future health and well-being, maybe in Indonesia such skills are not as important. These are questions riddled with culture, political correctness, and complex social and cultural, historical, and economic interplays. Our personal views aside, it is likely that children with good skills and development across the domains of child development will be more likely to succeed than children who at entry to school are already struggling.

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12.11 The Australian Story with the Early Development Index (AEDI) The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is based on the Canadian Early Development Instrument (EDI) (Janus and Offord 2007), which was developed by the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University in Ontario. Although the EDI was developed in Canada, Australia is the first country in the world to measure the development of their entire population of children. After extensive piloting from 2002–2008, in 2009, as a federal government election commitment, the AEDI was collected for almost every child across Australia in their first year of full-time schooling. In what was essentially a “child development census,” information was collected for over 261,000 children representing 98 % of the population. Nearly 16,000 teachers from 7,420 government and nongovernment schools completed the checklist based on their knowledge and observations of the child. The data collection occurred within a 3-month window. Although the 2009 National AEDI data set provides the first Australia-wide population baseline to which future data collections will be compared, the instrument has been used in Australia since 2002 and has been the subject of various reliability and validity studies. It should be noted that the Canadian EDI has also been the subject of numerous validation and reliability studies. The checklist was first utilized in Perth in 2002 (Brinkman and Blackmore 2003) and then again in 2003 (Hart et al. 2003) where the process of adaptation initially included testing its content validity and utility as a community-level measure of early child development in Australia. In 2004 federal government funding enabled further instrument validation and communities from across Australia to become involved (Goldfeld et al. 2009). From a technical point of view, Rasch analyses were conducted to confirm adequate psychometric properties of the instrument (Andrich and Styles 2004). From a community point of view, the use of the instrument was evaluated in terms of its utility as a community mobilizer around early childhood (Sayers et al. 2007). In a separate study, the AEDI was embedded in a nested sample within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) (Sanson et al. 2002). To date this has enabled the assessment of the AEDI’s concurrent and construct validity, with predictive validity analyses now underway. The results indicate that the AEDI performs as well as expected and in some cases better than individual assessment tools that are more time-consuming and expensive to administer (Brinkman et al. 2007). The AEDI Indigenous Adaptation Study further developed the AEDI to ensure it is relevant and sensitive to the needs of Australia’s Indigenous children (Silburn et al. 2009). Additionally, the Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE) Study reviewed the AEDI implementation process, results, and data usage for culturally and linguistically diverse populations. These two studies have resulted in significant improvements to the AEDI Teacher Guidelines to further explain the intent of each question with the provision of culturally inclusive examples and prompt to support teachers completing the checklist.

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The 2009 National AEDI results were released by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the former Minister for Early Childhood Education, Child Care and Youth, Kate Ellis, in December 2009. The results are available in the form of a national report and online community maps and profiles. Highlights from the National AEDI report (Centre for Community Child Health and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research 2009) show that: • The majority of children are doing well on each of the developmental domains. • However, 23.5 % of Australian children are developmentally vulnerable on one or more of the five domains. • Children living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities are more likely to be developmentally vulnerable on each of the AEDI domains; however, vulnerable children are found across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. • Similarly the majority of Australian Indigenous children are doing well on the AEDI domains; however, Indigenous children show disproportionally higher developmental vulnerability rates when compared to non-Indigenous children. • Interestingly the figures show different patterns when reviewing the different aspects of child development, where Indigenous children are showing extremely good skills in terms of physical independence but significantly poorer results in terms of language and cognitive development. • Children who are proficient in English and speak another language at home are less likely to be developmentally vulnerable on all the AEDI domains. • However, children who only speak English, but are reported as not proficient in English, are more likely to be developmentally vulnerable across all five AEDI domains. The AEDI results are available online via a designated website www.aedi.org. au. To help community members understand and interpret the results, there is an interactive results guide. This guide provides information about how to engage with your community and helps develop plans for community action to support children and families. The AEDI website also provides community case studies, videos, FAQs, publications, fact sheets, and links to other relevant websites. Colloquially, the AEDI results are referred to as a measure of how well the community has raised their children to school age, and thus, the results are primarily seen as an outcome indicator, although the data is also interpreted as an indicator of future human capital. The AEDI aims to determine whether children are starting school with the developmental capacity to take advantage of the school learning environment. When accessing and interpreting the AEDI results, it is important to recognize that although the data is collected through the school system the information is always reported on the basis of a child’s suburb or geographic area of residence and not the school location, so the AEDI results are not a reflection of the school. The interactive mapping platform allows users to see how a suburb/ neighborhood is going in comparison to (or relative to) neighboring suburbs across the region. Different “data layers” are available including each of the AEDI domains as well as socioeconomic and demographic data sourced from the

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Australian Bureau of Statistics. Data legends on the side of the maps allow users to see both the number of children vulnerable on each of the developmental domains as well as the percentage of children vulnerable in each of the suburbs. Along with a range of other community indicators and information, the AEDI can be used by communities to plan and evaluate place-based initiatives for children and families. The AEDI data acts as a community catalyst for conversations across agencies and provides communities with the opportunity to strengthen collaborations between schools, early childhood services, and local agencies (Sayers et al. 2007). In 2006, the Centre for Community Child Health undertook an evaluation of how communities utilized their AEDI results. The findings showed that the community implementation process and AEDI results facilitated the development of community partnerships and coalitions, particularly between early childhood settings and schools, raised awareness of the importance of early childhood development, assisted communities to map and understand their assets, identified priorities for action, and provided data to support local grant applications. The results from the evaluation also highlighted the need for local champions and strong support from the education and health sectors to successfully implement and then act upon the AEDI results (Sayers et al. 2007). Governments are becoming increasingly interested in the early determinants of children’s health, development, and well-being in order to inform changes needed to better support children and their families (Young 2007). To make such improvements across and within countries, however, requires an understanding of the complexities of the patterns of child development across various population groupings to inform the mix of universal and targeted strategies. Getting this mix right has significant service and policy ramifications. The AEDI population data mapped across regions helps inform policy makers on where, what, and how to scale up early child development programs. Such data enables governments to (1) judge the resilience of communities and understand where early child development programs are most needed; (2) monitor the state of child development and assess change in outcomes over time, for example, identifying trends in child outcomes as a result of policies and programs; and (3) anchor developmental trajectories to identify groups of vulnerable populations which will require additional support. With the national Australian infrastructure development for population data linkage (as mentioned earlier in this chapter), the linking of various administrative data sets to the AEDI provides a potentially powerful person-specific longitudinal total population-based data set. Such a data set significantly increases our ability to investigate the complexities of developmental trajectories. In addition, program and policy evaluation and economic models can also be investigated with such data sets such as the effectiveness of preventive interventions which are traditionally hard to quantify. The AEDI has significant scope as an independent data source used in context with other geographically available social and demographic information along with local community knowledge. When the AEDI is repeated in successive cohorts, this then enables us to monitor early child development across populations and time and

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to examine trends for geographic areas. However, the investigation of risk and protective patterns in child development is generally undertaken using individuallevel information. Further to that, the importance of examining individual-level data is reflected by the fact that while the AEDI clearly shows a significant socioeconomic gradient in developmental vulnerability, there are still many children in middle-class and upper-class Australia that are developmentally vulnerable. So although socioeconomics explains some of the variation in child development, there is still a significant amount of variation that needs further unpacking for us to better understand the complexities of child development (Centre for Community Child Health and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research 2009; Lynch et al. 2010; Brinkman et al. 2012). There are currently plans to link the AEDI to the whole infant cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children once they reach school age. In addition, children entering the Longitudinal Study of Youth will be consented to link back to their AEDI results when they were in school. There are few places in the world with the infrastructure developed to conduct such research taking advantage of linked administrative data and longitudinal studies; however, of those that have the capacity in Australia and Canada, all are using (or have funded projects to use) the A/EDI. Scotland also has data linkage facilities and is currently piloting the EDI with the aim to develop a population EDI data set for linked research. International collaborations with the use of standardized instruments like the EDI provides scope for international and jurisdictional policy evaluation and unique opportunities for investigating social and cultural factors that influence developmental trajectories of children never before possible.

12.12 Summary Public health researchers and policy makers should primarily be concerned with the availability of quality data on the relationship between exposures and outcomes and adequate evidence of the effectiveness of public health policies to improve those outcomes (Stanley and Daube 2009). With the knowledge that child development and well-being makes a difference to life-course health and civil participation coupled with the knowledge that we can positively influence child development and well-being through a variety of interventions and programs, we need to move towards more refined and pragmatic questions that investigate the relative influence of different types of programs – questions such as age of onset, duration and intensity of treatment (dose), quality required, and the most effective content mix (i.e., are language-specific programs, more holistic programs requiring a multidisciplinary approach, or child-specific or family partnership approaches more effective). To address such questions requires multidisciplinary partnerships and the use of consistent measures of development. For example, if the evaluation

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of an intervention in Bangladesh utilizes the EDI as its outcome measure as does the evaluation of either the same or a different intervention in the Philippines, the results are far more likely to be comparable than if the evaluations utilized outcome measures that were different. More and more governments in developing countries are coming to understand that sound systems for monitoring and evaluation can help them improve their performance. There are a small but growing number of governments that have succeeded in building monitoring and evaluation systems in support of evidence-based policy making, evidence-based management, and evidence-based accountability. The World Bank and other international donors view this as a priority area and stand ready to help developing countries strengthen their work in this area (UNICEF 2008). An emphasis on only the deficits of child development (i.e., identifying developmental delay) leads research and interventions targeted to efforts towards children’s deficits. The measurement of well-being allows the identification and thus the promotion of child strengths. The authors of this chapter prefer to rise above the arguments around the merits of indicators that are deficit based or strength based. We understand the merits of both and the need to be able to measure both the strengths and weaknesses in children. Our argument would be that a holistic instrument that is able to place a child on a developmental spectrum allows us to do both. An internationally comparable measure such as the EDI or the MICS ECDI allows for such applications. Such a measure utilized widely for both population monitoring and longitudinal research studies will significantly enhance the advancement of child well-being and public health. The importance of the early environments influencing child development or well-being, however defined, is crucial in the challenges we face to improve public health in the twenty-first century, in all nations. Many countries still battle poverty and its associated infectious diseases and malnutrition which contribute significantly to unhealthy child development, child well-being, and, through these, to the public health of the whole population. The more developed world is facing a myriad of other “modern” negative influences on child development such as parental mental health problems, substance abuse, domestic violence, inequalities, and poor educational outcomes – all of which are profoundly important for public health in those nations. And of course, as countries develop and become urbanized, they seem to also take on these risks. We strongly believe that a focus on improving maternal and child health, early childhood experiences, and youth health and well-being (the parents of the next generation) is key to improving public health globally. A healthy start to life is the major building block for adult health and well-being and for both the present and the next generation. The best ways to measure child well-being across and between nations are still being trialed, but in this respect many countries are taking a lead, including Canada and Australia along with developing nations. Acknowledgments In recognition of Clyde Hertzman: a dear friend, inspirational colleague and supportive mentor.

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Hambleton, R. K., Merenda, P. F., & Speilberger, C. D. (2005). Adapting educational and psychological tests for cross cultural assessment. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hands, B. P., Chivers, P. T., Parker, H. E., Beilin, L., Kendall, G., & Larkin, D. (2011). The associations between physical activity, screen time and weight from 6 to 14 yrs: The Raine Study. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport/Sports Medicine Australia, 14(5), 397–403. Hart, B., Brinkman, S., & Blackmore, S. (2003). How well are raising our children in the North Metropolitan Area: The Early Development Index. Perth: North Metropolitan Heath Service. Herdman, M., Fox-Rushby, J., & Badia, X. (1997). Equivalence and the translation and adaptation of health-related quality of life questionnaires. Quality of Life Research, 6, 237–247. Herdman, M., Fox-Rushby, J., & Badia, X. (1998). A model of equivalence in the culture adaptation of HRQoL instruments: The universalist approach. Quality of Life Research, 7, 323–335. Hertzman, C. (1994). The lifelong impact of childhood experiences: A population health perspective. Deadalus, 123(4), 167–180. Hertzman, C., & Boyce, T. (2010). How experience gets under the skin to create gradients in developmental health. Annual Review of Public Health, 31, 329–347. doi:10.1146/annurev. publhealth.012809.103538. Hertzman, C., & Frank, J. (2006). Biological pathways linking the social environment, development and health. In J. Heymann, C. Hertzman, M. L. Barer, & R. G. Evans (Eds.), Healthier societies. From analysis to action (pp. 35–57). New York: Oxford University Press. Hertzman, C., Siddiqi, A., Hertzman, E., Irwin, L. G., Vaghri, Z., Houweling, T. A. J., & Marmot, M. (2010). Bucking the inequality gradient through early child development. British Medical Journal, 340. doi:10.1136/bmj.c468. Hertzman, C., & Wiens, M. (1996). Child development and long term outcomes: A population health perspective and summary of successful interventions. Social Science and Medicine, 43(7), 1083–1093. Hetzel, B. S. (2012). Commentary: A new dimension – studies in schoolchildren. International Journal of Epidemiology. doi:10.1093/ije/dys060. Holman, C., Bass, A., Rosman, D., Smith, M., Semmens, J., Glasson, E., & Watson, C. (2008). A decade of data linkage in Western Australia: Strategic design, applications and benefits of the WA data linkage system. Australian Health Review, 32, 766–777. Humphrey, J. H. (2009). Child undernutrition, tropical enteropathy, toilets, and handwashing. The Lancet, 374(9694), 1032–1035. Huttly, S. R., Morris, S. S., & Pisani, V. (1997). Prevention of diarrhoea in young children in developing countries. Bull World Health Organ, 75(2), 163–174. International Test Commission (ITC). (2000). International guidelines for test use. Retrieved November 8, 2010, from http://www.intestcom.org/guidelines/index.php Irwin, L. G., Siddiqi, A., & Hertzman, C. (2007). Early child development: A powerful equalizer. Final report for the World Health Organization’s commission of the social determinants of health. Vancouver: Human Early Learning Partnership. Jacoby, P. A., Coates, H. L., Arumugaswamy, A., Elsbury, D., Stokes, A., Monck, R., & Lehmann, D. (2008). The effect of passive smoking on the risk of otitis media in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder region of Western Australia. Medical Journal of Australia, 188(10), 599–603. Jamison, D. T., Breman, J. G., Measham, A. R., Alleyne, G., Claeson, M., Evans, D. B., et al. (2006). Disease control priorities in developing countries (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: World Bank. Janus, M., Brinkman, S., & Duku, E. (2008a). Fieldwork guidelines for the MICS ECD Module. Second interim recommendations report Part II. Hamilton: McMaster University. Janus, M., Brinkman, S., & Duku, E. (2008b). Pilot test results: Child development outcome instrument to be included in UNICEF’s MICS Household Survey. Final report. Hamilton: McMaster University.

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Janus, M., Brinkman, S. A., & Duku, E. (2011). Validity and psychometric properties of the Early Development Instrument in Canada, Australia, United States and Jamaica. Social Indicators Research, 103(2), 283–297. Janus, M., & Offord, D. (2007). Development and psychometric properties of the Early Development Instrument (EDI): A measure of children’s school readiness. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 39, 1–22. Jutte, D. P., Roos, L. L., & Brownell, M. D. (2011). Administrative record linkage as a tool for public health research. Annual Review of Public Health, 32, 91–108. King, E. (n.d.). Philippines questionnaire. Appendix F. In A study for the effects of early childhood intervention on children’s physiological, cognitive and social development. Baseline Indicators Study. Cebu: Office of Population Studies, University of San Carlos. Kleinman, A. (1981). Patients and healers in the context of culture, an exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine and psychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kreiger, N. (2011). Epidemiology and the people’s health, theory and context. New York: Oxford University Press. Kreuter, M. W., & McClure, S. M. (2004). The role of culture in health communication. Annual Review of Public Health, 25(1), 439–455. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.101802.123000. Li, J., Mattes, E., Stanley, F., McMurray, A., & Hertzman, C. (2009). Social determinants of child health and well-being. Health Sociology Review, 18(1), 3–11. Li, J., O’Sullivan, T., Johnson, S., Stanley, F., & Oddy, W. (2011). Maternal work hours in early to middle childhood link to later adolescent diet quality. Public Health Nutrition, 15(1–10), 1861–1870. Lopez, A. D., Mathers, C., Ezzati, M., Jamison, D., & Murray, C. (2006). Global burden of disease and risk factors, disease control priorities project. Washington, DC: World Bank. Lynch, J. W., & Davey-Smith, G. (2005). A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology. Annual Review of Public Health, 26(1), 1–35. doi:doi:10.1146/annurev. publhealth.26.021304.144505. Lynch, J. W., Law, C., Brinkman, S., Chittleborough, C., & Sawyer, M. (2010). Inequalities in child healthy development: Some challenges for effective implementation. Social Science and Medicine, 71(7), 1219–1374. Marmot, M. (2010). Fair society, healthy lives: The Marmot review. Retrieved January 2012 from http://www.marmotreview.org/AssetLibrary/pdfs/Reports/FairSocietyHealthyLives.pdf May, P. A., Gossage, J. P., Kalberg, W. O., Robinson, L. K., Buckley, D., Manning, M., & Hoyme, H. E. (2009). Prevalence and epidemiologic characteristics of FASD from various research methods with an emphasis on recent in-school studies. Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 15(3), 176–192. McCain, M., Mustard, J. F., et al. (2007). Early years study 2 – putting science into action, council of early childhood development. Toronto, Canada. McDonald, E., Bailie, R., Brewster, D., & Morris, P. (2008). Are hygiene and public health interventions likely to improve outcomes for Australian Aboriginal children living in remote communities? A systematic review of the literature. BMC Public Health, 8(1), 153. Moore, H. C., de Klerk, N., Richmond, P., & Lehmann, D. (2010). A retrospective populationbased cohort study identifying target areas for prevention of acute lower respiratory infections in children. BMC Public Health, 10(757). O’Leary, C. M., Nassar, N., Zubrick, S., Kurinczuck, J., Stanley, F., & Bower, C. (2010). Evidence of a complex association between dose, pattern and timing of prenatal alcohol exposure and child behaviour problems. Addiction, 105(1), 74–86. Pharoah, P., Buttfield, I., & Hetzel, B. (2012). Neurological damage to the fetus resulting from severe iodine deficiency during pregnancy. International Journal of Epidemiology. doi:10.1093/ije/dys070. Pollard, A. J. (2007). Childhood immunisation: What is the future? Archives of Disease in Childhood, 92(5), 426–433. doi:10.1136/adc.2006.095760.

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Well-Being of Children: A Criminologic Perspective

13

Mimi Ajzenstadt

13.1

Introduction

At first sight, it seems that the concept of “well-being of children” has rarely been used by criminologists. However, a detailed review of theoretic insights and schools of thought developed over the years, indicates that child well-being indeed played an important role in criminologic discourse. The review reveals that numerous studies conducted over the years have evaluated existing programs treating young offenders and informing policy development. Many of these studies have aimed to ensure the well-being of children from different perspectives. Many scholars set out to prevent the involvement of children and youth criminal activity, mainly by increasing and developing welfare, health, and educational programs. Others saw the penal system as the appropriate agency able to provide care and supervision to children and youth through interaction with law enforcement agents. At the same time others saw state intervention and “over treatment” as harming the well-being of children who entered the juvenile justice system. The criminologic knowledge and practice are strongly influenced by a variety of internal and external variables, among them are the development of new disciplines, areas of studies, and modes of knowledge; public norms and beliefs about the relations between the authorities and young citizens; political-economic changes and the development of waves of moral panics, demanding that authorities develop certain policies. This chapter follows the rise of the criminologic discourse and practices from the end of the nineteenth century until the present, in relation to the well-being of children, paying attention to these various circumstances.

M. Ajzenstadt Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law and the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 351 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_19, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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13.1.1 The Young Offender as a Nexus of Concern About Well-Being The discipline of criminology is a relatively new area of knowledge. Developed at the end of the eighteen century in Europe, it was concerned mainly with the understanding of the influence of such variables as changes in the weather on the trends of crime. With the establishment of the empiricist paradigm, at the turn of the twentieth century, criminologists, psychologists, and sociologists shifted their focus and explanations toward broad internal and external circumstances leading people to become involved in crime (see Garland 1990). Lombroso (1876) and his followers (Lombroso-Ferrero 1911) tried to identify biological sources for crime, others looked for psychological and sociological explanations for the involvement in crime. A major area of research within this tradition, was the attempt to identify and to eliminate the reasons for the involvement of children and youth in crime. Until the end of the nineteenth century, young people involved in criminal activity were dealt with by a system which did not differentiate between children and adults (Junger-Tas and Decker 2006). With the rise of the new science of crime, and the influence of the Positivist enterprise at the turn of the twentieth century, a dramatic change in the way children were treated by criminal law took place in most countries in the Western world. During this period, psychologists and sociologists saw young offenders as victims of forces beyond their ability of control. While psychologists claimed that young offenders ascend the paths to crime very early in their childhood (see Alexander and Healy 1935; Eysenck 1964; Sheldon 1949), sociologists utilized a wider dimension of explanations for this behavior. Broken homes, disturbed families, inadequate schooling, unorganized and poor communities, as well as blocked opportunities, were considered as nourishing environments in which crime and delinquency habituated and grew, leading youth to be involved in crime (see Cohen 1955; Merton 1957, 1964; Shaw and McKay 1969; Sutherland 1939). In this manner, structural circumstances such as poverty, being a new immigrant, living in slums, and being associated with delinquent subcultures were seen as causes leading to involuntary involvement in crime. Two main responses were suggested and adopted in many countries across the Western world to deal with this phenomenon, both aiming to improve the wellbeing of children. The first approach mobilized governments to create programs to prevent crime. Thus, comprehensive programs were established with an array of goals and points of intervention. Some programs exposed children, mainly of immigrant families and those living in poverty areas, to the hegemonic cultural codes. Other programs aimed to provide adequate housing and schooling, to open up opportunities in the labor market, and to introduce role models to the slums with whom children could associate and identify. The second response included the integration of social workers, educators, psychologists, and other professionals into the legal system. Adopting a medical model which interpreted delinquency as a pathology, the professionalization of the legal response to crime aimed to provide a solution, based on expert knowledge, to the problem of youth crime. Furthermore, the medical-penal reaction to juvenile delinquency was regarded as an opportunity to identify personal, familial, and societal

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problems hidden from the public eye, leading children to crime. The interaction with the law enforcement agencies was thus considered an opportunity to offer young delinquents and their families professional care, aiming to improve their well-being in various areas. Thus, contact by state authorities was utilized by professionals to identify, diagnose, and treat children. In this way, juvenile delinquency was defined as a “welfare” issue stemming from the wide problem of child neglect and personal problems, and thus professionals took it upon themselves to identify, treat, and reform juveniles and young delinquents in distress. The assessment of mental, physical, and social health and the promotion of well-being of young people within the youth justice system were integral to the delivery of effective youth justice services. Indeed, at the turn of the twentieth century, the adoption of this approach led to the establishment of separate juvenile courts ensuring that young offenders would be treated rather than punished (Junger-Tas and Decker 2006). In addition, a separate system of youth laws and regulations was enacted, replacing penal policy with a treatment-oriented approach. The policy reflected the belief that children who break the law are in need of guidance and help (Cullen and Agnew 2005). This model adopted welfare principles, favoring an informal over formal approach as a result of process procedures and allowing judges to evaluate juvenile delinquents’ special needs within a therapeutic framework. The focus of the juvenile court was on the individual child rather than the offense and thus, there was no need for defense counsel, who were regarded as disrupting the therapeutic process, in which children were encouraged to speak freely about themselves and their offenses (Bishop 2009). The criminal process and professional intervention were seen as the duty of state institutions aiming to ensure the well-being of young citizens. The welfare model, which strongly believed in the role of professional treatment as the foundation for the rehabilitation of young offenders, continued to dominate the juvenile justice system until the 1980s. It paralleled the ideology of the welfare state which saw juvenile delinquents as weak and who needed to be cared for by the state. This policy further reflected the belief that children who break the law are immature and in need of guidance and help (Cullen and Agnew 2005). Core cultural foundations developed within the sociopolitical structure of the welfare state, such as solidarity, universality, and professionalization were adopted (Ajzenstadt and Khory-Kassabri 2012).

13.2

Society as a Nexus of Concern for the Well-Being of the Law-Abiding Citizen

Beginning in the 1960s and for the next 30 years, a host of criticism emerged challenging the psychological-social welfare approach to juvenile delinquency, paralleling some of the critiques regarding the welfare state principles. The criticisms stem from four main interrelated sources. First, disappointment with the inability of the welfare model to reduce juvenile delinquency, despite the financial resources invested in numerous rehabilitation programs. The publication of Martinson’s report, indicating that “nothing works”

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(Martinson 1974) led to calls to encourage the government to adopt a “zero tolerance” approach and develop early and rapid intervention through the penal system rather than through welfare agencies (Munice 2008). Second, public perception of increased juveniles’ involvement in crime was generated by the media’s coverage of certain publicized offenses (Dorfman and Schiraldi 2001). In many countries, several waves of moral panic were created after violent acts in which youth were involved, either as victims or perpetrators. The moral panic usually involved the presentation of children involved in crime as a threat to public safety (Estrada 2001; Hay 1995). Media reports blamed the lenient approach of the welfare model and in particular the treatment-oriented approach of the juvenile court as being too permissive and lenient, thus leading to high recidivism rates and threatening public safety. These calls identified youth as a violent group in which its members are prone to engagement in serious and escalated violent crimes (Levesque 1996). It was further argued that policies enacted out of consideration for offenders’ rights, such as immunity from publication of a criminal’s identity and the automatic provision of a public defender, did not deter juveniles from committing crimes. These claims were accompanied by calls upon the government to “get tough” on crime involving minors. Various groups demanded to introduce and enforce harsher punishment, to make juveniles responsible for their crimes, claiming that they should be treated not as immature children, but as adults (Bishop 2009). In many countries, there were calls to enact curfew laws and to increase the monitoring and surveillance measures in places where young people gather. This was nourished by campaigns for taking responsibility, requiring individuals, including children, accountable for choices they made and to bear the consequences of their activities (Munice 2005; Kemshall 2008). The discourse thus shifted from the well-being of juvenile delinquents to the well-being of children who obey the rules and can become innocent victims through the violence of undisciplined children. Third, labeling theorists in the same category with radical lawyers, social workers, and medical practitioners challenged the interventionist approach of the welfare model, claiming that it leads to stigmatization and labeling, affecting children’s future. Criticizing state over-intervention, scholars claimed that control agents targeted mainly young members of marginalized groups (Hall et al 1978). According to that approach, the well-being of children of minority groups was jeopardized because they were targeted by law enforcement agencies. Fourth, the children’s rights movement challenged the interventionist approach of the welfare model, claiming that it ignored minors’ human rights during the criminal procedure (Cohen 1985; Munice 2005). Legal rights advocates criticized the parens patriae principle adopted by the juvenile court and the broad authority that the juvenile justice system had over children. Responding to the Re Gault case in 1967 in which a juvenile was sent to a state institution without notifying his or her parents, concern was raised for the lack of due process protection which violated children’s rights in the juvenile justice system (Levesque 1996). Advocates of children’s rights believed that juvenile delinquents’ rights should be strictly protected and insisted that policies dealing with juvenile delinquents should reflect the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child principles with respect to the “best interest of the child.”

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They were key players in the processes leading to the creation of new regulations regarding juvenile sentencing as well as in the administration of juvenile justice. In this way, the well-being of children in general, and of juvenile delinquents in particular, was once again reinterpreted and linked to the protection of their rights. The reframing of well-being led legal advocates to claim that juvenile delinquency was caused by the abuse of basic rights, such as the rights for access to education, housing, and care (Ajzenstadt and Khoury-Kassabri 2012). In many Western states, this rights approach was integrated into the neoliberal notion of taking responsibility, seeing children and their family as responsible for their actions (Kemshall 2008; Such and Walker 2005). This shifted the responsibility for juvenile welfare from the state to the offenders, legitimizing limited state involvement in the provision of solutions for children, which led to the adulteration of the youth justice system (Hogeveen 2006). This led to the reduction of welfare programs and the introduction of harsher penalties for juvenile delinquents who were required to “pay” for what was seen as their decision to be involved in crime (Such and Walker 2005). Finally, during the end of the twentieth century, as a result of global economic processes, many western countries had witnessed major cuts in their welfare services, leading to the reduction of resources allocated to welfare services dealing with juvenile delinquency, among others (Bishop 2009). Thus, probation and corrections programs were chronically understaffed, and their personnel were poorly paid and poorly trained. Additionally, many treatment and rehabilitation programs were terminated, leaving room for penal responses to juvenile delinquency. As a result of all these ideas and the presentation of a punitive response to offenses by youth as the panacea to the problem of spiraling youth crime rates, juvenile justice policies established toward the end of the 1980s moved the juvenile justice model toward a punitive model. Within this process, the welfare model diminished and in turn, a new youth crime control culture that translated into penal and surveillance techniques and strategies for dealing with youth crime were created. The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada promised to protect the public, among them law-abiding citizens and children, by responding harshly to serious and violent offenses committed by youth through the enactment of punitive legislation. This penal response was linked to the processes of incarceration and incapacitation. Juvenile behaviors were criminalized, and more juvenile offenders were brought under the jurisdiction of the criminal court by the introduction of curfews and intense supervision (Cohen 1985; Fagan 1990). Other policies made it easier to transfer serious juvenile offenders to the adult court (Bishop 2009). While under the penal regime, juvenile offenders were awarded due process protection, ironically, the new procedures initially aiming to ensure children’s rights resulted in the reduction of informal resolution processes, allowing more punitive and retributive sanctions (Feld 1993). The processes took place in the wider context of the development of the neo-conservatism thread within the New-Right ideology. The moral agenda of this epoch advocated a retreat from the universalized coverage of at-risk groups, and the adoption of marketplace rationality as the means for the provision of services (Stoesz 1981). The neoconservative ethos of coercion and punishment linked directly to the disbelief of the neoliberal governance in state protection

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and rehabilitation (Rose 1996). Furthermore, the introduction of the new public managing and its drive for effectiveness and economy produced risk-management strategies, led to the development of a series of cost-effective policies and practices whose concern is not individual reform, but efficacy (Clarke and Newman 1997). The political ideology of neoliberalism demands a retreat from the belief that governments should provide social goods, leaving the provision of goods and services to free individuals and to the enterprise of the market (O’Connor and Robinson 2008; Osborne and Gaebler 1992). Adopting a rational economy philosophy, neoliberal governance aims to promote individual autonomy, responsibility, and freedom, assuming a rational individual to be free to choose among various alternatives (O’Malley 1999). The ethos of this ideology promotes individual responsibility and interprets failure as proof of an individual’s weakness (Goldson and Jamieson 2002). In the area of juvenile justice, these ideologies decontextualized involvement in crime from the wider social context and associated it, instead, with individual willful irresponsibility, incorrigibility, and family failure (Munice 2006). Following neoliberal ideas, juvenile justice policies developed risk management strategies for calculating risk and the probability of repeat offending (Kempf-Leonard and Peterson 2000). Those ideologies were a fruitful ground for the growth of the response to crime, characterized, among other things, by the ethos of taking responsibility and individualization, which shifted state responsibility for juvenile delinquency to individual children and their families (Kemshall 2008; Such and Walker 2005). As part of this approach, emphasis was shifted from the responsibility of the state to juvenile delinquency toward the accountability of children, their families, and sometimes communities for this behavior (Such and Walker 2005). Moreover, these changes, which preferred penal interventions through the criminal system rather than welfare measures, shifted the focus from the individual child to the offense (Goldson and Hughes 2010). A review of current juvenile justice systems and the discourses supporting and legitimizing their operation reveals a complex set of attitudes toward juvenile delinquents. The punitive turn influenced the development of penalized juvenile justice in England, Wales, and most of the Anglophone liberal welfare systems (Munice 2008). In Italy and the Scandinavian countries, on the contrary, the youth justice model advocated penal tolerance, child-centeredness, and compliance with progressive human rights (Goldson and Hughes 2010). Even in countries with punitive approaches to juvenile justice, there are contradictory or conflicting models. In the United States, for example, while policies of “cracking down on” or “getting tough with” offenders prevail, treatment programs directed toward prevention and intervention among youth at risk for delinquency were initiated. England and Wales introduced restorative interventions into the youth justice system to avoid youth entry into the juvenile justice system (Graham and Moore 2006). Similarly in Canada, intervention programs keeping young people in the community were created (Bala and Roberts 2006). Indeed, in many countries, welfare principles did not diminish; nor were they marginalized by those operating

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the juvenile justice system (Field 2007). Rather, they reentered the juvenile justice system through various paths with justice rationales and practices. Although up until the 1980s most welfare services dealing with juvenile delinquency were administrated through state institutions with the decline of the state as the provider of these services, a growing number of private and public civil society organizations began to be involved in the identification of criminality, prevention, and the treatment of youth at risk and juvenile delinquents. Many of these organizations target specific groups such as new immigrants and members of marginalized groups, aiming to provide them with services which fit their specific needs. In this way, new agents dealing with juvenile delinquency currently play an important role in various preventive, assessment, and treatment programs, offering such services as the operation of lodgings for juvenile delinquents, treatment of juvenile sexual offenders, and offering family conferencing interventions. Non-governmental organization (NGO) operation of these programs has made it possible to partially overcome the shortage of manpower created by financial cuts. In addition, as a result of their flexible and dynamic nature, NGOs are able to offer new programs, focusing on specific groups of population for whom certain services were not previously accessible. At the same time, these organizations are not operated by the state which raises questions regarding their ability and desire to develop long-term programs within a short-range working environment that depends on “soft money.” It also raises concerns about the ways in which profit and economic considerations become linked to their activities (Almog-Bar and Ajzenstadt 2010). Munice (2005) argued that NGOs and private organizations serve the state mode of “governing at a distance” (Rose and Miller 1992), as services are delivered indirectly by non-state agencies (Ajzenstadt and Rosenhek 2000). However, in practice, in many countries the intervention of NGOs in the area of juvenile justice does not completely relieve the state of its responsibility for youth in conflict with the law. Most programs are directly financed by the state and are supervised or coordinated by state agents. Recently, a wave of criticism has emerged, challenging the new dominant justice model. Empirical studies examining outcomes of moving of children to adult courts indicated that recidivism rates among juveniles dealt with by juvenile courts are lower than those of juveniles tried in the adult criminal court (Bishop 2009; Fagan 1990). Furthermore, the new laws targeting juvenile delinquency were found ineffective in preventing youth crime (Lanza-Kaduce et al. 2002). Additionally it was claimed that a cost-benefit analysis showed that the punitive model was not more effective than rehabilitative efforts (Graham and Moore 2006; Bala and Roberts 2006). A host of new works emerged pointing to the success of tailormade programs targeting specific groups of juvenile delinquents, dealing with their special needs (Lipsey and Wilson 1998; Visher and Weisburd 1998). Thus, new programs were established targeting specific populations through attempts to identify the particular needs of specific groups of juvenile delinquents and children at risk, and to find ways to deal with their circumstances leading them to the involvement in crime. Finally, new programs are being developed to prevent and treat the

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involvement of specific groups in specific crimes such as young girls at risk (Chamberlain et al 2007), sexual offenders (Kenny et al 2001), and youth involved in bullying in schools (Olweus 1993) and on the web (Campbell 2005).

13.3

Conclusion

As was revealed in this review, mixtures of welfare and punishment models support the societal reaction to juvenile delinquency. The different systems are being molded differently in various countries, producing an array of diverse rationale policies and practices, responding to the involvement of young children in crime. These responses involve differing attitudes and assumptions regarding the wellbeing of children. Five main issues dominate the discourse of criminology, relating to the well-being of children: 1. The target population. As early as the first decades of the twentieth century, the discourse stretched between two poles: a concern for the well-being of children defined as being at risk for involvement in crime, and a concern for the wellbeing of children committing crime. Recently, this treatment-prevention framework was expanded to include new groups of children and youth. Female offenders and girls at risk, children of prisoners, children of refugees on the one hand; and children who commit specific crimes, such as sex offenses or bullying on the other hand are examples for inclusion. Finally, the discourse focuses its concern on the well-being of children and youth who are not involved in crime, but are victimized by youth crime. The discourse moved from supporting protecting innocent children who could be tempted by their friends to use illicit drugs, to the protection of children from becoming victims to abuse at home to violent behavior, and recently to children who are being victimized by cyber attacks by other children. From the 1970s, the discourse includes a concern for children whose rights are violated during the criminal justice procedure. 2. The solutions. The discourse includes a variety of methods which are considered to be efficient in securing the well-being of young offenders. These methods include the administration of treatment programs, calls to stop over-intervention by state authorities to policies adopting legal measures to protect the rights of children entering the criminal justice system. It is important to note that during the 1920s, most preventive programs were directed toward children who were members of communities, defined as involved in criminal activity such as new immigrants and residents of slums. At the turn of the twenty-first century, preventive programs began being based on a calculation of factors relating to the individual, family, and community, and proven to be associated with involvement in crime. 3. Agents. Until the 1980s, professional groups of social workers, medical practitioners, and educators, mainly employed by the authorities, treated young offenders and provided preventive programs for them. From the 1980s, new groups began being involved in the care for the well-being of young offenders,

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among them lawyers and various groups working in NGOs. Additionally, in some countries the police, juvenile prisons, and other law enforcement agents became involved in the prevention of crime as well as the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. 4. Responsibility: assumptions regarding the responsibility for caring and responding to the involvement of children in delinquency are constantly changing, moving between the responsibility of the state, including the educational, health, legal and welfare systems to the responsibility of young offenders and their families. 5. Ideology – changes in the previous issues regarding the well-being relating to juvenile delinquency are strongly linked to transformations of the political economy framework and ideology. Ideas derived from the ideology of the welfare state saw the state as being responsible for caring for young offenders, ensuring their well-being, as part of the solidarity of the citizens to the weak groups. The neoliberal ideology, employing concepts of individualism and taking responsibility shifted the responsibility to the individual child, his or her family, and community. In conclusion, the well-being of children is a dynamic concept which cannot be detached from wider ideologic, social, and professional developments and changes.

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Economics of Child Well-Being

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Gabriella Conti and James J. Heckman

14.1

Introduction

There is a growing interest in the well-being of children. Such interest is supported by recent evidence from both the biological and the social sciences, which points to the importance of the early years in shaping the capabilities that promote well-being across the life course (Knudsen et al. 2006). It is now recognized that human development is a dynamic process that starts in the womb. Capabilities interact synergistically to create who we are and what we become. The foundations for adult success and failure are laid down early in life. Children raised in disadvantaged environments start behind and usually stay behind throughout their lifetimes. Gaps in cognitive and behavioral traits emerge very early. The risk of disease increases more rapidly with age in disadvantaged populations. Inequality among families in

This research was supported in part by the American Bar Foundation, the Children’s Initiative, a Project of the Pritzker Family Foundation, the Buffett Early Chilhood Fund, NICHD R37HD065072, R01HD54702, a grant to the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group, an initiative of the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), and an anonymous funder. We acknowledge the support of a European Research Council grant hosted by University College Dublin, DEVHEALTH 269874. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funders or persons named here. We thank Zidi Chen for excellent research assistance and Pietro Biroli for help with the ALSPAC data. G. Conti (*) Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] J.J. Heckman Department of Economics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland American Bar Foundation, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being, 363 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_21, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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early childhood environments is a major producer of inequality in the capabilities that promote successful functioning in society. In the absence of interventions to alter their trajectories, children growing up in disadvantage are at increasing risk – both socioeconomic and biological. These observations are highly relevant in light of the evidence that families are under stress. By many measures, the early-life environments of a large swathe of children have declined in recent decades (McLanahan 2004; Heckman 2008). Prevention is more cost-effective than remediation. As implemented, most adolescent and adult remediation programs are ineffective (see Cunha et al. 2006) and have much lower returns than early childhood programs that prevent problems before they occur. The message of this chapter is that high-quality early interventions that alter early-life conditions are effective ways to promote well-being and human flourishing across the life cycle. Key to this analysis is a concept of child well-being recently developed in economics (Cunha and Heckman 2007; Heckman 2007). It envisions a core set of capabilities as capacities to function, including cognition, personality, and biology. This approach views the child in her entirety as a human being in fieri – as a work in progress. This notion is embedded in a life-cycle framework of human development that distinguishes the determinants of child well-being that can be manipulated by policy, from the measurements that proxy the underlying traits that generate outcomes, and the outcomes themselves. In order to develop effective policies, it is important to understand the various aspects of child well-being and their causes and consequences. We need to understand the capabilities and mechanisms that produce success across multiple dimensions of human activity, including crime, earnings, physical and mental health, and education. Linking the capabilities acquired in the early years to a variety of adult outcomes and understanding the channels through which early-life conditions affect them enhance our understanding of human development. A strategy of early prevention – rather than adult and adolescent remediation – promotes well-being from childhood into advanced old age. This chapter is structured along the following lines. Section 14.2 discusses the indicators used for measuring child well-being in international studies. We review the early work on the economic approach to child well-being in Sect. 14.3. We present the recent developmental approach in Sect. 14.4. Recent empirical findings are summarized in Sect. 14.5. Section 14.6 presents evidence from interventions that promote child well-being. Section 14.7 concludes and offers some suggestions for future research.

14.2

What is Child Well-Being?

While the notion of well-being has been promoted by the World Health Organization since 1948, there is still little consensus as to how it should be measured (“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” WHO, Preamble to the Constitution of

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the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, June 19–22 1946 and entered into force on April 7 1948). This is partly because research has tended to divide into two different interpretations of what is meant by well-being (Ryan and Deci 2001a). The hedonic viewpoint (Kahneman et al. 1999) focuses on subjective well-being or happiness and is usually defined in terms of avoidance of pain and attainment of pleasure. The eudaimonic viewpoint, instead, focuses on psychological well-being, defined more broadly to incorporate dynamic processes such as self-realization and the degree to which a person is fully functioning in society (Ryff and Singer 1998). The latter is the approach adopted in the recent literature in economics (Sen 1999; Cunha and Heckman 2007, 2008, 2009) and the point of view of this chapter. Recent years have witnessed a steady increase in the efforts to measure and monitor the status of children [See Ben-Arieh (2008) for a summary of the history and development of the field]. The trend has been to move away from an exclusive focus on composite indices of poverty or deprivation toward indicators encompassing multiple dimensions of child well-being. However, as noted in Ben-Arieh and Frones (2011), despite the development of numerous “indicators” of child well-being, the field is fragmented and lacks a unifying taxonomy. We present as examples two indicators of child well-being used at the international level and discuss their structure and economic content. We refer the interested reader to the survey by Fernandes et al. (2011) for a review and comparison of four distinct approaches to measuring child well-being – those by Land et al. (2007), by Bradshaw and Richardson (2009), by Moore et al. (2013), and Bastos and Machado. UNICEF (2007) considers six different dimensions of child well-being (each dimension can have multiple components and each component multiple indicators. Before the 2007 report, income poverty was used as a proxy measure for overall child well-being): 1. Material well-being: % of children living in relative income poverty, in households without jobs, and in reported deprivation (in terms of low family affluence, few educational resources, and fewer than ten books at home). 2. Health and safety: health at age 0–1 (mortality and low birth weight), preventative health services (immunizations against measles, DPT, and polio), and safety (deaths from accidents and injuries). 3. Educational well-being: school achievement at age 15 (average achievement in reading, mathematical, and science literacy), beyond basics (% of those age 15–19 staying in education), and transition to employment (% of those age 15–19 not in education, employment, or training or expecting to find low-skilled work). 4. Family and peer relationship: family structure (% of children living in singleparent families or stepfamilies), family relationships (% of children reporting eating the main meal with parents more than once per week, % of children reporting parents spend time “just talking” to them), and peer relationships (% of children reporting their peers to be “kind and helpful”). 5. Behaviors and risks: health behaviors (% of children who eat breakfast/fruit daily and are physically active or overweight), risk behaviors (% of children who smoke/have been drunk more than twice/use cannabis/have sex by 15/use condoms and teenage

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fertility rate), and experience of violence (% of children involved in fighting in last 12 months and reporting being bullied). 6. Subjective well-being: health (% of children rating their health no more than “fair” or “poor”), school life (% of children “liking school a lot”), and personal well-being (% of children rating themselves above the midpoint of a “Life Satisfaction Scale” and % of children reporting negatively about personal well-being. Young children are asked to agree or disagree with three statements about themselves: “I feel like an outsider or left out of things,” “I feel awkward and out of place,” and “I feel lonely”). In a study based on data from 23 rich countries, this index was shown to be negatively correlated with income inequality and the proportion of children in relative poverty (Pickett and Wilkinson 2007). These indicators cover a wide array of aspects related to child development. Yet they are unsatisfactory in at least two respects. First, no clear distinction is made among proxies of underlying well-being (e.g., self-reported health, birth weight), inputs amenable to interventions (e.g., parenting time and quality), and outcomes (e.g., education and health behaviors), which are a function of both previous components. Second, no temporal, developmental distinction is made. Components of these indices related to different stages of childhood are lumped together, without any regard to the timing of measurements and investments, and with little importance given to the prenatal period and the early years. These serious shortcomings are being addressed in indices currently being developed. For example, the Index currently being developed by UNESCO, the Holistic Early Childhood Development Index (HECDI), scheduled to be delivered in 2013, will cover child development from antenatal life to 8 years of age. The fact that these indicators have scope for improvement is noticed in the UNICEF report: No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of child well-being (p. 3). (The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed. European countries dominate the top half of the overall league table, with Northern European countries claiming the top four places).

The framework presented in Sect. 14.4 places each of the components used to define the UNICEF indicators in a life-cycle developmental perspective. This framework clearly distinguishes which indicators measure which aspects of human development and flourishing, what factors are amenable to policy intervention, which are the mechanisms producing capabilities, and how to evaluate different policies to promote child well-being. Child well-being is also high on the policy agenda of the OECD (2009), which has also produced a framework including outcome indicators with the following six dimensions: 1. Material well-being: average disposable income, children in poor homes, and educational deprivation. 2. Housing and environment: overcrowding and poor environmental conditions.

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3. Educational well-being: average mean literacy score, literacy inequality, and youth NEET (not in education, employment, or training) rates. 4. Health and safety: infant mortality, low birth weight, breastfeeding rates, vaccination rates, physical activity, and suicide rates. 5. Risk behaviors: smoking, drunkenness, and teenage births. 6. Quality of school life: bullying and school enjoyment. Neither set of indices distinguishes among indicators, inputs, and outcomes, a common problem. The OECD indicators do not include either subjective wellbeing or the child’s relationship with parents. Additionally, measures of early cognitive development and mental health are not included (One exception to this is the case of Australia, where, based on research and consultation, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was strongly supported as the most appropriate tool for measuring social and emotional well-being in children. It has been recommended that a Children’s Headline Indicator for social and emotional wellbeing be defined as the proportion of children scoring “of concern” on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, since this instrument has been extensively validated and is widely used). Indices of child well-being have also been developed by individual countries. For the United States, a comprehensive composite state-level index of child well-being is the Foundation for Child Development’s (FCD) Child Well-Being Index (CWI) (O’Hare et al. 2012), which is updated annually and describes how young people in the United States have fared since 1975. It is the nation’s most comprehensive measure of trends in the quality of life of children and youth. It combines national data from 28 indicators across seven domains (family economic well-being, health, safe/risky behavior, educational attainment, community engagement, social relationships, emotional/spiritual well-being) into a single index that reflects overall child well-being. The index is used to inform policymakers and the public on how well children are doing. It was created to provide a broader measure of children’s quality of life not captured by GDP, which only measures income. In the United Kingdom, the National Statistician recently convened a Well-being Forum (Office for National Statistics 2011); the respondents to the public consultation identified the well-being of the children as an area of particular concern. Subsequently, the Office for National Statistics formed a working group to develop and assess measurement of well-being for this age group (Beaumont 2011). They concluded that satisfactory indices must measure children’s well-being as a multifaceted concept which considers the many areas that affect their well-being at different ages. In the first year of work, the ONS launched a consultation on a first set of domains and measures of national well-being. An updated list has just been published (ONS 2012) and currently includes a list of ten domains: individual well-being, our relationships, health, what we do, where we live, personal finance, education and skills, the economy, governance, and the natural environment), each of them comprising between three and five measures (for example, the health domain includes four measures: healthy life expectancy at birth; percentage who report a long-term illness and a disability; percentage who were somewhat, mostly or completely satisfied with their health; and percentage with probable psychological disturbance or ill mental health).

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G. Conti and J.J. Heckman

Child Well-Being in the Early Literature of Economics

Theoretical Literature on Child Well-Being. While improving child well-being is an important social goal, past theoretical literature in economics has largely focused on the human capital of the child. This is usually related to its earnings potential. The basic idea is that a household maximizes its utility, which has a measure of child quality as one of its inputs. This concept of quality encompasses the various skills that the child develops under the care and investment of its parents – skills which later contribute to its adult socioeconomic success. A pioneering study of the role of the family in shaping child outcomes is Leibowitz (1974). The author notes that by the time children enter first grade, there are significant differences among them in terms of verbal and mathematical competence, which reflect variations in both inherent ability and the amount of human capital acquired before school entry. These stocks of acquired human capital reflect, in turn, different inputs, in terms of both time and other resources, by parents, teachers, siblings, and the child herself. The author compares the process of acquiring preschool human capital to the acquisition of human capital through schooling or on-the-job training. She applies a version of the Ben-Porath (1967) model of human capital accumulation, a model of on-the-job investment in human capital, to explain investment in children. In her empirical analysis, she uses the endowments of the mother as proxies for parental investment in children. The model does not consider life-cycle dynamics of the child. The paper by Becker and Tomes (1986) is a seminal contribution in the economics literature. The authors develop a one-period-of-childhood model of the transmission of economic status from parents to children. They identify the forces that determine intergenerational income mobility and offer explanations for the channels of intergenerational transmission of status. Their model assumes that the parents maximize their own utility and are concerned about their own consumption and the adult utility of their children. They feature parental altruism toward the child under different assumptions about the ability of parents to borrow against the child’s future income. As part of their analysis, they consider parental investment in child skills. Since theirs is a one-period model of childhood, they do not make an early-late childhood distinction that is a crucial feature of recent research on child development reviewed in Sect. 14.4. Additionally, they assume unidimensionality of child skills, corresponding to “general human capital,” and do not distinguish among the different components of child well-being (e.g., cognition, personality, health). They also assume that the initial endowments of the child are not affected by parental investments. While including the adult utility of the child as an input into parental utility sounds like directly modeling the child’s well-being, they ignore the wellbeing of the child as a child. The only way that a parent can increase the utility derived from that of a child is to invest in her human capital (which directly increases her adult earnings) or to leave bequests. Thus, the focus in this research is on increasing adult earnings and adult wealth.

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Each generation of children inherits biological and cultural endowments from their parents. However, the heritability of these endowments is less than perfect. This implies that endowments regress to the mean. Children with well-endowed parents tend to have above-average endowments but, on average, less than those of the parents, whereas children with poorly endowed parents tend to have belowaverage endowments that on average are larger relative to their parents’ levels. Parents not only pass on their endowments but also influence the adult earnings of their children via investments in human capital. As a result, adult human capital and earnings are determined by endowments, parental investments, and bequests, as well as by public expenditures. The authors analyze the two cases of “perfect” and “imperfect” capital markets. In the analysis of perfect capital markets, parents can borrow against the future income of the child to finance investments in children. These debts are allowed to become the obligations of children when they become adults. Parents borrow to finance expenditures on their children’s human capital up to a point where the rate of return to human capital (the annual yield on investment) equals the market interest rate. An important implication of the model with perfect credit markets is that, for a given inherited ability level, the child’s level of human capital and labor earnings would be independent of their parents’ asset and earnings because poor parents can always borrow against their child’s earnings to finance investment expenditures. Rich parents leave more bequests. Hence, for the same level of ability, the income of children from wealthier families will be higher solely because of these bequests. In the case of imperfect capital markets, parents cannot borrow against the future earnings of the child. Instead, they have to reduce their personal consumptions to finance private expenditures on children. In imperfect capital markets, parental investments in children and consumptions are reduced if borrowing constraints are binding. This reduces the earnings of poor children when they are adults, so their adult incomes are lower for two reasons: (a) lower bequests and (b) lower human capital. Empirical Literature on Child Well-Being. Consistent with the terminology used in the theoretical literature, there are very few studies which explicitly mention child well-being as their object of investigation in the empirical literature in economics. [On the other hand, there is an expanding economic literature on subjective well-being in adults; see, e.g., Dolan et al. (2011)]. When this is the case, the focus of this work is usually on the effect of welfare policies (Grogger and Karoly 2007) and income and family structure (Evenhouse and Reilly 2004). We defer discussion of the empirical evidence to Sect. 14.5. Here, we refer the reader to recent surveys which provide comprehensive reviews of the economic evidence on different aspects of child well-being: parental investments and child development (Cunha et al. 2006); parental socioeconomic status, child health, and adult success (Currie 2009); family background and intergenerational transmission (Bjorklund and Salvanes 2011); and early-life conditions (Almond and Currie 2010). Availability of Data. We next consider the availability of data to study child well-being and its long-term consequences. US-based research is hampered by the

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fact that few datasets contain extensive longitudinal information on all parts of the life cycle. As a rule, many US data sources cover the late part of the life cycle and collect retrospective information on early childhood circumstances, as in the case of the MIDUS (Midlife in the United States), PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics), and WLS (Wisconsin Longitudinal Study). Some cover the transition from late childhood/adolescence to adulthood (again, with some retrospective information), as in the case of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth) and of the two National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97). Others cover a substantial portion of the childhood, but with no later-life follow-up: the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (CDS-PSID), the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (CNLSY79), the two Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) – the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (NICHD-SECCYD) and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. In the United Kingdom, life course research has a long tradition. Several cohort studies have been started in the past 50 years: in 1946 (the National Survey of Health and Development), in 1958 (the National Child Development Study), in 1970 (the British Cohort Study), and in 2000 (the Millennium Cohort Study). Another valuable resource available to researchers is the ALSPAC (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), a cohort study of children born in the former county of Avon (England) during 1991 and 1992.

14.4

Conceptualizing Child Well-Being and Its Development Within an Integrated Developmental Framework

This section presents the developmental approach to child well-being. It reviews the work in Cunha and Heckman (2007) and Heckman (2007) and extensions. This approach is distinct from both the traditional approach in economics, which focuses on specific aspects of child well-being, and from the various interdisciplinary attempts to construct summary measures, which lack any underlying theory and so do not distinguish between observable indicators of child well-being and the determinants that causally affect it (e.g., household income or the quality of parenting) – and which can be changed by policy. As compared to the previous literature, this approach has several features: 1. It is guided by an integrated theoretical framework – a life-cycle approach to the origins and development of the capabilities that promote well-being across the life cycle – that allows focus on specific stages and intergenerational transmission mechanisms. 2. It clearly distinguishes indicators (measurements) of child well-being from their causes/determinants (inputs) and consequences/outcomes (output), hence providing guidance for policy. 3. It inherently deals with the complexity of the issue at hand, by allowing for child well-being to be multidimensional (composed of capabilities of different nature).

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4. It facilitates investigation of the mechanisms through which child well-being shapes adult outcomes, the possibilities of remediation for adverse early-life experiences, the extent to which intervening factors can alter life course trajectories, and the timing when they operate. The last point is particularly important. Understanding the multiple channels of influence in promoting human capabilities allows analysts and governments to compare and prioritize alternative policies over the life cycle. Before describing the framework, we present some evidence that gaps in child capabilities by family environments emerge very early. Figure 14.1 shows the proportion of children born with low birth weight (weight at birth less than 2,500 g) in two British cohorts born in 1958 (National Child Development Study, NCDS) and in 1970 (British Cohort Study, BCS), respectively. For both cohorts and genders, we observe a clear SES/health gradient, where children born in more disadvantaged households have almost twice the chance of being born with a low birth weight as compared to those born in more affluent families. While inequality in family environments is already present at birth, it becomes amplified throughout childhood. Children born in disadvantaged families not only start off in worse initial conditions but also receive less investment from the early years of their lives. Evidence on this latter point is presented in Fig. 14.2, where we see that, at age 5, children raised in families of low SES are read to on average two days less per week than children born in more advantaged environments. Given these mechanisms, in the absence of interventions, inequalities present at birth can get under the skin and affect the biology of the child, propagate throughout childhood, and persist into adulthood. In Fig. 14.3, we see evidence of a gradient in C-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker associated with a variety of cardiovascular risk factors) at age 44, by social class at birth, which mimics the gradient in low birth weight seen in Fig. 14.1. Such complex evidence needs to be conceptualized and interpreted within a life-cycle framework linking early-life conditions to late-life outcomes by accounting for intervening mechanisms and a variety of exposures at different levels. The framework proposed in this chapter is based on Cunha and Heckman (2007, 2008, 2009), Cunha, Heckman, and Schennach (2010), and Heckman (2007), who build a model of human development with four main ingredients: (a) a measurement framework showing how capabilities causally affect a variety of child and adult outcomes; (b) a dynamic framework (the “technology of capability formation”) characterizing how environments and investments joined with stocks of capabilities affect the evolution of capabilities; (c) the preferences of the parents which help shape the investments in skills; and (d) the constraints that the families face, reflecting both access to credit markets and the availability of time. In the following we focus on the first two aspects, since parental preferences are not yet well understood (see, however, Del Boca, Flinn, and Wiswall 2011), and the strength of the other constraints depends on the level of development of the institutions in a particular society.

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Fig. 14.2 Number of days the child is read to in last week by gender and social class (Source: Own calculations based on BCS data). Note: The labels to the bars refer to the social class of the father at age 5. The BCS uses the Registrar General’s Classification of Social Class (SC): Social Class I (SCI) includes professional occupations, Social Class II (SCII) includes managerial and technical occupations, Social Class III (SCIII) includes skilled nonmanual and manual occupations, Social Class IV (SCIV) includes partly skilled occupations, and Social Class V (SCV) includes unskilled occupations

(a)
The first component of the framework is the outcome k 2 f1; . . . ; Kt g at age t Ytk which is the output of child well-being – for example, an educational qualification or a risky behavior. The outcomes are generated in part by a vector of capabilities at age t, denoted as yt , which constitute the different dimensions of child well-being. The dimensionality of the vector yt does not have to be specified a priori by the researcher. However, in the following we simplify
the discussion and consider it as a three-dimensional object yt ¼ yCt ; yNt ; yH t where yCt denotes a vector of cognitive capabilities, yNt is a vector of noncognitive or personality traits, and yH t is a vector of health capacities. Each component can be further characterized by several dimensions, e.g., fluid and crystallized intelligence for cognition, the
Big Five for personality, and mental and physical health. Outcome k at age t Ytk is thus generated as a function of capabilities and effort: Equation 14.1. Outcomes k Ytk ¼ ck yCt ; yNt ; yH t ; et




(14.1)

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Females – NCDS .2

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Fig. 14.3 Log of C-reactive protein by gender and social class at birth (Source: Own calculations based on NCDS data). Note: The labels to the bars refer to the social class at birth. The NCDS uses the Registrar General’s Classification of Social Class (SC): Social Class I (I) includes professional occupations, Social Class II (II) includes managerial and technical occupations, Social Class IIINM (IIINM) includes skilled nonmanual occupations, Social Class IIIM (IIIM) includes skilled manual occupations, Social Class IV (IV) includes partly skilled occupations, and Social Class V (V) includes unskilled occupations

where ekt is effort devoted to activity k. A range of activities can be performed within a certain set, i.e., k 2 f1; . . . ; Kt g at age t ¼ 1; . . . ; T, and the effort the individual devotes to a certain activity depends not only on her capabilities but also on the rewards that she will receive for performing that activity. An important aspect of function (14.1) is that it allows for many different ways to achieve a given outcome, so that a shortfall in one dimension of child capabilities might be compensated by greater strength in another. For example, a low level of cognition can be compensated by greater motivation and perseverance, so as to allow the child to achieve a certain level of education or of earnings. In the next section, we provide some recent evidence on the importance of the different dimensions of child well-being for adult outcomes. (b) The second component of the framework is a dynamic process for the formation of capabilities, which is governed by a multistage technology. The technology of capability formation (Cunha and Heckman 2007) captures essential features of human development. It expresses the stock of period t þ 1 capabilities ðytþ1 Þ in terms of period t capabilities ðyt Þ, investments ðIt Þ, environments ðht Þ, and
parental traits yPt :

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Equation 14.2. Capability Dynamics

ytþ1 ¼ ft yt ; It ; ht ; yPt




(14.2)

It can be interpreted very broadly to include investments by parents, schools, and interventions; the latter can refer to time spent with parents, teachers, interventions at a preschool center, or materials that stimulate the development of the capabilities. y0 is a vector of initial endowments determined at conception, and I1 is in utero investment. The different dimensions of the well-being of the child display selfproductivity (earlier capabilities beget later capabilities). For example, a healthy child, or a child who is better able to pay attention in class, learns more and produces a greater store of cognitive ability. The function is increasing in all arguments: ytþ1 " as yt " . Equation 14.2 captures the notion that capabilities at one age enhance capabilities at later ages, and that the development of capabilities in subsequent periods depends on the set of capabilities already present, and on investments, both at home and at school. If investment effects are especially strong in one period, it is called a sensitive period: if @f@It ðtÞ > @f@It0 ð0Þ for all t0 6¼ t, t is t a sensitive period. Sensitive periods exist when the investment has a higher payoff in that period than in any other one (but the payoff in other periods is not necessarily zero); for example, learning a second language is easier before age 12. If investments are productive in only one period, that is called a critical period: if @f@It ðtÞ ¼ 0 for t 6¼ t  , then t  is a critical period for that investment. In other words, a period is defined as being critical if an investment has no effect in any other period; for example, a child born with a cataract will remain blind if the cataract is not removed on time, making any future investment in the child’s eyesight futile. A key determinant of productivity is the degree of complementarity – how much the capabilities affect the productivity of investments. A crucial feature of the technology that helps to explain many findings in the literature on skill formation is complementarity of capabilities with investment, i.e., investment is more productive in children  @ 2 f y ;I ;h ;yP  tð t t t t Þ with higher stocks of capabilities  0 . 0 @y @I t

t

Two types of complementarity can be distinguished in this framework. The first type is a form of static complementarity between period t capabilities and period t investments: the higher the stock of capability yt , the higher the productivity of investment. Complementarity can occur both within a certain dimension (smarter children are better learners) or across different dimensions (more motivated children are better learners). The second type is dynamic complementarity, i.e., complementarity between investment in life-cycle period t þ 1 and investment in period s; s > t þ 1. This dynamic complementarity arises because early investments make later investments more productive. In other words, a high initial investment will improve skills at later periods, which in turn increases the productivity of later investments, and this happens because yt and It are complements. This mechanism works both ways: complementarity also implies that later investments raise the value

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Fig. 14.4 A life-cycle framework for conceptualizing child well-being. yt: Capabilities at t; It: Investment at t; ht: Environment at time t. yt+1 ¼ ft(yt, It, ht)

of earlier investments. In limiting special cases, later investments are crucial for earlier ones to be effective. Thus, early childhood interventions are not enough. To be effective, they have to be followed up with quality schooling and parenting. Dynamic complementarity explains the evidence that early nurturing environments affect the ability of animals and humans to learn. It explains why investments in disadvantaged young children are so productive, because early investments enhance the productivity of later investments. It also explains why investments in low-ability adults often have such low returns, because the stock of yt is low. Figure 14.4 demonstrates how adult outcomes are shaped by sequences of investments over the life cycle of the child. Hence, the importance of the early years depends on how easy it is to compensate for adverse early effects with later investment. Empirical relationships between early conditions and adult outcomes that ignore intervening investments and environments neglect potentially important determinants of adult outcomes and the possibilities of remediation and compensation. The evidence that we will review in the next sections shows that resilience and remediation are possible, but are more costly at later stages. The dynamics of this model suggest some interesting logical possibilities that are borne out in the empirical evidence discussed in Sect. 14.5. Because of dynamic complementarity, investment in disadvantaged adolescents may be economically

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inefficient. Unmotivated and low-ability children may not make good investments from a purely economic point of view. This evidence is consistent with the high economic returns to education found for high-ability adolescents (see Carneiro et al. 2003) and the low returns to remediation for low-ability adolescents (see Heckman et al. 1998). On humanitarian grounds, society may choose to invest in low-ability, unmotivated adolescents, but there is a sharp trade-off between equity and efficiency. This is the dark side of the economics of human development. The bright side is that because of dynamic complementarity, investing early – laying the base for enhancing the productivity of adolescent investments – can have a substantial benefit. The returns to early investments can be higher for the children of disadvantaged parents compared to children of advantaged parents, even those born with cognitive and emotional deficits (see Cunha et al. 2010). Estimating the Model. The model lends itself to estimation using latent variable factor analysis (J€ oreskog 1977) – state space models (Hamilton 1994). The literature documents substantial measurement error in investments, capabilities, and family environments (see Cunha and Heckman 2008; Cunha et al. 2010; and the references cited therein); the aforementioned frameworks account for such error. A commonly used linear specification for measurement vector M is the following: Equation 14.3. Measurements on Investments, Environments, and Capabilities

Mt ¼ m þ aQt þ ut

(14.3)

where Mt is a vector of measurements at age t, Qt is a vector of factors (capturing yt , It , ht , and yPt ), and ut is measurement error. The factors are the latent capabilities, investments, environments, and parental traits which are proxied by the measurements Mt . This methodology allows analysts to address several issues in the child indicators field. First, it allows for multiple inputs in the production of child well-being, and for each input and each dimension of child well-being to be proxied by several indicators, which measure each dimension with error. Second, having specific equations for the measurements allows analysts to address issues of differential reliability and cross-culture comparability which typically plague the indicators constructed across countries (one solution recently adopted in the literature, especially in relation to subjective well-being and health measurement, is the use of vignettes to account for heterogeneity in response styles. However, the extent to which this approach helps in solving the problem is subject to debate. See Van Soest and Vonkova 2012. Hence, such an approach is useful not only in general for the creation of a taxonomy of child well-being, but in particular for the case of mental health and emotional well-being, which are dimensions difficult to measure, especially in a cross-country context (as noticed in UNICEF (2007) and Kieling et al. (2011)).

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Evidence on the Determinants and Consequences of Child Well-Being

In this section we review recent evidence on the long-term effects of child wellbeing, its determinants, and dynamics, with a focus on studies based on the framework exposited in Sect. 14.4. The Long-Term Effects of Child Well-Being. One of the first studies to apply this framework and go beyond the traditional focus on cognition, predominant in the economics literature, is Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua (2006) [they build on the work of Bowles and Gintis (1976) and Bowles et al. (2001)]. The authors analyze adult outcomes as produced by a two-dimensional construct (cognition and personality traits). They investigate the effect of cognitive and personality traits on schooling and a variety of other outcomes, while also accounting for the reverse effect of schooling on the measured traits. They use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), a dataset containing measures on the components of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), used to create the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT), a widely used measure of cognition. In addition, the NLSY79 has two measures of personality: the Rotter’s locus-of-control scale, designed to capture the extent to which individuals believe that they have control over their lives through self-motivation (as opposed to the extent that the environment controls their lives), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, which assesses the level of self-esteem. They show that the low-dimensional measures of child capabilities explain a large array of diverse outcomes, ranging from schooling to labor market outcomes (employment, work experience, occupational choice) and risky behaviors (smoking, drug use, incarceration, and teenage pregnancy). We summarize their estimates of the effects of capabilities on college graduation in Fig. 14.5, which shows that both cognitive and personality traits have strong effects on graduating from a 4-year college at all deciles of the capability distribution (the dotted lines are confidence intervals). In particular, the bottom-right panel shows that moving from the lowest decile to the highest decile in the dimension of personality (holding cognitive ability at its mean) increases the probability of graduating from college more than a similar percentile change in the cognitive trait distribution. Carneiro et al. (2007) follow this approach and also recognize that assuming a unidimensional set of capabilities is an unsatisfactory view of child well-being. In their analysis of the British National Child Development Study (NCDS, the 1958 cohort), they show that low social skills, as measured by the Bristol Social Adjustment Guide, are large risk factors for smoking. They also emphasize that the importance of cognitive skills in affecting educational attainment and health outcomes depends on the level of social skills. Murasko (2007) adopts a life course approach and shows that child personality traits (greater internal locus of control and greater self-esteem at age 10) are predictive of health at age 30, beyond their effect of education. Jones et al. (2011) analyze the same dataset as used by Carneiro et al. (2007) and confirm that the social adjustment of the child is the strongest predictor of adult physical and mental illness. However, once they control for these traits, they find little effect of the quality of the school attended on adult health.

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Fig. 14.5 Probability of being a 4-year college graduate or higher at age 30, males. (a) By decile of cognitive and noncognitive factors. (b) By decile of cognitive factor. (c) By decile of noncognitive factor. Dotted lines are 2.5–97.5% confidence intervals. (Source: Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua (2006), who discuss the control variables and methodology)

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More recent work has also included health as a dimension of child well-being, in addition to cognitive and behavioral components. Conti, Heckman, and Urzua (2010, 2011) and Conti and Heckman (2010) conceptualize child capabilities as being threedimensional (cognition, self-regulation, and physical health) and use a variety of indicators for each of the dimensions (cognitive test scores, personality scales, and anthropometric indicators, respectively). They estimate a developmental model of how early-life endowments give rise to labor market and health disparities by education, which complement the traditional studies that have relied on quasiexperimental evaluations. The authors develop a general latent variable model that explicitly accounts for how the traits affect education and how these early-life endowments and education affect later outcomes. They separately identify selection effects from causal effects and provide guidance on the effects of educational interventions. They analyze the British Cohort Study – a survey of all babies born after the 24th week of gestation from Sunday, April 5, to Saturday, April 11, 1970, in the United Kingdom. There have been seven follow-ups to track all members of this birth cohort: 1975, 1980, 1986, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. Very rich information has been collected from several sources (parents, teachers, and doctors during a medical visit). They analyze information taken from the birth sweep (1970), from the second sweep (1980), and from the fifth follow-up sweep (2000). Information from the birth sweep includes the “family endowments,” i.e., the parental resources that form the foundations for early learning experiences: the mother’s age, education, father’s social class, and parity at birth. This is supplemented with family information at age 10 that includes gross family income, whether the child has lived with both parents since birth, and the number of children in the family at age 10. Measurements in the second follow-up sweep include scores on standard cognitive tests such as math, English, language comprehension, and word definition; measurements of the child’s personality taken from tests on locus of control, perseverance, and persistence were also included. These were supplemented by basic anthropometric measurements (height, head circumference, and the height of the child’s parents) to proxy for child physical health. Their procedure accounts for measurement error, which they find to be substantial. The adult (age 30) outcomes they analyze include the final level of education achieved (whether the individual has stayed on beyond compulsory education), labor market outcomes (employment and wages), healthy behaviors (daily smoking and engaging in regular exercise), and health status (obesity, depression, and self-reported health). We present their results on the effects of the early-life endowments on two particular dimensions of adult well-being: smoking and obesity. We report results on the effects of education in the next section. Figure 14.6 plots the average probability of being a daily smoker (top panel) or of being obese (bottom panel) along the distribution of each of the three dimensions of child well-being, while fixing the other two dimensions at their mean values (the adult outcomes and the child capabilities are simulated from the estimates of our model and from the data). The figure is constructed so that such probabilities are normalized to zero for an individual at the bottom of each dimension of the well-being distribution at age 10

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Fig. 14.6 Effect of age 10 capabilities on smoking (top panel) and obesity (bottom panel), males. [Source: Conti and Heckman (2010)]

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(to set the scale and ease comparisons of the magnitude of the effects both across the different capabilities and across genders). The first striking result is that, while child cognition displays an important role in determining educational choices and labor market outcomes, it plays very little role in determining health and risky behaviors, especially for males. Conti and Heckman (2010) show that, when cognition is considered as the only dimension of child well-being (i.e., it is assumed to be unidimensional), it shows significant effects on all the adult outcomes considered. These effects vanish once they control for noncognitive traits. The second result is that both noncognitive dimensions (self-regulation and early physical health) are equally important determinants of adult outcomes for the nonlabor market outcomes. The top panel of Fig. 14.6 shows that an early intervention which improves the capacity of the child to self-regulate (holding his cognitive ability and health endowment constant at their mean levels) by moving him up from the 20th to the 80th percentile of the noncognitive distribution would reduce the probability of being a daily smoker at age 30 by more than ten percentage points. An effect of comparable magnitude is obtained for the physical health of the child. The only exception to this pattern is found for obesity, for which the early health dimension is the single most important determinant. As shown in

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the bottom panel of Fig. 14.6, an early intervention that would improve the physical health of the child (by moving her from the bottom to the top percentile of the distribution) would bring about a reduction in the probability of being obese at age 30 by approximately 20 percentage points. Further evidence on the importance of the noncognitive dimensions of child wellbeing is given in more recent work. Goodman et al. (2011) investigate the long-term effects of childhood psychological wellness and physical health in a cohort of children born in Britain in 1958, again using NCDS data. They find that childhood mental well-being, more than physical well- being, impacts negatively on a variety of adult outcomes, ranging from income and personal relationships to cognitive and emotional health. Interestingly, they find that adult education does not seem to be an important pathway. Daly (2011), instead, in his response to Goodman et al. (2011), shows that intelligence seems to account for a large portion of the relation between childhood emotional maladjustment and adult socioeconomic status; however, his analysis relies on the 1970, rather than on the 1958, cohort. Kaestner and Callison (2011) find that cognitive ability and self-esteem have a significant association with adult well-being, but locus of control has a lesser role. Conti and Hansman (2012), using also NCDS data, show that child personality contributes to the education-health gradient to an extent nearly as large as that of cognition. The Dimensionality of Child Capabilities. The current indicators of child capabilities used in international comparisons construct indices by taking simple averages of the components constituting each dimension. This simple way of aggregating measurements is in widespread use in most of the literature on child well-being. While there is an evolving literature in psychometrics on methods to determine the number of dimensions in factor models, thus far, it has not been applied to understand the dimensionality of child well-being. A recent exception is the paper by Conti et al. (2012b), in which the authors develop a novel methodology for constructing indices over a large number of error-laden measures of related, but distinct, dimensions of human capability, without specifying the weights to be assigned to the indicators of the different dimensions, the assignment of the indicators to the dimensions, and the number of dimensions required to reduce the high-dimensional dataset. They compare their approach to traditional approaches used in psychometrics to select the number of dimensions using scale-based taxonomies and methods based on factor-analytic techniques. Implementing this methodology on rich longitudinal data from Britain (the British Cohort Study, BCS70), they establish evidence on the structure of child capabilities (operationalized in terms of the dimensions of cognition, physical size, and mental health). They find that 13 dimensions underlie the 131 measurements in the BCS study. When comparing the aggregates obtained using their procedure with those obtained using simpler averages, they test and reject the assumption of equal weighting of the indicators used to construct each dimension as it is instead done in the construction of conventional indices. They find substantial evidence of correlations across the different capabilities. The Production of Child Well-Being. We next provide evidence on the dynamic evolution of capabilities, on their interconnections, and on the existence of critical

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and sensitive periods to develop each of them. This evidence gives us a more nuanced view of public policy and allows us to assess at which stages interventions to promote child well-being are most effective. Among the very few papers in economics that have adopted a holistic perspective on child development is Shakotko et al. (1980). The authors postulate child well-being as a bidimensional construct (health and cognition) and analyze the dynamic relationship between these two components. They do not model investment (It ) but consider the effect of parental environmental variables (yPt ). They find evidence of a continuing interaction between health and cognitive development over the life cycle, with feedback both from health to cognitive development and from cognitive development to health, the latter relationship being the strongest. They report substantial effects of parental environmental variables. In a series of papers, Cunha and Heckman (2008, 2009) and Cunha, Heckman, and Schennach (2010) formulate and estimate models of parental investment, parental environmental influence, and human capital development which are faithful to the recent evidence from the biological sciences on the malleability of different abilities at different ages. They analyze two dimensions of child wellbeing (cognitive and noncognitive). Cunha and Heckman (2008) estimate a linear version of the technology (equation 14.2), where the evolution of the capabilities of the child is a function of their lagged values and of parental investments. While linearity is a computationally convenient assumption, it implies that the inputs in the production of child capabilities are perfect substitutes, i.e., that over the feasible range, it is always possible to remediate for earlier disadvantage. Thus, linear models cannot provide reliable guidance for assessing the effectiveness of remediation policies. Their results show strong self-productivity effects for both capabilities and strong cross-productivity effects of noncognitive skills on cognitive skills (evidence that personality factors promote learning), but not vice versa. A key finding of this research is that parental investments affect cognitive skills more strongly at earlier rather than at later ages, while they affect the noncognitive dimension more in middle childhood. Cunha, Heckman, and Schennach (2010) estimate a nonlinear version of the technology of capability formation. This innovation is important as it allows them to estimate key substitution parameters, necessary for the design of strategies for early vs. late interventions. They assume that childhood is made of two stages: stage I corresponds to birth through age 4 and stage II to ages 5–14. The major findings from their analysis can be summarized as follows: (1) skills become harder to budge with age; (2) it is more difficult to compensate for the effects of adverse environments on cognition at later than at earlier ages; and (3) the malleability of noncognitive skills remains unchanged over the childhood life cycle. The last point implies that if remediation for adolescents is to be effective, it should focus on addressing noncognitive skills (see Heckman, Humphries, and Kautz (2013) for evidence on this point). In order to examine the implications of their estimates, they consider the problem of determining how to optimally allocate investments from a fixed budget in order to maximize schooling for a cohort of children. The profile of optimal early (left panel)

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Fig. 14.7 Optimal early (left) and late (right) investments by child initial conditions of capabilities to maximize aggregate education. [Source: Cunha, Heckman, and Schennach (2010)]

and late (right panel) investment as a function of child endowments is plotted in Fig. 14.7. The important point to notice is that, for the children born in the most disadvantaged conditions (i.e., with low values of both cognitive and noncognitive capabilities), the optimal policy is to invest a lot in the early years (left panel), when there is also a substantial decline in the optimal investment by level of initial advantage (note lighter shades in the figure correspond to higher values of investment). On the other hand, the optimal investment level profiles in the second period (right panel) are much flatter and slightly favor the more advantaged children. It is socially optimal to invest more in the second period in advantaged than in disadvantaged children. The authors find a similar investment profile when considering optimal investments to reduce aggregate crime. Standard models in criminology assign no role to investments (see, e.g., Nagin and Tremblay 2001). This important result is a manifestation of the dynamic complementarity which produces an equity-efficiency trade-off for adolescent but not for early investment. In the next section, we provide further evidence on the effectiveness of early vs. late intervention.

14.6

Policies to Promote Child Well-Being

While the field of the measurement of child well-being has moved away from simple income/poverty-based indices, to indicators centered on a more holistic view of the child, policy attention has mostly focused on improving the financial position of the families (e.g., with cash benefits and tax breaks, child care, parental leave).

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However, increases in family resources do not necessarily translate into increased investment in children. It is quality parenting that promotes successful, flourishing lives of children. In this section, we provide recent evidence on the effectiveness of early and late interventions to compensate in part for the risks arising from disadvantaged environments. Before doing so, we note that one important point underemphasized in the current literature is that the interventions implemented differ in terms of: the populations targeted, the objectives and philosophies of the programs, the measures taken, the measurement instruments used, the backgrounds of the children and their families, and the methods of evaluation. Programs differ in so many different ways that it is often difficult to isolate the specific components leading to the success of one and the failure of another. Additionally, the intervention studies need to be integrated with the studies of family influence, in order to understand how public investments affect the private investments of the parents. Finally, alternative interventions need to be assessed in comparable metrics – in terms of rate of return or cost-benefit analysis – in order to place the evaluation of specific policies aimed at compensating for disadvantage on a common footing. There is the need to move beyond collections of “treatment effects,” which are hard to interpret or to use as the basis for policy when a variety of competing proposals are on the table. Costeffectiveness matters for policy, since governments have limited resources to allocate between competing programs. However, few evaluations include rigorous cost-benefit analyses, which are primarily limited to the major early childhood interventions. Moreover, cost-benefit ratios might be underestimated, because many outcomes cannot be easily monetized (e.g., improvements in health and mental health), and siblings (or other family members) can benefit from spillovers. Most studies only consider some outcome domains, and labor market information is limited to early adulthood. Extrapolating benefits based on early effects on test scores, educational attainment, or earnings is a dangerous business. Long-run follow-ups are essential when assessing cost-effectiveness, because many effects of interventions fade out over time. Finally, interventions are also likely to yield social returns. For example, lower crime rates and lower dependence ratios are both beneficial for the individual and the society. In order to design, implement, and evaluate effective policies to promote child well-being, it is important to go beyond meta-analyses and understand the mechanisms that produce the treatment effects and can be compared across interventions. This is true not only for policies specifically targeted at promoting child well-being but also for comparison of a variety of policies that compete with childhood policies for funding.

14.6.1 Early Interventions The most reliable evidence on the effectiveness of early interventions comes from experiments that substantially enrich the early environments of children born in disadvantaged families. Two of these investigations, the Perry Preschool Project and the Abecedarian Project, are particularly revealing because they use a random

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assignment design and continue to follow the children into their adult years. These studies demonstrate substantial positive effects of early environmental enrichment on a range of cognitive skills and behavioral traits, school achievement, job performance, and social behaviors – effects that persist long after the interventions have ended. Other studies – such as the Nurse-Family Partnership, which visits pregnant girls and teaches them prenatal health practices and parenting – support these conclusions. The Abecedarian Project. The ABC studied 111 disadvantaged children born between 1972 and 1977 whose families scored high on a risk index. The mean age at entry was 8.8 weeks. The program was a year-round, full-day intervention that continued through age eight. It was more intensive than the Perry intervention. It consisted of a two-stage treatment: a preschool intervention focusing on early childhood education and a subsequent school-age intervention focusing on the initial schooling age period. It used a systematic curriculum specially developed by Sparling and Lewis (1979, 1984) that consisted of a series of “educational games,” which emphasized language, emotional development, and cognitive skills. The children were followed through their mid-30s; the mid-30s data collection (a biomedical sweep) was just recently completed. The initial infant-to-teacher ratio was 3:1, though it grew to 6:1 as the kids progressed through the program. Infants in the control group received an iron-fortified formula for 15 months and diapers as needed to create an incentive for participation (Campbell et al. 2001, 2002). Many of the children in the control group were enrolled in preschool and/or kindergarten. During the first three primary school years, a home-school teacher would meet with the parents of the children who were in the treatment group and guide them in providing supplemental educational activities at home. The teacher provided an individually tailored curriculum for each child. This home-school teacher also served as a liaison between the ordinary teachers and the family, and she would interact with the parents and the teachers about every 2 weeks. She would also help the parents find employment, navigate the bureaucracy of social services agencies, and transport children to appointments, all of which could improve parents’ ability to raise their children (Campbell and Ramey 1994). The Perry Preschool Study. Perry was an intensive preschool curriculum administered to 58 low-income black children with initial IQs below 85 at age 3, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, between 1962 and 1967 (the control group includes 65 children). It used the High/Scope curriculum, an highly interactive approach that promotes student involvement. Activities took place within a structured daily routine intended to help children to “develop a sense of responsibility and to enjoy opportunities for independence” (Schweinhart et al. 1993). The treatment consisted of a daily 2.5-hour classroom session on weekday mornings and a weekly 90-min home visit by the teacher on weekday afternoons, to promote parent-child interactions. The curriculum was geared toward the children’s age and capabilities, emphasizing child-initiated activities that focused on fostering noncognitive traits. Staff encouraged children to engage in play activities that had children plan, do, and review tasks each day: students planned a task, executed it, and then reviewed it with teachers and fellow students. The reviews were collective and taught the

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children important social skills. The length of each preschool year was 30 weeks, and the program ended after 2 years of enrollment. The control and treatment groups have been followed through age 40. Both Perry and Abecedarian have showed consistent patterns of successful outcomes for treatment group members compared with control group members. Among Perry participants, an initial increase in IQ disappeared gradually over the 4 years following the intervention. Such IQ fade-outs have been observed in other studies. But the main effects of the Perry remained, and they involve noncognitive traits (Heckman et al. 2012). Even though they were no brighter than the controls as measured by IQ tests, the Perry adolescent treatment group members faired better than the control group on achievement tests at age fourteen because they were more engaged in school. Positive effects were also documented for a wide range of social behaviors. At the oldest ages studied (40 years for Perry; 30 for Abecedarian), treated individuals scored higher on achievement tests, attained higher levels of education, required less special education, earned higher wages, were more likely to own a home, and were less likely to go on welfare or be incarcerated than controls. Heckman et al. (2012) show that the Perry Preschool Program worked primarily through socioemotional channels; even if the program did not have a lasting effect on IQ scores, the personalities of participants improved. Participants of both genders improved their externalizing behavior. They also show that different dimensions of the well-being of the child affect different outcomes. Cognition primarily affects achievement tests and also certain labor market outcomes. Externalizing behavior affects crime outcomes, labor market outcomes, and health behaviors. Academic motivation boosts educational outcomes and reduces longterm unemployment. The importance of each of these three dimensions of child well-being in explaining the treatment effects from the intervention is reported in Fig. 14.8. Each bar represents the total treatment effect of the intervention, normalized to 100%, on the outcome listed on the left side; the total (non-normalized) treatment effect is reported in parentheses. For example, we see that the intervention increased the duration of marriage by almost 40 months: women in the control group have experienced, on average, 48 months of marriage by the time they reach age 40, whereas those in the treated group have been married on average 88 months. Each bar is further decomposed into various parts, which represent the percentage of the treatment effect on that particular outcome attributable to that particular component of child well-being: cognition, externalizing behavior, and academic motivation; the share of the treatment effect which is left unexplained is also shown (the numbers reported above each component are one-sided p-values which show whether the contribution of that particular component to the treatment effect is statistically significant). It is evident that the effect of the intervention on life outcomes operates primarily through the program’s enhancement of externalizing behavior: components attributable to changes in this factor are generally statistically significant and explain up to 60% of the treatment effect on crime. The crime effects are particularly important, since they are the main components of the benefits from Perry (Heckman, Pinto, and Savelyev, 2012). Moreover, experimentally induced increases in academic motivation and cognition also play

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a non-negligible role in explaining the effects of the program: for example, the latter component explains 20% of the effect of the treatment on the duration of marriage. The estimated rate of return (the annual return per dollar of cost) to the Perry project is 7–10% (higher than the 5.8% returns on stock market equity received from the end of World War II through 2008; see Heckman et al. (2010b)). This estimate is conservative because it ignores economic returns to health and mental health, which are currently being incorporated. Conti and Heckman (2013) report significant treatment effects on health an healthy behaviors for both the Abecedarian and the Perry interventions. The Nurse-Family Partnership. The Nurse-Family Partnership targeted unmarried pregnant girls of adolescent age with low income and no history of live births. The program recruited women with these characteristics because it aimed to address problems (e.g., poor birth outcomes, child abuse and neglect, and diminished economic self-sufficiency of parents) concentrated in these populations. The program has been implemented in a series of randomized trials conducted in Elmira, New York (n ¼ 400), Memphis, Tennessee (n ¼ 1,135), and Denver, Colorado (n ¼ 735). In each of these three sites, women were randomized to receive either home visitation services during the pregnancy and the first 2 years of the lives of their children, or comparison services. The program has been shown to improve the well-being of the child (fewer injuries) and of the mother (fewer subsequent pregnancies, greater work force participation, and reduced use of public assistance and of food stamps); see Olds (2002) for a summary of the main results from the three sites. Additionally, in the Denver trial, the program was administered either by nurses or paraprofessionals; it has been shown that, for most outcomes on which either visitor produced significant effects, the paraprofessionals typically had effects that were about half the size of those produced by the nurses (Olds et al. 2002).

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Among other early interventions, the Tools of the Mind curriculum is similar to High/Scope. It is inspired by the work of Vygotsky, who emphasized the importance of the learner to interact with the environment and to explore it independently with her own senses. Vygotsky also promoted assisted discovery (or scaffolding): children are guided in their learning by the teachers, and are also aided by their peers, as they work in groups of mixed abilities. It was developed by the educational psychologists Elena Bodrova and Deborah Leong (2007), and it targets the development of core executive functions (EF) in preschoolers, such as inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. In Tools, techniques for supporting, training, and challenging EFs are intertwined in almost all classroom activities throughout the day, consistently with the Vygotskian idea that EFs develop as children are engaged in specific interpersonal interactions. The most convincing evidence on the effectiveness of the Tools of the Mind curriculum comes from a randomized evaluation which was carried out in an urban school district in the Northeast, after the opening of a publicly funded preschool program for poor children. From the list of parents who signed up, children were randomly assigned either to the Tools curriculum or to a version of the balanced literacy curriculum, which had been developed by the school district (dBL). This was based on the idea that literacy should be taught to young children in a balanced way, i.e., through a combination of different activities. In practice, it covered the same academic content as the Tools curriculum but without any activity intentionally designed to promote EF development (children were not expected to regulate each other or themselves in the classroom). Diamond et al. (2007) compare the outcomes of 147 preschoolers randomly assigned and show that children who received the Tools curriculum showed improved performance in EF measures, as compared to the children who received the dBL curriculum. Contrary to these results, a recent large-scale study (Farran and Wilson 2012) does not find any significant effect of the program on literacy, language, mathematics achievement, or self-regulation, after one year of implementation. However, Diamond et al. (2007) provide suggestive evidence that it takes two years before positive effects can be identified, since the teachers need to adjust their practices to the new curriculum. Other preschool interventions have shown evidence of significant effects. However, a proper comparison among them requires an understanding of the different components of the various curricula, in order to identify the mechanisms through which the various programs operate and produce improved outcomes. Recent reviews of early childhood interventions (Nores and Barnett 2009; BakerHenningham and Lopez Boo 2010) conclude that mixed interventions (i.e., those involving an educational, care, and stimulation component) of greater intensity and of longer duration are the most effective. Additionally, they conclude that interventions should target younger and more disadvantaged children and actively seek the involvement of the families and of the caregivers. However, they recognize that more research is needed to determine the optimal age and mode of delivery and that careful cost-benefit analyses should be incorporated in the evaluations of the interventions.

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Finally, the evidence on late childhood interventions, instead, reveals that they have been less successful in promoting child well-being [see the evidence in Cunha et al. (2006) and Chapter 10 in Heckman, Humphries and Kautz (2013)]. Durlak et al. (2011) present a meta-study of 213 school-based social and emotional learning programs. This shows that, while some programs have been successful, many of the evaluations they include suffer from methodological problems. Only 47% of the programs studied are randomized, and only 15% contain follow-ups that go beyond 6 months. When long-term follow-ups are available, these programs usually show no persistent gains. A typical example is the Quantum Opportunity Project (QOP), which provided both counseling services by means of a qualified mentor and financial incentives to participants for a duration of four years. While showing positive short-term effects on high school graduation, most of its positive effects faded out by the 10-year follow-up (Rodriguez-Planas 2012a). Education. There is a long ongoing debate on the usefulness of education to remediate preexisting disparities and to promote well-being (see Lochner (2011) for a recent survey of the evidence). The economic literature has addressed this question mainly by using quasi-experimental designs. In a series of papers, Conti et al. (2010, 2011) and Conti and Heckman (2010) break new ground in the education-health debate (as noted in Mazumder (2012)) by using a developmental model, which recognizes that education is itself determined by early-life traits – dimensions of child capabilities – and is an outcome of child well-being itself (note that educational attainment is one of the indicators included in the UNICEF and OECD taxonomies reviewed in the introductory section). The authors first address the question as to whether education has a causal impact on adult outcomes or if it is just a proxy for dimensions of child capabilities, which affect both the educational choice and the outcomes themselves. The extent to which education impacts wellbeing is shown in Fig. 14.9, where the length of each bar shows the mean differences at age 30 in a number of outcomes (health, health behaviors, and labor market outcomes) between individuals who have dropped out at the minimum compulsory school leaving age (16 years in Britain at the time we consider) and those who have stayed on beyond age 16 to achieve a post-compulsory educational qualification. These raw differentials are then decomposed into a component attributable to early-life determinants and another caused by schooling itself – what economists call the “treatment effect” of education. This decomposition exercise shows that, while education has huge effects across many outcomes (the dark portion of the bar represents the share of the disparity which can be attributed to the causal effect of education), early-life dimensions of child capabilities also play a key role: first, they promote attendance in schooling, and second, they have an independent effect in their own right on several adult outcomes. Importantly, education has a stronger effect on health behaviors than on health outcomes per se. This makes a strong case for prevention by investing in child well-being. The second question that the authors address is whether the success of later interventions depends on the quality of earlier ones and on the nature of the capability created. An example on how the effect of education on one dimension of adult

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well-being – the unhealthy behavior of smoking – varies with different dimensions of child capabilities is presented in Fig. 14.10. Here, it is shown that the beneficial effect of education, in terms of the percentage point reduction in the probability of being a daily smoker by age 30, is much bigger for adults who were at the top of the cognitive ability distribution, but at the bottom of the noncognitive ability distribution at age 10 (When estimating the effect of post-compulsory education on the probability of being a daily smoker along the distribution of each capability,

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the other two capabilities are fixed at their mean values). In other words, education has a reinforcing effect for cognitive capabilities and a compensatory effect for psychological dimensions of child well-being. This evidence on differential effects of education by level of cognition in childhood is consistent with the interpretation that the information content on the dangers of smoking provided by postcompulsory education needs to be combined with the capacity to process that information in order for it to be effective. On the other hand, the evidence of a greater effect of education for adults who had self-regulation problems in childhood is consistent with evidence of the malleability of the prefrontal cortex – and so of skills related to discipline and self-control – into the adolescent years. Hence, while it is more effective to start young, there are still effective strategies for addressing the problems of disadvantaged adolescents. A consolidated body of evidence suggests that cognitive skills are established early in life and that boosting raw IQ and problem-solving ability in the teenage years is much harder than doing so when children are young. But social and personality skills are malleable into the early twenties, although early formation of these traits is still the best policy because they boost learning. The timing of specific policies and interventions should be designed on the basis of the malleability of the capability they target. However, as currently implemented, public job training programs, adult literacy services, prisoner rehabilitation programs, and education programs for disadvantaged adults produce low economic returns (Cunha et al. 2006). Moreover, studies in which later interventions showed some benefits also found that the performance of disadvantaged children was still behind the performance of children who also experienced interventions in the preschool years. In sum, if the base is stronger, the return to later investment is greater. The essence of the argument of investing in child well-being can be summarized in Fig. 14.11, which shows the return to a unit dollar invested by stage of the life cycle. This graph captures the returns to a hypothetical investor who is deciding where to place his/her money in the life of a newborn. From a purely economic standpoint, the highest return to a unit dollar invested is at the beginning of the life cycle since it builds the base that makes later returns possible. One important point to clarify is that the argument to invest in child well-being does not say that there is no return to schooling or later investment. Indeed, for those with a good base, the economic benefits are substantial (see Carneiro et al. 2003). The high early returns arise in part because they promote substantial benefits for later-life investment. The logic suggested by this figure should be to promote a policy of prevention, rather than remediation, since it is much more cost-effective to help disadvantaged children earlier on than to remediate later on. Yet despite the evidence, society underinvests in disadvantaged young children. Less-educated women tend to be single parents. They work in low-wage jobs and do not invest much in their children. More educated women, even if single mothers, are not only working more but also investing more in their children – effectively increasing the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged (McLanahan 2004). As a result, inequality is being perpetuated – and even increased – across generations. The solution to this problem is to invest in the promotion of child capabilities beginning at conception.

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At the same time, we cannot abandon the children who have had no access to this foundational opportunity, or the adults, who did not have such opportunities as children. However, the key to successful remediation is to invest in carefully designed programs which address those capabilities amenable to change. Evidence from Neuroscience and Genetics. From the current state of knowledge, it is clear that adverse conditions in early life induce changes in brain structure and functions and that these environmental stressors can affect epigenetic programming of long-term changes in neurodevelopment and behavior (Murgatroyd and Spengler 2011). Two key aspects have to be considered: first, the temporal nature of brain development, and second, the temporal and gene-specific manner of epigenetic programming. With regard to the former, different brain regions pass through critical windows of sensitivity in different periods, so that environmental exposures at different ages will affect different areas of the brain. For example, environmental exposures in the late prenatal and early postnatal period are associated with changes in the hippocampus (McCrory et al. 2010), while cortical development continues into adolescence (Wang and Gao 2009). Additionally, while the reversibility of structural and functional changes in the brain, following alterations in social and emotional conditions, has not been systematically investigated, recent research in humans is beginning to document the effects of specific interventions to reduce stress and promote well-being on brain structure and function (see Davidson and McEwen (2012) for a recent review). With regard to the second aspect, the way epigenetic marks translate from a transient state to lasting cellular memory is still a black box; the best available evidence comes from animal studies and suggests that early adversity gets under the skin and establishes stable marks very early (e.g., Murgatroyd et al. 2010). However, the question of whether critical

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windows for psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions (the so-called epigenetic drugs) might exist before the establishment of stable epigenetic marks is still open. While environmental enrichment in puberty has shown positive effects both in animals (Imanaka et al. 2008) and in humans (Fisher et al. 2007), the optimal timing and duration and the most effective components of such interventions might be quite specific and dependent upon the nature of early-life adversity. Above all, the quantitative importance of these epigenetic effects and the nature itself of these biological changes – whether they are on a causal pathway between early-life conditions and late outcomes – needs to be rigorously established. What is known supports the framework of Sect. 14.4 and the evidence summarized in Sect. 14.5. Knowledge is accumulating rapidly, and designing and implementing biologically based interventions is the key to promoting the well-being of the future generation, while not abandoning the current one.

14.7

Future Directions

Incorporating Lessons from Biology. In sum, while much remains to be learned, there are important hints in the literature. The literature is actively addressing the following questions. How important are investments and environments in the early years as compared to later-stage investments and environments? How should investments be staged over the life cycle to promote human flourishing? How effective are later-life compensations for early-life effects of adversity? In order to make progress, biological and socioeconomic mechanisms need to be thoroughly investigated. First, the literature on the neurobiology of resilience and reversibility of risk shows mounting evidence that the adverse effects of early-life conditions might be coped with (Feder et al. 2009) or are at least partially reversible; for example, there is increasing evidence of plasticity in key brain areas (Davidson and McEwen 2012); of restoration in telomere function by diet, exercise, and stress reduction (Puterman and Epel 2012); and even of reversing the prenatal adaptations from fetal malnutrition following dietary changes (Burdge et al. 2009). The key aspects seem to be the windows of plasticity for specific organs. Experience gets embodied in the biology of the organism. Recent evidence on gene-environment interactions shows us how experience gets under – and stays under – the skin and how early childhood environments, together with genetic variation, alter epigenetic regulation and change developmental trajectories by altering human biological processes (Hertzman and Boyce 2010). Recent evidence from nonhuman primates shows that early-life experiences can trigger epigenetic changes, which manifest very early, are not the results of cumulative exposures (Cole et al. 2012), and can have long-term consequences, without being reversed by a normal social environment later in life (Conti et al. 2012). Second, the existence of gender differences in the effects of interventions (Bandy 2012 and Bell et al. 2012) needs to be more thoroughly investigated, to disentangle biological and socioeconomic channels. An example of the complex

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Table 14.1 Childhood biological and socioeconomic correlates of well-being at age 15

Log of interleukin-6 (IL-6) at age 10 Log of C-reactive protein (CRP) at age 10 Low birth weight (